On the Good News Front
Silver lining time
We lost, however it looks not quite as bad as it did last night.
Obama’s victory doesn’t seem to have been as big as either of the
Clinton victories, nor the 1988 Bush victory. Also, Obama
apparently didn’t have as big of the coattails I feared.
The Democrats will pick up about 15-18 House seats when they
were previously looking to get at least 25. The Oregon, Minnesota
and Alaska Senate seats will probably stay in Republican hands for
the next 6 years, though I’d like to see Sean Parnell take Ted
Stevens’ place in a special election when he steps down.
Looking past the national headlines and to the states, let me
point out 2 nice bright spots from last night. First, the state
that gave us Fred!, Tennessee:
Republicans now have a clear majority in both houses of the
legislature there. That’s a pretty important thing to have as there
are a number of offices that are appointed by them (weird, but I’ll
take it) From the
Knoxville News via Glenn Reynolds:
While Republicans have had numeric majorities in the
Senate in recent years, the GOP’s combined numbers weren’t enough
to form the majority needed to decide the state’s constitutional
officers. Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey says there’s no question
Republicans will now look to put their mark on those offices.“Obviously we will,” said Ramsey, of Blountville. “It will be
the first time in the history of the state of Tennessee that we
will be appointing the secretary of state, treasurer or
comptroller.”The three constitutional officers and the state finance
commissioner also make up the membership of the State Funding Board
that is charged with making revenue projections. The same four
officers and the two speakers sit on the State Building Commission
that has authority over most of the state’s capital projects.
I don’t know how they do redistricting in TN, but I hope that’s
also good news that maybe we can Gerrymander a few Democrats out of
office come 2010-2012 assuming that the Republicans maintain their
hold on the legislature. Also, it is apparently setting up the
Republican Speaker of the Senate for a run at the governorship in
2010.
Way to go Tennessee!
Next up is OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOklahoma (where the wind comes
sweeping down the plains). Boomer Sooner! In the state that has
give us Senator TrainWreck and reelected Globull Warming Denier
Inhofe last night, Republicans did something in Oklahoma that has
never happened before - they gained control of the
State Senate:
The Republicans will have the majority in the state
Senate for the first time in history.Republicans in Tuesday’s election retained incumbent seats and
picked up at least two seats to get the majority in the Senate.Vote totals in a third race between Republican incumbent Jim
Reynolds and Democrat David Boren still were being counted late
Tuesday in the District 43 race. Boren is not related to U.S. Rep.
Dan Boren. Less than 100 votes separated the candidates.
And there’s a little tidbit that makes this so much sweeter:
Republicans took control of the Senate by picking up
two seats that had been held by Democrats, including a seat in
the Tulsa area held by a senator who switched parties in 2006,
depriving the Republicans of the majority that year.Sen. Nancy Riley, D-Tulsa, lost to Republican Dan Newberry.
Republicans picked up a Stillwater seat with a win by James
Halligan, former Oklahoma State University president, who beat a
former judge, Democrat Bob Murphy. Halligan will fill the seat
vacated by Democrat Mike Morgan, who could not run again because of
term limits.
mmmm Schadenfreude tastes so good.
Not all was good news on the state front, we lost state
legislatures in Wisconsin, New York, Delaware and Obama’s landslide
win in Nevada helped the Democrats win there. We still might be
able to take Montana’s House though as the results are still
pending.
Working on taking states back through the grassroots is
going to be the key to rebuilding the national state of the
Republican Party.
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