Voting update

Update 5: Kirsten Gillibrand beat the drunken fratboy John Sweeney

Update 4: Shays and Johnson were defeated in CT-4 and CT-5. We can say it's going to be a good night, we don't know how many seats will change hands, but it may be 30-35, despite the slowness of the totals coming on TV

The Senate may be 50/50

Update 3: Michael Steele is now unemployed.

Looks like the Uncle Ruckus team is 0-3.

Update 2: Lieberman reelected.

This is probably the only dark spot in a very good night. Do I know why he won? I guess Lamont didn't make it clear that a vote for Lieberman was a vote for Bush, which killed
Tom Kean and a bunch of other candidates. But he ran a hard campaign and a good one
for a beginner.

I guess we'll find out how he won in a few days, so I can find out how I missed it.

But more good news is coming.

Update: Bob Menendez has been reelected in New Jersey.

Now that it's done, let me say a few things.

First, fuck Andrews, Pallone and the rest of the people who ran to the Times to shit on Corzine and Menendez. I covered Menendez when I was in college, and the man was not a crook. If he was, he would be in jail. The undertones of racebaiting here was ridiculous.

Do I agree with every thing he's done, no, but the whole attitude towards him was as if he didn't belong in the Senate. If Dick Codey had wanted the job, fine, he's a good man. But his wife survived post-partum depression and he liked his job.

Menendez was clearly the second choice here. He managed to avoid corruption and did his job, since he was on the Union City council.

Second, Tom Kean Jr. should join Doug Forrester in the NJGOP club of losers. He couldn't have run a shitter, more racist campaign without calling in the Allen team. He ran a steady diet of negative campaign ads which told people nothing about him, and relied on some ginned up charges which had been refuted 10 years ago. He was planning to make a film accusing Menendez of being a crook, until the reporters who had covered him called Kean, Jr. a liar.

Third, if Kean had managed to run against the state party, with McGreevey and Corzine, it might have been a different race. Instead, he tried to isolate Menendez, as the crooked Spanish guy and it failed.

Why?

Well, they did a bunch of interviews in Hudson County, which is immigrant central, everything from Filipinos to Japanese. His anti-immigrant ads drove people to the polls. Idiot.

Here's a hint, before you define your opponent, define yourself. His mug wasn't going to do it. By the time he got around to it, he was Bush's bitch in all but name



Ted Strickland is the next governor of Ohio. Ken Blackwell was blown away. What a shock

Ok, so far the exit polling is brutal for the GOP. Everyone is knocking it down, mostly because of 2004, when the gay marriage bills drummed up extra support for the GOP. There are reports of light voting in Republican areas of Maryland and parts of Virginia.

Denver and Ohio have has problems at the polls so far.

The one problem for the GOP is that all of the networks are showing this is a national election. Their strategy to localize elections failed miserably.

Part of that is due to the war and Bush's last minute tour, constantly reminding people of Iraq and that is not proving to be popular.

Exit polling is imprecise at best, but voter turnout isn't. And it's been heavy in Dem districts and where the districts are contested. In some places, turnout is pushing 70 percent.

There are two schools of thought on what this could mean. One, Republicans, spurred by Rove's 72 hour campaign, turned out to support the president.

Two, people are so angry at the war and the way it's run, that they showed up to cast a vote against the Iraq war.

I think the second is more likely.

A lot of pundits have looked at Democratic voting, but my feeling is that is not what will kill the GOP. It is fiscal conservatives and moderates jumping ship. Ken Blackwell's humiliation is being driven by that.