Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Springboarding off Canavan's Reaction Round Up

Strikes and Gutters, Ups and Downs « Gerry Canavan: In the cold light of day, I'm bouncing my more tempered reaction off Gerry's round up.

* Last night’s big Dem winner: implausibly, Harry Reid. Second place (of a sort): Howard Dean, whose entire happy legacy as DNC chair was wiped out in one fell swoop last night—and then some. Fire Kaine, bring Dean back.
It never should have been close in Nevada. For all the belly-aching about Reid, he's brought home the bacon for Nevada. Angle's idiocy, incompetence, and dangerous lunacy didn't just make it, as the pundits inexplicably like to say, "easy for Reid to paint her as extremist," no painting was required to do that job, those qualities made her intrinsically unelectable to a post higher than Pencil Sharpener. Look, it's been pretty clearly established that 1 in 5 people in this country are, frankly, too stupid (intellectually dishonest when they have knowledge, largely ignorant, cowardly, and bigoted) to talk to; they're the birthers, Birchers, medicare recipients against socialized medicine, illiterates with signs, etc. They're the 20% you can count on, in any poll about anything, to affirm their belief in the most obviously, demonstrably untrue proposition. If we call them the fifth quintile, then the disturbing thing here is: fifth quintile sub-moron Angle was able to get the fourth quintile generic morons, and even a few third quintile median intelligence literates to vote for her as well. That speaks to how bad things have gotten in Nevada.

And, yes, replacing Dean as head of the DNC was a mistake.

* Last night’s big Republican losers: the Tea Party, and Sarah Palin specifically. The crazies cost them the Senate.
I don't know if Palin lost anything more than she had already lost once she quit her Alaska gig. I think she lost whatever hold she had in the third quintile when she gave up the pretense she was in it for anything but the money and fame. The stupider and greedier she is revealed to be only serve to cement her status as a hero of the fourth and fifth quintiles. The moment she left the Governor's mansion in Alaska, she gave up any chance of being anything more than that. She'll continue grifting a living fleecing the rubes but she'll have a price to pay with the likes of Rove and the establishment GOP that may reduce her role in national Republican politics. However, Rove had already made it clear he couldn't stand her, now he just has a little more ammunition.

* An upside: most of the losses last night were from bad Democrats, especially the Blue Dog caucus, which was nearly decimated. The progressive caucus only lost three seats and now constitutes 40% of the Democratic House caucus.
Yet, somehow, Heath Shuler survived. Did the Republicans run a sasquatch against him in NC-11?

* Most of the progressive online left is saddest to see Feingold lose, I think.
Yep. It's a shame about populist blowhard, I use the phrase warmly, Allan Grayson, too.

* Personally happiest to see Tancredo lose in Colorado. That guy’s completely nuts.
Tancredo is certifiably insane; his defeat is reason to celebrate. My personal favorite losses were up in the Northeast. A native nutmegger, I would've hung my head in shame had Linda McMahon won in CT. Also happy to see NY rejected gay bashing mad man Carl Paladino.

* At least losing the House means we don’t have to deal with individual Senate egomaniacs anymore.
The less I see of Ben Nelson, the better.


* The most important proposition, and the most important victory for the left, was probably California’s Proposition 23 on climate change, which went down. Quoting the HuffPo article: “California is the world’s 12th largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and its global warming law, passed in 2006, mandates the largest legislated reductions in greenhouse gases in the world.” This was a big win.
Prop. 19 got more press, but 23 was the brass ring.

* Sad statistic of the night: “Meg Whitman’s personal spending on her campaign: $163 mil. Natl Endowment for the Arts 2010 budget: $161.4 mil.”
TRUTHBOMB

* And Republican gains are bad news for higher education. This is probably especially true for state universities in North Carolina, where Republicans now control the state legislature for the first time in a century.
Bad news for education in general, not just higher education. Expect to see more activity in the House around ID being taught in science as an "alternative theory" to evolution.

The other top stories I see in NC when I look at the results are:

1. I hope the recount in the Etheridge/Ellmers race changes the result in NC-2. Ellmers is a joke.
2. Virginia Foxx got 66% in NC-5?! Is Kennedy a corpse? A convicted felon? Wow, they must *really* hate gay people, human decency, New Orleans, and reality out there.
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