Steve handed me a glass of red wine an hour ago and I’m getting drowsy. Thought I would blog for a minute to wake myself up.
Santorum got trounced. Sad to see kids cry on the stage. Bill Bennett thinks he has a shot at the presidency some day. He’s done.
Lamont lost big time. Rather bad news for the netroots. What happens to Lieberman’s committee leadership positions now that he’s an Independent?
Menendez easily won.
Democrats won every state-wide position in New York. The last time that happened was in 1938.
The pollsters say that the war wasn’t the key issue in this election. They said that people said they also cared about corruption, terrorism, and the economy.
Howard Dean said that the Democrats wouldn’t pull the troops out of Iraq right away.
Everybody is talking about Rumsfield resigning.
Surprised that Ford didn’t win in Tennessee. Perhaps the marriage amendment in TN brought out the social conservative vote.
Republicans did very well in the South.
Rahm Emmanuel did a great job recruiting former military to run in this election. Those candidates seem to have won their elections.
Gotta see what my boyfriend, Jon Stewart, has to say about all this….
Apt. 11d 
Ford had a lot of negatives–his race is the one that will get most of the coverage. But IMO (and I’m a native Tennessean and follow TN politics closely) the most importantis that he’s a Ford. The Ford clan are the political bosses of Memphis, and are remarkably corrupt–and some of them have been in the news recently for loony behaviour and/or corruption. (His uncle was arrested for taking $55,000 in bribes last spring.)
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All true, Sam. Still, I was really pulling for Ford, for historical reasons (first black senator since…etc., etc.) as well as for what he could have meant for the Democratic party (black and religious and Southern and…etc., etc.). I hope the party doesn’t give up on him; come 2008 and he could take a crack a Lamar Alexander: a much harder prospect, to be sure, but one worth shooting for.
Incidentally, Ford’s younger brother lost last night. The family remains potent, but it’s possible that Harold, Jr.’s step beyond their Memphis enclave has taken some of the Teflon off the family. As I’m in favor of anything that will get black politicians out of the municipal arenas they’ve been so often confined to, and into larger races, maybe Harold’s close loss in a very mainstream, state-wide race will have some good, indirect results.
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Not to get ahead of ourseleves or anything, but Ford might have a good shot in 2008 v. Lamar Alexander – though who knows what the larger dynamics will be in that year, plus Alexander will be an incumbent, which could cut either way.
If all else fails, he can go to MSNBC or the like for a little while to keep his profile up – they love him.
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I agree with you, RAF–if I could have figured out a way to get a Republican-controlled Senate, with Ford and Webb in it, that would have been my preferred option. (Judges who protect federalism, and religious freedom at the community level, are my top priority).
And don’t get me wrong–Harold Ford Jr is clean, smart, and sane AFAIK. His father and his uncle, on the other hand…
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