Time for a real morning in America

By Diane Silver

I don't know about you, but I think there's a lot more hope in politics today than there was a week ago.

So much commentary was published today, and there was so little time to read it. One thing that appeared in my in box just before I posted came from MoveOn.

They have an interesting report on their activities during the election. You certainly have to give them credit for moving this quickly. I haven't read it, yet, but it's worth a look. Just a quick glance shows something that I think we tend to forget about politics: Individuals can make a difference. I think we all just did on Tuesday.

In This Moment will post some this weekend, but until then ... enjoy a true dawn.

Kansas: Depressed Republican turnout may have defeated Jim Ryun

By Diane Silver

Did Democrat Nancy Boyda beat Republican Jim Ryun because Kansas voters were turning away from the GOP, or was something else at work?

Siege Mentality raises that question with an interesting county-by-county analysis of Boyda's victory in the 2nd Congressional District. Good old Siege looked at the votes in 2004 as compared to 2006 and finds that low GOP turnout doomed Ryun. Siege notes:

From these numbers, it's clear that talk of a realignment in Kansas politics is premature. If enough Republican voters had turned out on Tuesday--if Ryun had been able to get within a few hundred votes of his 2004 totals--Boyda would have lost big. 2006 was an extraordinary election year, and it's unlikely that she will face the same combination of energized Democrats and dispirited Republicans in the near future.

I agree that Boyda is only going to be a one-term member of Congress if she doesn't find a way to bring more voters to her side. Her margin of victory was simply too small for her to take that seat for granted.

I'm not certain, yet, what to make of the race, except that old ideas of who's who and what's what in Kansas need to be tossed. Unfortunately, our analysis is hampered by the fact that no one did any exit polls in Kansas (or at least, not as far as I know). I would have loved to have seen the results of such a survey.

Many thanks to Siege for doing the analysis.

And the prize for the funniest line of the new political era goes to...

By Diane Silver

The prize goes to New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd.

Stuck behind the TimesSelect paywall, she writes:

Poppy Bush and James Baker gave Sonny the presidency to play with and he broke it. So now they're taking it back.

It's a great line, and the first thing I did when I read it was laugh, but that chuckle covers up a huge tragedy. Our current president is an emotionally immature man-child who has most decidedly broken the presidency.

Because of that, the people of this country are paying the price in terms of dysfunctional government, a crippled FEMA and failing foreign policy, to name just a few of Bush's mistakes. These include the continuing tragedy of lives lost and lives mangled in the mismanaged, ill-conceived and counter-productive war in Iraq.

Let us hope that there will finally be change in Washington, D.C. , now that the voters have put the opposition party in both the House and Senate.

Just a tiny bit more Dowd on what Daddy Bush and Baker are doing now...

They are dragging W. away from those reckless older guys who have been such a bad influence and getting him some new minders who are a lot more practical.
...
The defense chief got hung out to dry before Saddam got hung. The president and Karl Rove, underestimating the public's hunger for change or overestimating the loyalty of a fed-up base, did not ice Rummy in time to save the Senate from teetering Democratic. But once Sonny managed to heedlessly dynamite the Republican majority -- as well as the Middle East, the Atlantic alliance and the U.S. Army -- then Bush Inc., the family firm that snatched the presidency for W. in 2000, had to step in. Two trusted members of the Bush 41 war council, Mr. Baker and Robert Gates, have been dispatched to discipline the delinquent juvenile and extricate him from the mother of all messes.

The Democrats' job is just beginning

By Pamela K. Taylor

So the Democrats have swept into a significant majority in the House of Representatives, and it looks like they've taken the Senate, not to mention the 28 governorships that now are in Democratic hands.

Majorly great news!!

But only if the Democrats don't blow it. For the past six years, there has been far too much rubberstamping. Whether it was fear of being labeled soft on terror, or lack of imagination about how else to tackle the problems posed by Al-Qaeda and its sympathizers, many Democrats could hardly be distinguished from Republicans when it comes to foreign policy.

It should be obvious that the American populace has voted for change -- big time -- in Iraq and in the way we are conducting ourselves in the war on terror. If the Democrats do not deliver, they will be in for an election fiasco not so different than the one the Republicans are coping with today. Even if they are not successful (after all they don't have enough votes to override a Presidential veto unless a good number of Republicans defect), Democrats need to be visible and aggressive in pushing for change.

Here's a handy checklist for then Dem leadership.

1) Maintain a steady and resolute call to get our troops out of Iraq as soon as humanely possible.

2) Repeal of the Military Commissions Act

3) Define and narrow the scope of executive powers during a state of war, and define and narrow the concept of this war. President Bush has defined "the war on terror" as a real war with a resulting increase in autonomy and power for the president. We need clarify that you can't wage war on a tactic. Enemies will come and go. Some will use terror as one weapon in their arsenal as has always been the case, but you can't fight a war of weapons against a tactic -- at least not a war with a beginning, and end, and a clear goal. Our goal is to eradicate terror? How can you guarantee that no one will ever use that tactic ever again? You can't, so we're going to be at war, with all the expanded presidential powers, forever?? The War on Terror should legitimately have been declared a war on Al-Qaeda and its supporters, and the executive's power, even in a time of war, needs to be limited by the Constitution and American law.

4) Don't forget the economy. We need to see Democrats making some bold, progressive plans that would lead to a redistribution of wealth, so that the radical imbalance of wealth and power in this country evens out again.

5) Don't forget the environment. Most Americans do care about the environment, and the potential for runaway greenhouse problems, devastation of ocean stocks, issues in clean water, etc, etc, etc.

6) Close Guantanamo, or at least put a ton of pressure on the Pentagon to close it. And while you're at it, end the extraordinary rendition program!

7) Prove better healthcare for the poor and seniors

8) Boost Social Security

9) Do something about education funding so that we no longer have an uneven and unjust educational system where suburban schools are funded at much higher levels than urban or rural schools. Reaffirm the need for affirmative action. Bolster the college financial aid system that Bush gutted, so that college is not increasingly the province of only the rich.

10) Take the lead from progressive spiritual people about how to articulate the fact that Republicans do NOT own family values or religiosity. Let it be known that progressives find inspiration in their faith for liberal positions and that deeply held Democratic values such as a high minimum wage ARE family values. When families don't have to scrimp and save, when economic pressure relaxes, there are fewer divorces, kids have better lives, etc.

I could go on and on, but I think it's pretty clear what I'm getting at. I was sorely disappointed that John Kerry did not articulate key Democratic values and positions well. If he had, he probably would have won. The unwillingness to take a strong stand for traditional Democratic values was deadly, and if Democrats do the same now, it will be even more fatal come 2008.

Bush turns to his daddy's friends to bail him out -- again

By Nancy Jane Moore

Bush's appointment of Robert Gates to succeed Rumsfeld at Defense reminds me of his business dealings before he got into politics: Whenever he ran into trouble, he got his daddy's friends to bail him out.

Gates was CIA director for Bush the senior. He was part of the committee Jim Baker (Daddy Bush's main advisor and former Secretary of State) put together to review the Iraq mess. It sure looks to me like Dubya is once again looking for help from his daddy's friends.

Of course, some might say he should have talked to them a long time ago. But Dubya's been acting like the arrogant toddler who insists on doing it himself, even when he doesn't know how. He didn't want to listen to his daddy; he wanted to outdo him. The trouble is, he wasn't up to the job. I don't think Bush the elder was much of a president, but at least it didn't feel like amateur hour when he was in office.

The Washington Post credits Bush with "turning on a dime" in ousting Rumsfeld the day after the election. Oh, please! Clearly they had planned all that in advance -- The New York Times even says so. Obviously Bush was hoping the Democrats wouldn't win big, so that he could keep Rummy and continue to thumb his nose at everyone who criticized him.

The Post and others keep mentioning how Bush was so bipartisan when he was governor of Texas. That supposed bipartisanship is a myth -- campaign rhetoric from 2000, when Bush was still pretending to be the compassionate conservative to get moderates to vote for him. Real Texas Democrats will tell you it was never true. I hope the Democrats in Congress aren't going to buy it now just because he's finally calling them on the phone. They need to stand up to him and tell him how things are going to be, not go along to get along.

I am, of course, very glad to see Rumsfeld shown the door. And I hope that Gates can do something to clean up this mess. Though I also hope the Senate is going to hold real hearings on whether he's up to the job -- they better not issue any more free passes to Bush appointees.

But it still looks like Bush is calling in the big boys to clean up his mess.

Worst president ever? The competition is dropping like flies.

Kansas: Congressman Jim Ryun's defeat tied to drop in support by military

The Lawrence Journal-World has a good analysis of Democrat Nancy Boyda's defeat of Jim Ryun. The 2nd Congressional District includes two huge military bases. Although Ryun did win the military vote, it's interesting to note that his margin of victory on the bases took a nose dive when compared to the votes he got from the bases in 2004.

The 2nd District spans 26 eastern Kansas counties, stretching from Nebraska to Oklahoma. The bulk of the district's voters are in Douglas, Shawnee, Leavenworth and Riley counties. Leavenworth County is home to Fort Leavenworth; Riley County borders Geary County, which includes Fort Riley.

In 2004, Riley and Leavenworth counties favored Ryun by 8,870 votes. This year, the two counties favored Ryun by less than 2,000 votes.

"More than anything, Nancy Boyda's victory reflects a dissatisfaction with Congress for what's seen as being nonresponsive to the nation's problems: the war in Iraq, energy prices, illegal immigrants," said Bob Beattie, a political science professor at Washburn University.

Writing for the Journal-World, Dave Ranney also reports an interesting theory about Boyda allegedly running a stealth campaign and purposely keeping her distance from the national party. Perhaps. From where I sit, though, it looked more like the national Democratic Party didn't believe she could win until the end.

Kansas: Nancy Boyda's win over Jim Ryun may hold the key to the political future

By Diane Silver

Democrat Nancy Boyda's victory over incumbent Republican Jim Ryun ranks among the most stunning upsets of the entire election.

Democrats, moderates and progressives from the Beltway and beyond would do well to understand exactly what happened in Kansas' 2nd Congressional.

I took a first swipe at analyzing the upset at around midnight. Another Kansas blog, Seige Mentality, did a great job of outlining all the possible factors that may have contributed to Boyda's win.

It's probably impossible right now to say exactly what happened. We all need a little more sleep and a lot more time to look at the data. But one thing seems clear, at least to this bleary eyed Kansan.

Moderates and progressives can't give up on red states. We are not, and probably never have been, as inherently red as people think.

Kansas Equality PAC candidates do well in election

By Diane Silver

There's good news this morning for Kansans who care about fair and equal laws for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered citizens. At least two-thirds of the 53 state House of Representative candidates endorsed by the Kansas Equality PAC were elected. That amounts to 35 victories, or 66 percent of those endorsed. Three more races were too close to call or still undecided. The race by race results for the Kansas Equality endorsements are here.

Waking up to (mostly) good news: The line between red and blue is getting blurry

By Nancy Jane Moore

The good people of South Dakota decisively voted down the draconian anti-abortion law by a measure of 56 percent to 44 percent, according to the Rapid City Journal. The law would only have allowed abortions to save the life of the woman. The Journal quotes Jan Nicolay -- a former state representatives who works with the group Healthy Families -- as attributing the victory to the fact that they were able to educate people about the law. She added:

I don't think people think government should be telling them what to do. I just think we stuck to the facts, and that's hard to argue with.

NPR says Arizona voters did defeat the same-sex marriage ban. An Arizona news website agrees, putting the unofficial vote at 51 percent to 49 percent.

The senate races in Virginia and Montana are still too close to call, but the Democrats have a small lead in both places. In Virginia, the Board of Elections website says Webb has a 7,000 vote lead -- not much out of 2.3 million votes. But if the Dems hang on in both states, they'll be running the Senate. The margin may be razor thin, and keeping Democrats on message is like herding cats, but it's a start. Maybe the moderate and intelligent conservative Republicans will cross lines more often, too.

The Washington Post says the Democrat O'Malley won the Maryland governor's race. The percentage seems solid -- about 53 percent of the vote and close to a 100,000 vote difference -- so the fact that the right wing current governor isn't conceding is likely just sour grapes. I'm glad to see the Post editorial for the Republican didn't have much effect.

There is bad news: Arizona is the only state that voted down a same-sex marriage ban -- seven others approved one. And the Republican victory in the Tennessee Senate race seems to show that negative and racist campaigns still work against African American candidates, at least in the South.

A lot of people are doing the happy dance. I notice that Juan Cole is as close as he ever gets to giddy with enthusiasm. He sees a likelihood that Bush and his posse will be called to account for some of their actions and says we're much less likely to invade Iran. Plus the Senate should be able to block any bad Supreme Court nominees.

I'm happy, too -- first election in years where I haven't been sunk into the sloughs of despair. But I'm tempering my enthusiasm until I see the Democrats really do something. We've repudiated Bush and his posse, but now we have to start cleaning up his messes and moving the country forward. It's not going to be easy.

Gay marriage ban: An Arizona victory would be a landmark

By Diane Silver

The Arizona media don't seem to be ready to declare that the same-sex marriage ban is going down to defeat in their state. I'll bow to their collective wisdom and hold off on doing my celebration dance, but it is looking very good right now.

The Arizona Republic reports:

With 96 percent of the polls reporting, 48.6 percent have voted for while 51.4 percent are voting against the proposition.

The significance of this is huge. Last year when we fought the marriage ban in Kansas, we spent a lot of time with folks from national gay rights organizations. The most optimistic estimate I heard from them about when we might win even one victory in this fight was five years.

If Arizona holds on to defeat this horrible proposal, that five-year mark will have been shattered.

For the sake of the nation and the people of Arizona, let's hope that happens. The Arizona constitutional ban, like the one in Kansas, is designed to hurt families. It not only bans same-sex marriage, but also prohibits government from recognizing civil unions or domestic partnerships.

McCaskill declares victory in Missouri Senate race

Oh my... Democrat Claire McCaskill may have just knocked off the Republican incumbent. McCaskill has just declared herself the winner.

Don't look now, but the Senate just might break Democrat

A tiny edge for the Democrat Webb in Virginia and a small lead for Democrat Claire McCaskill in Missouri have just shown up in these neck-and-neck Senate races.

KC Buzz Blog is quoting The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol -- hardly a liberal -- as saying that The D's will take the Senate.

Could it be?

I have so got to go to bed.

Webb takes a tiny lead in Virginia and the Dems clean House

By Nancy Jane Moore

The Virginia Board of Elections now has the Democrat Webb ahead by 1,817 votes. Certainly there's going to be a statewide recount and the absentee votes remain to be counted, but it's still nice to see him with the edge at the moment. This is with 99.35 percent of precincts reporting.

And with the Democrats taking the House -- NPR says the Dems have taken 22 House seats now -- it looks like Nancy Pelosi will be Speaker of the House. Madame Speaker. I really like the sound of that. It's about time we had a woman in one of the most powerful leadership positions in the country.

Plus we're getting rid of the current speaker, Hastert, whom Rolling Stone recently called one of the 10 worst members of Congress.

By the way, the recent Rolling Stone cover story, "The Worst Congress Ever," is worth a read. The truth about some of these people is more dreadful than your worst nightmare. We really need to clean House and probably more thoroughly than we're cleaning it tonight. But this is a start.

Kansas: Nancy Boyda's victory means it's time to rethink our assumptions

By Diane Silver

[updated 12:40 a.m.]

Democrat Nancy Boyda's amazing victory over incumbent Republican Jim Ryun isn't just about the defeat of one member of the GOP.

Of course, Boyda's victory added to the Democratic takeover of the U.S. House of Representatives. However, her win also shows that even in the reddest of red states people have simply had enough of George W. Bush.

Honestly, there really is no other reason for a Boyda victory. Oh yes, she got an influx of support from the national Democratic Party at the last minute, but it was last-minute help. Before those last few weeks, Boyda had almost no money. Every mainstream journalist had written her off, and the disdain showed in the coverage of the race. When she ran two years ago with the full backing of the party, Ryun beat her by 15 points.

I've read some last-minute analyses of the race that have tried to claim that the 2nd District has always been evenly mixed with Democrats and Republicans. Folks who make that argument point to the fact that Democrat Jim Slattery represented the district for years.

However, they fail to note that the district Slattery won was far different than the one that was redrawn for Ryun by the Republican Legislature.

When Slattery won in the 2nd, the district included all or most of Lawrence, which is clearly the most liberal town in the state. In fact, I used to live in the 2nd District. When the GOP redrew the district lines, though, I woke up one morning to find that I had moved to the 3rd District without ever leaving my front door.

KC Buzz Blog reminded us of a Daily Kos post claiming that the redistricting may have created two Democratic districts, instead of watering down Lawrence's D-strength and turning the two districts red. That's an interesting argument, but I don't buy it.

The redistricting occurred in 2002, as far as I can tell with a quick Internet search tonight. Ryun handily beat Boyda in the 2004 election. The district wasn't too blue then.

What's changed, though, is Iraq, Abramoff, and two more horrendous years of Bush.

On Sunday Bush himself "helped" Ryun by coming to Topeka. Our not-so-beloved president stood arm-in-arm with Ryun. You can see how much that helped.

Finally, perhaps we should do a little hat tip to Democratic Chairman Howard Dean and his 50-state strategy. After years of being ignored, Kansas Democrats finally had a bit of help from the national party. It did make a difference.

Time to gloat: Tom DeLay's old seat goes to a Democrat

The Houston Chronicle says that Democrat Nick Lampson has won the Congressional seat formerly occupied by Tom DeLay.

It's a conservative district, but since DeLay resigned after winning the Republican primary, they weren't able to put another Republican on the ballot, so their candidate ran a write-in campaign.

Lampson was in Congress before, but DeLay's gerrymandering of the Texas districts cost him his old seat, so this is poetic justice.

The Republicans stayed firmly in control in the rest of Texas, so this one is a sweet victory.

Kansas Evolution Election: Score one for the anti-evolution forces

With all the precincts reporting, Republican incumbent John Bacon has held onto the District 3 seat on the Kasnas state Board of Education. Bacon defeated pro-science Democrat Don Weiss, 56 percent to 44 percent.

Because of victories by moderate, pro-science candidates in the August primary, the moderates now hold a 6-4 majority on the board. Moderates, though, were hoping to pick up one or two more seats today. That would make it harder for anti-evolution forces in the state to take control of the board in the next election.

In the last decade, control of the state board -- and the state's policy about teach evolution -- has see-sawed back and forth between the radical right and moderates.

The only hope for adding to the moderate majority is now in the 7th District where anti-evolution incumbent Ken Willard holds a slight lead over pro-science candidate Jack Wempe. Stay tuned.

Virginia Senate race just gets closer

At midnight, Allen is leading the Virginia Senate race by 1,868 votes, according to the Virginia Board of Elections.

The Washington Post says absentee ballots are going to matter -- apparently 130,000 absentee ballots have been requested in Virginia.

NPR says there will very likely be a recount, given the margin. It's pretty clear we aren't going to know what happened in Virginia anytime soon.

That could mean that control of the Senate will be up in the air, too.

Kansas: AP calls 2nd Congressional District race for Boyda

AP calls it a major upset for Democrat Nancy Boyda.

With 74 percent of the precincts reporting, Boyda had 51 percent of the vote to Ryun's 47 percent. Reform Party candidate Roger Tucker pulled the remaining 2 percent.

Kansas: Boyda & Ryun still not decided in 2nd District

I'm hearing a report from NPR that there was a problem with votes reported from Atchison County. Apparently, votes were incorrectly given to a third party candidate that should have gone to Ryun. That means Boyda's lead has tightened.

It's too early to call this one tonight.

And of course... Democrats take the House!

Oh yeah. I'm sure you've heard already, but I did just want to type that one out. If only the Democrats could take the Senate, but it appears that it won't happen. Missouri looks like it's going Republican, among others.