It's Election Day
Voting is one of the greatest freedoms we have. For Idaho voters, I encourage you to vote for Jerry Brady over "Butch" Otter for Governor, and for those in the 1st Congressional District, I likewise encourage you to vote for Larry Grant over Bill Sali as our new Congressman. I've written before about why I support Larry Grant, but as good as Larry is, an equally good reason to support him is because of how bad a candidate Mr. Sali is. Despite his promise, on statewide TV, to reveal his position on Proposition 2, he still has not done so. I don't think there's any doubt that the reason for his reticence is his desire to avoid going against his New York bankrollers / leash-holders who paid petition signature collectors to get the issue on the ballot. More than 8 times as much money has been spent in support of Mr. Sali from out of state as he has collected from Idahoans -- that should tell you where his bread is buttered. He's the wrong man at the wrong time.
Update 0007 07 Nov: On Sunday, I predicted, for the record, to my son and wife that the Dolphins would beat the Bears, but since I didn't put it on my blog, it didn't really count as a "public" prediction. (And yes, I did it before the game started. I just figured that the Dolphins always seem to beat Chicago when the Bears have a chance to go undefeated -- at least, they did in 1985.) Therefore, I'll put out for public abuse my predictions for this election: I think the Dems will pick up 22 House seats and 4 Senate seats, leaving control of the chambers split -- which I think is a good thing.
As far as the Idaho races go, I really don't have a good enough feel of how us Idahoans vote in close elections to make an educated guess.
Update 1103 07 Nov: Despite my earlier threat to cast a straight Democratic ballot, I ended up voting for a few Republicans -- none in any of the competitive races, however. (I don't consider the Lt. Gov. race, where the current Governor is running for his old job, as competitive.) I voted at 10:30am (I had a 7am meeting, so I took a long lunch), and the polling place was busier than I've ever seen it by a factor of 5. Since I'm in one of the most conservative precincts in the state, I'm not sure if that's a "good" thing for Democrats. More later tonight after I get back from work.
Update 2217 07 Nov: Updates on the results as they come in are in the extended entry.
Based on the long lines reported in Idaho, I'd say it looks pretty good for the Democrats; people don't wait hours to vote to maintain the status quo. With control of the House going to the Dems, it looks like the big question here in Idaho is whether we're going to be represented by a powerless minority party extremist or someone who provides an important moderating influence on the new Democratic majority. Early returns can be found here.
Update 2240 07 Nov: The link to the Secretary of State's statewide election results page is here. Sali's ahead by about 3%, but doing much worse than Otter, so when the more Democratic parts of the state come in, it should start trending to Grant.
Update 2252 07 Nov: According to the Idaho Statesman results page, Larry Grant has a 2,700 vote lead (11.1K to 8.4K), but the SoS office still has Sali with a 900 vote lead (9.9K vs. 9.0K). Strange...
Update 2302 07 Nov: Speaking of elections, Team NAVY has taken a huge lead in the Project Valour-IT Veteran's Day fundraising drive, providing Voice-Activated Laptops for OUR Injured Troops. (Team NAVY got a big push when the guys at Power Line joined the team.) Now that you don't have to give money to candidates anymore, you should consider donating to this worthy cause by clicking the "Make A Donation" button to the right.
Update 2331 07 Nov: Believe it or not, CNN seems to have the most useful graphic, showing in one place how all the counties are voting. The fact that Sali's only getting 50% of the vote in Canyon County should be very encouraging for Grant supporters.
Update 2346 07 Nov: Dennis Mansfield is providing commentary and results from Republican Party HQ, and Jill Kuraitis is doing the same from where the Dems are meeting.
Update 0035 08 Nov: The Congressional race for the district that includes Subase New London is very close -- the Republican incumbent, Robert Simmons, is down by 239 votes with 97% of the precincts reporting.
Here in the Idaho 1st District, Larry Grant is behind by 1,200 votes with 59% reporting, but based on which counties are still to report, it looks like Sali might just pull it out; I doubt he'll get 50% of the vote, though, so it won't exactly be a ringing mandate in a district that voted 68% for President Bush two years ago.
Update 0050 08 Nov: Unfortunately, I've gotta work tomorrow, so I'll have to find out how it all turns out in the morning. It's looking like control of the Senate will come down to the recount in Virginia; I'll admit that I would have rather had split chambers than Dem control of both, but hopefully this will convince the national Republican leaders that they need to make some changes -- and fast.
posted by Bubblehead at 12:01 AM
14 Comments:
Hey Joel, Good luck with that democrat voting thing.
I went to the polls today as you did and experienced a high voter turnout also.
I think it might have sumthin to do with jon cary's recent Malaprop towards our service members.
I voted repub where it mattered and libertarian elsewhere just to show my disgust with both major parties.
11/07/2006 1:33 PM
Looks like we won't get 2 subs a year for a while.
I remember what it was like when Congress started undermining our service in Vietnam. Not a very pleasant experience. The anti-war folks knew no shame. Congress will start holding hearings now and bringing in the GW equivalent of Kerry. People like Sheehan will now get the run of Capital Hill. It could get ugly.
11/07/2006 10:47 PM
Speaker of the House Pelosi (sigh).
Times like this I remind myself that if we could survive four years of Jimmy Carter we'll survive just about anything.
11/07/2006 11:41 PM
Let's all say a prayer or two for the continued health of President Bush and Vice President Cheney.
We are in for some serious lessons on the consequences of making poor choices...much, as mentioned elsewhere, as have the Palestinians.
11/08/2006 4:43 AM
It was a nice United States while it lasted.
11/08/2006 4:48 AM
You guys remember the War Powers Act? Have a feeling it's going to rear it's head again. This will let Pelosi try and run the war or atleast prevent the president from doing so.
I can tell you from experience, it stinks to be in a war zone when congress is cutting your legs off.
11/08/2006 8:29 AM
As I've said, the Dems are too scared of being accused of being soft on national security before 2008 to do anything drastic on that front; it's if they consolidate their gains then, and get a Dem President, that we have to worry. Hopefully, Republicans will learn the right lessons from this election and put up some more realistic candidates. I mean, c'mon... Santorum was the #3 guy in the Senate?!? He's an idiot!
11/08/2006 9:06 AM
The terrorists just got the U.S. SECDEF fired. This isn't honestly interpretable any other way.
Congrats, to the Dem...and Dumber.
11/08/2006 11:21 AM
"Three times I've been ashamed of my country: when I completed my tour in Vietnam and we were called the bad guys, when a draft dodger was elected president (twice), and today, when Rumsfeld was sacrificed. The Secretary is an honorable man and has done a good job considering we can't get tough with some of the most ruthless thugs I've ever seen. They kill babies and blow up schools. Today may well be the beginning of the end for America. I've never said that before today, but I think it might be true." — Mike (Dallas, TX)
11/08/2006 3:23 PM
Consider, for a moment, the following lot of winners in the most recent election:
a. Radical environmentalists (those who torch SUV's and new homes under construction in the name of saving the environment; those who sit in trees to keep owners of those trees from using their property; those who cheer when the Endangered Species Act is used to protect a tiny, insignificant fish such as the "snail darter" to stop construction of dams and other important water projects badly needed for the production of electricity, flood control, irrigation, and recreation; those who oppose nuclear power, the absolute cleanest, safest, and cheapest energy source available for production of electricity; those who oppose the construction of any new petroleum refineries or conventional electrical power generation facilities, even though our maximum production capacity for both is very close; those who oppose domestic oil and gas extraction from our vast, known reserves, both off-shore and in the North Alaska wilderness; those who deny the obvious fact that, if we would pursue these methods of energy production, while developing new technologies to protect the environment, we would have an economic and technological boon with millions of new, high paying jobs, far lower energy costs, and, most importantly, energy self-sufficiency to enhance national security; etc.)
b. Radical animal rights activists (those who sabotage science labs where animals are used for medical research; those who object to drinking milk or eating eggs because it exploits cows and chickens; those who believe the lives of some animals -- but not all -- are equal to humans, e.g., whales but not marlin, dolphins but not tuna, cats but not skunks, exotic insects in the rain forests but not cockroaches or mosquitoes; etc.)
c. Hollywood and the entertainment media (those who derive money and celebrity glorifying violence, sex, drugs, crime and vulgarity; those who have given us such cultural pollution as hip-hop music which denigrates women and family values, movies depicting all forms of human depravity, and video games with extreme violence; those who have done more than any other single group to coarsen and corrupt our culture and our children; etc.)
d. Biased, liberal news media (those who no longer even bother to claim they're neutral or balanced; those who readily acknowledge reporting only matters they consider to be true; those who are lazy, smug and intellectually corrupt; those who purposefully create and/or present fraudulent evidence to misinform; those who rely on liberal special interests to provide press releases to use as news without regard for accuracy and content; etc.)
e. Personal injury trial lawyers (those who claim to protect the "little guy" but who, in reality, line their own pockets and drive up the costs of insurance to a point where many people can't afford health and other kinds of insurance; those who drive up costs of malpractice insurance to a level that many doctors can't afford it and leave the profession, or simply don't buy it, risking the loss of everything they have if sued; etc.)
f. Big labor leaders (those who lavishly spend union members' money to support liberal politicians and causes, but won't permit individual union members to have a say in how the money is spent; those who are often corrupted by organized crime; those who wield vast power over liberal politicians by their financial support and, thereby, secretly control public policy without accountability from the public; etc.)
g. Abortionists (those who make up the highly lucrative abortion industry such as abortion doctors, nurses, clinic owners, and others; those who make up or contribute to Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and numerous other pro-abortion groups which prey upon, and make millions of dollars from, pathetic people desperate to correct the consequences of their poor personal conduct by extinguishing the lives of their unwanted, unborn babies; those who steadfastly oppose notification of parents of minors who seek abortions; those who, for over 30 years, have been involved in a culture of death wherein over 40 million unborn babies have been slaughtered -- many hundreds of thousands of whom were brutally killed even though they would have been viable outside the womb; etc.)
h. Pacifists (those who mostly just hate America and wish to see our culture and society fail; those who accept the benefits of freedom but refuse to fight or sacrifice for it; those who undermine our brave fighting forces by creating domestic political dissension, a far greater weapon in the hands of our enemies than guns or bombs; those who are merely craven misfits and cowards; etc.)
i. Socialists (those who want government to control all commerce and redistribute wealth; those who trust the government and its officials more than the people; those who would give up the freedom to succeed based upon one's own effort and merely meld into an indistinct morass of people satisfied with what government planners dole out; those who are too ignorant to know that socialism will lead our country to become one of numerous other failed -- or soon to fail -- socialist countries strewn throughout human history; etc.)
j. Pornographers (those who claim the first amendment protects distribution of smut, but would deny our school children the right to say "under God" when pledging allegiance to the flag; those who support and make celebrities of people such as Larry Flynt, Howard Stern, Hugh Hefner, and other such notorious polluters of our children and culture; etc.)
k. Atheists and the ACLU (those who are obsessed with driving any reference to religion and God from the public square; those who will not acknowledge that religion generally, and Christianity specifically, are historic and cultural cornerstones of our Constitution and laws; those who fight relentlessly to force "scouting" off public property because Scouts insist on acknowledging God; etc.)
l. Homosexual activists (those who seek destruction of marriage as an institution between one man and one woman; those who seek to permit open homosexuality in the military, thus undermining morale and unit cohesiveness; those who have repeatedly sought to force the Boy Scouts to permit openly homosexual scout leaders, thereby, putting young boys under the direct influence and control of avowed homosexuals; etc.)
m. Radical feminists (those who insist there are no significant difference between the sexes, but are "lightning fast" to claim sexual harassment or to demand preferential treatment for women; those who have quietly and insidiously tried to "feminize" young boys to achieve long-term feminist political and cultural objectives; those who insisted on the resignation of Senator Bob Packwood (a Republican) for improper sexual comments and touching of women members of this staff, but who cared, not at all, about Bill Clinton's sexual acts with Monica Lewinsky while in the Oval Office, grouping Kathleen Willey, also while in the Oval Office, exposing himself and soliciting sex from Paula Jones, engaging in a decade-long affair with Gennifer Flowers, raping Juanita Broadrick, lying under oath in a Federal court proceedings, resulting in being disbarred, and going from one scandal to another throughout the eight years he was president; etc.)
n. Anarchists (those who are firmly committed to overthrowing our government; those who were among the most outrageous and violent demonstrators at the Republican National Convention in New York, but who didn't bother to demonstrate at the Democrat National Convention in Boston; those who are funded by many of the same donors as socialists, communists, and other radicals who wish to destroy our capitalistic republic and eliminate private property as we know it; etc.)
o. Race hustlers and dividers (those who use race to divide the country into "us" and "them," thus decreasing a sense of community for all; those who take every opportunity to claim to have been wronged when, often, the so-called victim are as much, or more, culpable; those who care more about perpetuating their power as so-called "minority community leaders" than providing real help to members of that community; those who use phony claims of racial "victimization" to justify personal failings and lack of honest achievement; etc.)
p. Gun control advocates (those who refuse to admit that, in states -- now 38 -- permitting law abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons, significant decreases have occurred in violent crime; those who wrong-headedly believe guns cause crime, not people and that, if guns are taken from law-abiding citizens, criminals won't have guns; etc.)
q. Class warriors (those who think people who work hard to take care of themselves and their families should be punished for their success; those who think people who strive to leave a legacy for their families should have property forfeited to the government; those who want property earned by hard-working and committed people re-distributed to others who lack the will or ambition to succeed in the only country in the world where anyone can be successful if they apply themselves and exercise reasonable judgment; etc.)
Beyond the foregoing, permit me to list, randomly, a few other groups of losers: the Communist Chinese; the Dixie Chicks; the New York Times; the French; Islamo-fascists; those who advocate legalizing drugs, one of whom is George Soros, the billionaire, socialist, currency speculator who has stated he would donate his entire fortune if he could be assured President Bush would be defeated; the UN; most college professors; the North Koreans; the vast majority of American Muslims; activist judges who, unabashedly, create law rather than interpret it, and especially such judges on the US Supreme Court, the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Judicial Circuit, and the Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Florida supreme courts; the Germans; the Communist Party USA; 60 Minutes; Canadian and European socialists; 45 ultra-liberals senators who, for the first time in US history, have chosen to filibuster a president's judicial nominees; jihadists; Dan, Peter, Tom, and other such liberal news-readers; felons for felon voting; 95 ultra-liberal members of the US House of Representatives who are avowed socialists; the Syrians; remnants of Al Qaeda, Taliban, and other terrorists now being decimated by coalition troops; the ultra-liberal Black Congressional Caucus; illegal immigrants for illegal immigrant voting; the army of virulent and mindless Bush-haters who relish opportunities to express their utter contempt for the President; etc.
And, lastly, allow me to name just a few individuals who, as Mr. Babbin says, may well suffer some kind of breakdown (or have their current unstable mental condition vastly aggravated) if the President wins: Whoopi Goldberg, James Carville, Osama bin Laden, Barbara Boxer, Saddam Hussein, Al Sharpton, Ted Kennedy, Kofi Annan, Barbara Streisand, Al Gore, Jacques Chirac, Michael Moore, Jessie Jackson; Sultan Mohammad Omar; Noam Chomsky; Robert Byrd; Barney Frank; Ted Turner; Charles Schumer; Jane Fonda; Daniel Ortega; Tom Hayden; Fidel Castro; the Clintons; John Zogby; etc.
-- A. A. Reynolds
Chula Vista, California
11/08/2006 7:03 PM
Well, Hear we go again.
Higher Taxes, cutting the military, unemployment growth, inflation, Cut and run from the GWOT, environmental regulations, Rampant Socialism,
ad nauseum
I am disgusted with the MSM and their influence over the American people.
It might be time for another civil war. Can anyone say secession?
At least we consertives are armed.
11/08/2006 8:11 PM
Wow guys! How about not being so biased and actually listening to what the other side says. I was once a "Rush is Right," always vote R person. Then our legislators became arrogant and self-serving, so I moved a little to the middle. Then GW invaded Iraq and our legislators decided not to fund education, so I moved a little bit left of the middle. Then I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I came through it because I´m a fighter, but then I heard Bill Sali making claims that breast cancer is caused by abortions. It didn´t take me long to move further to the left and strongly support the Democrats. No, I don´t agree with everything they say and I don´t want Hillary for president, but my hope is that they´ll bring our country out of the cycle of corruption it is currently in. My point is that we are all Americans and the only way to solve our problems is to work together. Bashing the parties won´t solve anything because, believe me, I have a TON of stuff to say about the GOPs that were elected in Idaho.
11/08/2006 10:51 PM
lori -
The Dems have been hanging W and Rumsfeld out to dry for not having enough troops in Iraq.
Let's see if they actually do anything to increase troop levels in Iraq.
The other argument they keep bring up is the real war is in Afghanistan. OK, are they going to do anything to increase troops in Afghanistan?
Fact is, you could move every American military member from Iraq to Afghanistan and it would not change Afghanistan. All you are going to do is get about a million shiites killed in Iraq and open the door for Iran to invade.
11/09/2006 4:20 AM
What a SHOCK...! (**NOT***)
"Al Qaeda gloats over Rumsfeld"
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2006-11-10T172059Z_01_IBO132069_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ.xml&src=rss&rpc=22
11/10/2006 11:05 AM
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