Hill and Yarmuth in, Sodrel and Northup out. Democratic control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Republican Keith Henderson the biggest vote getter in Floyd County, Democrat Connie Sipes a close second, and the GOP's Mark Seabrook a solid winner against Randy Stumler. Mills over Loop in the race for sheriff.Subject to the usual reality-based rules of engagement ... readers, your opinions about the gist of yesterday's tallies?
I'll lead it off.
ReplyDeleteOne of my friends from overseas wrote to congratulate me for the first good news out of America in many years.
I said, "it's not a panacea, but it'll do for now."
In fact, the prospect of two lame duck years filled with assorted bungling operatives and Donald Rumsfeld being called before investigative committees fills me with happiness.
Locally, the big question: What are the reasons for Randy Stumler losing, and the implications for the county with two of three commissioners Republican?
Congratulations to all my friends on the left.
ReplyDeleteI don't think any of this is too surprising. Twelve years of repuplican control and the pendulum swings as it has done consistently over the past 200 years.
This is what makes our country so good. As you would expect, I am disappointed by some of the races but certainly not surprised.
Mark Seabrook and Steve Bush are very good people as well as very competent. I see only good things for the County with them in control and Freiberger finally in the minority.
Mr. Bush and Mr. Seabrook have first names. So does Charles Freiberger.
ReplyDeleteKerberos, you're probably aware that I echo many of your insightful observations.
A number of people saw yesterday's election as a referendum on Republican leadership. It was fine by me to view it in such a fashion, as doing so led to the conclusion that numerous aspects of Republican leadership have been less than adequate.
However, I viewed it as a referendum on the future of the Democratic Party, both locally and nationally. It may or may not be true that the Neanderthal faction locally was rewarded yesterday, but if so, it will be a short-lived victory, indeed. Demographics are about to overtake them, and barring the reinvention of the Democratic Party, that demographic is going to be very cruel.
I haven't digested all the results yet, but already I see calls for Pelosi to impeach Bush. Ahhh...what a difference a day makes.
ReplyDeleteI am trying to figure out the Henderson vote vs the Mills vote. Any "insiders" or others have a thought on that one?
ReplyDeleteThere are reports that Donald Rumsfeld will be "stepping down."
ReplyDeleteIf true, this puts a twist on the old axiom that "they only understand raw force," except that in Rumsfeld's case the force came not from Terrorism, Inc., but from the electorate.
I stayed up till 3AM watching returns. I know, I'm an idiot. Just don't feel a need to confirm that.
ReplyDeleteThis can't have been a surprise to many people. Things and attitudes do shift and move back and forth. I firmly believe that our Founding Fathers devised a system of government that was inefficient and designed to work best when there were two parties in power with different types of power.
There's an old adage that says "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." We had a long stretch of one party rule and the adage began to play itself out more and more. A change was necessary and it has taken place.
I think that Baron Hill and Mike Sodrel are probably both good, decent people. Neither man ran a good, decent campaign. It was an incredibly ugly, mean spirited campaign and I think no one was served by the spirit of this. From a tactical perspective, Hill's challenging Sodrel's record of voting with President Bush 97% of the time and Mike Sodrel's decision to bring the President here, I believe, hurt him badly. Furthermore Mike Sodrel seemed to be running his campaign on flag burning, gay marriage, and abortion. From a tactical perspective and from a pressing issue perspective, some boat left without him. I'm just glad it's over and I don't have to watch the commercials any longer.
And trying to paint Baron Hill, who from most perspectives, is pretty dang moderate, as an out of control liberal was a duh kind of moment to me. Frankly, people who continually trying to pain debates using 'liberal' or 'conservative' seem to come from the premise that people are little more than trained orangutangs who have an inability to have complex views.
The Anne Northup/John Yarmuth race was interesting. I always enjoyed reading his columns in the LEO and found myself agreeing at times and disagreeing at others. What I always liked about Yarmuth was that he never dodged complexity. He also know Anne Northup and her strategy very, very well. She seems to begin campaigns with some nice feel good commercials and then goes into major attack mode. Major personal attack mode. And then ends with "Nice Anne" again. It's worked well for her in the past, but Yarmuth knew her playbook too well.
She attacked him and he attacked her positions. Her ads on the minimum wage debate and the restaurants were dubious and boneheaded. They ended up in a controvery as to whether this was even true or not. THEN she foolishly ran a second ad to attack his response. Yarmuth, on the other hand, kept responding with how many times she had voted against raising the minimum wage. Frankly, those "Sonny's" commercials that she ran did little more than paint a target on her back and Yarmuth fired back with a bullseye. And whenever he linked her to the President, it was paydirt.
Whether I agree with her or not, Anne Northup, I think, is a good person who served Louisville well. She tried to run a local campaign because she couldn't win a campaign based on national issues. Yarmuth ran on national issues and won.
We have a divided government again. The voters have told the President and Congress to grow up and learn to get along with each other and work together. I hope and pray that they all listen.
I hope people are watching the news conference right now...watch Bush deny Iraq has anything to do with anything...the man is imploding.
ReplyDeleteSeveral of my democratic patients and friends who voted for Henderson said they voted for Mills to "keep a balance"
ReplyDeleteHB,
ReplyDeleteInteresting. Thanks for the response.
Bare in mind this, had the nation been voting on a new president yesterday, chances are that any Democratic candidate would have won by a landslide against the GOP's candidate.
ReplyDeleteI was listening to NPR as W was tap dancing in the "rodeo" and "takin his thumpin". Yes Gina he was imploding. During the Q and A Karl Rove must have been behind the scenes holding his head in his hand and shaking his head very slowly.
A new ray of light will now emit from DC upon the rest of the world, we as a country still care enough to make a bold statement of changing hopefully for the better.
i just hope some good comes of this. i hope that the dems remember what happened last time they had the conch shell and goofed it up and "we" did the same thing we just did to the republicans...
ReplyDeletei'm not a democrat or republican. layering oneself with walls and labels prevents the ability to be enlightened under the sherivada tree. so i'm just trying to do good and maybe one day i can go onto Atman!