Posted on 11/12/2008 6:44:18 PM PST by Clintonfatigued
Arkansas didn’t have nearly the Republican gains that Tennessee and Oklahoma did. It’s worth noting that the Governor made a serious effort to further reduce Republican presnece in the state legislature, unsuccessfully.
The reelection of GOP state Senator Gilbert Baker was significant, as his district usually votes Democrat.
But now, in its current configuration, President Obama doesn't have a vote to spare, which means Arkansas' own Sen. Blanche Lincoln will be forced to cast some very unpopular votes. She will no longer be able to straddle the ideological fence between a Republican administration and her own party. Lincoln would have been vulnerable heading into 2010 regardless of the outcome of the presidential contest, but with her party taking a decidedly left-of-center approach, many state and national Republicans believe Arkansas could be a GOP pick-up.I totally disagree.
I wrote this piece last Thursday analyzing the situation in AR: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2127018/posts?page=46#46
Completely unrelated to this article, but I was interested in finding out the fate of Randy Brock. Brock won the State Auditor’s post of VT in 2004 to become the first Black ever elected to statewide office (and to Howard Dean’s chagrin and disgust, he’s a Republican). Brock appeared on the face of returns won reelection to a second term in 2006, but on a recount, he lost by a bit over 100 votes (sound familiar ?). Brock had never held office prior to 2004 and this year decided not to challenge the Democrat who “beat” him in 2006 (since the man was serving in Iraq) and opted to run for the State Senate where a Democrat held the seat in his district. Well, he scored an upset win and takes office in January (he also served as McCain’s co-chair for President), and that may serve as a stepping-stone back to statewide office again.
http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081109/FEATURES07/811090340/1016/FEATURES07
It’s like hunting for truffles to find some rare wins for our side...
Wow, thanks for sharing that. Good for him, and us. I hope he runs for governor and wins.
Governor, eventually. Lt Gov. Brian Dubie is next in line, and he is a Conservative.
No arguments from me. Dubie needs to put Senator Brock on the ticket!
Vermont is a strange place. But I am happy to see Republicans and even conservatives still exist in decent numbers there.
BTW, did you look at Brock’s platform. Decidedly conservative - energy reform, holding judges accountable, protecting children from predators - but conservative in a SMART way. In other words he thought carefully about the environment he was running in. Those are conservative issues that resonate across most of the spectrum. MassGOP, NHGOP, MaineGOP, CTGOP are you listening?
Well, remember, there’s no “ticket”, per se. They are all elected individually. I was amazed Dubie has consistently managed to win on his own accord, but they may also be partly due to the power of incumbency. Had Brock won the office of Auditor in 2002, he may very well have pulled off another win in ‘06 (and this year), but he wasn’t well known when he ran again in ‘06 in a bad year, and may have even been viewed as a challenger (worse, yet, the Dem running was Tom Salmon, Jr., and a lot of old timers may have thought he was his dad, the former Governor).
You mean Dubie won seperately from Douglas? That’s impressive.
Yup. Dubie also apparently achieved a first in this election, he got more votes than Douglas did — 172k vs. 170k. In 2002, 2004, and 2006, he always received less (94k to Douglas’s 103k in ‘02; 170k to Douglas’s 182k in ‘04; 133k to Douglas’s 148k in ‘06). It also was the highest number of votes he has ever received, narrowly eclipsing his ‘04 performance.
Embarrassing for the Dems in this election was the Governor’s race. The Dem Speaker of the House (Gaye Symington) polled 200 votes behind Progressive candidate Anthony Pollina, and that was the total from off the VT Sec of State site (there was some concern that the totals would show the Dem would eventually place 2nd, but it never happened). This is the first time since 1851 when a regular Democrat nominee came in 3rd place in VT (then when a Whig won against a Free Soiler and a Democrat). The Dem in that race, John Staniford Robinson, captured an embarrassing 15% (although 2 years later, he won a plurality in a three-way race, becoming the last Democrat to win for Governor for 109 years — 1962).
Yep. I was just looking at the Vt Sec of State numbers. Dubie needs to run for governor next time. 2010 is likely to be an Obama pushback year and that should give Dubie the boost he needs to ensure a win (even in a place like Vt).
McCain did much lower than I expected. McCain is precisely the kind of maverick Republican that is normally competitive in NE. Unfortunately Obama was the perfect storm (especially for white liberals and there are lots of them up there) and this year was terrible nationally for Republicans. I don’t think McCain would’ve beat Gore (the green thing) or Kerry (a New Englander) there but it would’ve been a heck of a lot closer - maybe 53-47ish.
Well, good night. I’ve got a long day tomorrow.
I meant to add that hopefully Douglas has the sense to step aside in 2010 for Dubie. (I don’t know what kind of rapport the two have.) Douglas ought to consider the US Senate or House next.
Hopefully Leahy will retire in 2010 and Douglas can run for his seat.
Of course, there’s a tendency for senators to run and run until they croak in office, and Leahy may be no exception.
Conservatives in Vermont!! Incredible. And I have a Code Pink Congressman here in Central Florida.
Of course, we also thought ‘08 would be a blowback year against the radical Dem Congress, and it wasn’t. McCain demonstrated that running a “moderate” for President no longer works for the GOP. New England, his strongest primary supporters maintained, would be competitive or in the bag — and he did worse than Dubya did in every state up there (with the most minimal change in Massachusetts, just a half-percent below Dubya’s 36.8%).
The last Republican to win VT was Daddy Bush in ‘88, barely edging out Dukakis, 51-48%. McCain ran a jaw-dropping 8% below Dubya in VT (which again, his primary supporters said wouldn’t happen), and he didn’t even carry a single county (Dubya carried 1 in ‘04 — Easternmost Essex, but that was down from 4 he carried in ‘00, where he carried a cluster of northeast counties). The final Sec of State numbers said McCain just barely got above 30% to the False Messiah’s 67%. Barry Goldwater got 34% in 1964, Dole got 31% in ‘96, Daddy Bush apparently got at or slightly above — 30.42% in 1992. This was simply a world-class fiasco.
As for Douglas running for the Senate, I have to wonder if he’ll try that again. As the Sec of State for 12 years, he was the well-regarded nominee against Leaky Leahy in ‘92, but only got 43% — better than Daddy Bush, but not spectacular. As a popular ex-Governor, Douglas’s mentor, Dick Snelling, was recruited to run against Leaky in 1986, but was obliterated. Unless Douglas senses real vulnerability, I don’t really see him trying to boldly go after him. The Governorship may be as far as he goes.
Of course, in an open seat situation, Douglas might have a better shot, but I think Leaky will stay until he’s carried out feet-first, and that means he may be around until the 2020s or, gasp, even 2030s. He was, after all, only 34 when he first won in 1974 (though always looked much older), so he could conceivably serve 60 years if he makes it to his 90s like Byrd. On December 27th this year, he’ll eclipse his predecessor, the liberal RINO George Aiken, to be the longest serving Senator in VT history. He still has a decade to go to match the overall federal service of the legendary Justin Morrill (who served in the House and Senate non-stop from 1855-1898), the VT record-holder, who served from Franklin Pierce all the way to William McKinley.
Yeah, I got a bored borderline moonbat in Nashville who used to be a semi-anti-Clintoon moderate when he represented Eegore’s rural district in the ‘80s and ‘90s.
I recall seeing Randy Brock on TV when the VT delegation cast its votes for McCain. I wish Mr. Brock well, and hope that he can indeed attain statewide office once again-—hopefully as Lt. Gov. or as the state’s sole U.S. Representative (Lt. Gov. Dubie should get first crack at the governorship when Gov. Douglas finally decides to run for the Senate).
Brock is a liberal-to-moderate Republican, in the Douglas mode, right? It being VT, though, which is arguably the most liberal state in the nation now (it gave Obama 67%, a higher percentage than did MA or RI), I’m not going to complain about running liberal-to-moderate Republicans such as Brock or Douglas for federal office. (Dubie, on the other hand, is a pro-life moderate, in the Steve Laffey/Don Carcieri mode, and is probably as conservative a candidate as could possibly be elected in VT.)
Vermont had a black legislator in 1836! Woah.
“Brock appeared on the face of returns won reelection to a second term in 2006, but on a recount, he lost by a bit over 100 votes (sound familiar ?)”
We always lose votes in recounts. Ban them.
Actually in a news article I read about the legislatures power to elect the Governor if no one wins a majoirty it stated Robinson came in second and was chosen by the legislature.
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20081102/NEWS03/811020317
So I added that to his Wikipedia article.
That means no rat ever placed first till Hoff and I believe he needed a minor party line to achieve that victory.
And Leahy is the only (official) rat senator they’ve ever had and the current rat congressman (no GOP opponent in 08!) is only the second.
I’m not sure how conservative Vermont ever was but no state was more Republican or Whig.
Was it just out of staters that messed it up? You’d think it would be vote more like New Hampshire/rural Maine/upstate new york than Rhode Island.
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