Free Republic

For most of the press and pundits and, certainly, the party establishments, last week's election was a numbers game. It wasn't so much about personalities and candidates and ideas as it was about how many seats it took for a change in power in the House and Senate. For many, lost in the power politics of Election Day was the fact that some very good men lost their jobs – and with those lost seats, the American people lost dedication, experience and principle. Anyone who knows me understands that I do not suffer fools nor have much patience with politicians....

In the past week, there are 476 documents on Nexis heralding the magnificent achievement of Nancy Pelosi becoming the FIRST WOMAN speaker of the House. I thought we had moved beyond such multicultural milestones. The media yawned when Condoleezza Rice became the first black female secretary of state (and when Lincoln Chaffee became the first developmentally disabled senator). There were only 77 documents noting that Rice was the first black woman to be the secretary of state, and half of them were issues of Jet, Essence, Ebony or Black Entrepreneur magazine. A New York Times profile of Rice at the...

As Democrats take control of the House and Senate, many wonder whether it makes a difference. The corporate lobbies aren't gong anywhere -- they started to hedge their bets by contributing to Democrats late in the election. The foreign policy establishment that led us into Iraq and continues to support a global economic posture that benefits the capital but undermines work isn't going anywhere. Does it make a difference? Yes, it does, in ways that are big and small. First, the agenda of the country will change. Consider the six-point agenda that Democrats will pass through the House in the...

As George Bush put it, the Republicans took a “thumpin’” on November 7th. By the time the counting and recounting is finished, the balance of power in the House of Representatives will have essentially flip-flopped, giving the Democrats approximately the same numerical strength that the Republicans had prior to the election. In the Senate, they will hold a one vote majority, providing that recently exiled Joe Lieberman makes good on his word to continue to caucus with the party that abandoned him. That’s the result of what happened on Tuesday, but what actually happened? Well, a lot of things. To...

Two months after Germany's surrender in World War II, British voters dumped the Conservative prime minister who had led the nation to victory -- Winston Churchill -- and replaced him with Clement Attlee, whose Labor Party had won the election in a landslide. Embittered by his defeat, Churchill spurned King George's offer of a knighthood. "I could not accept the Order of the Garter from my sovereign," he said, "when I have received the order of the boot from his people." Last week, American voters gave Republicans the order of the boot, stripping them of at least 29 seats in...

Few election results were less surprising than last Tuesday?s. It?s not as if there was no reason for a general backlash against Republican Party dominance in Washington, D.C. There were, in fact, more reasons to vote against Republicans than for them. The Grand Old Party, in actual operation as a ruling party, had stood by just a few principles. Most people could only name two: Republicans had stuck to their guns on gun ownership rights and on a few tax cuts. But general tax cuts? No. A general tax simplification reform? No. Spending cuts? A resounding no, no, no, echoing...

"Ballot-bag problems may slow counting of 8th District votes" ?King County Elections staff said about 100 bags -- containing up to 20,000 absentee ballots that had been dropped off at polling sites on Election Day -- remain uncounted because of an array of problems caused by the bags' being overstuffed. ?Jim Buck, King County's interim elections director, acknowledged that the problems -- including broken zippers and unclosed bag seals -- could potentially have allowed ballots to be cast after voting ended. Not clear yet whether any of the ballots are actually ineligible, and it's unlikely there could be nearly...

Reason Magazine Blogger Finds Pleasure in Tears of Rick Santorum's 8-year-old Daughter Because the libertarian universe has no place for the vulnerable, weak, or the dependent--since none are autonomous adult-choosers in search of virtual kiddie porn--it has no qualms in providing a forum in which children and their families can be verbally abused and have profanities hurled at them. Read and weep Julian Sanchez's "Your Tears Are So Yummy and Sweet" in which the writer says he finds joy in the tears of Rick Santorum's eight-year-old daughter, who is pictured crying next to her father as he gives his concession...

On the radio a couple of weeks ago, Hugh Hewitt suggested to me the terrorists might try to pull a Spain on the U.S. elections. You'll recall (though evidently many Americans don't) that in 2004 hundreds of commuters were slaughtered in multiple train bombings in Madrid. The Spaniards responded with a huge street demonstration of supposed solidarity with the dead, all teary passivity and signs saying "Basta!" -- "Enough!" By which they meant not "enough!" of these murderers but "enough!" of the government of Prime Minister Aznar, and of Bush and Blair, and troops in Iraq. A couple of days...

At the White House senior staff meeting in the Roosevelt Room at 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Chief of Staff Josh Bolten thanked Karl Rove for his hard work in the elections, and the group around the big table burst into spontaneous applause. It was a much-needed moment of cheer for Rove, the President's chief strategist, after Republicans lost the House and were headed toward the same fate in the Senate in midterm congressional elections that turned into a blue rip tide of voter ire. "The profile of corruption in the exit polls was bigger than I'd expected," Rove tells TIME....

There's already plenty of punditry about what went wrong. What did the president and the Republican Party do and when did they do it? Robert Novak summed up the consensus view of the Republican wipeout well, writing that "opposition to the war and the president had produced a virulent anti-Republican mood." My point of departure from most of the analysis that I've read would be to disagree that this election was about any single issue. I think this election was about trust. Trust is the glue that holds relationships together. The war, rather than being THE issue, was more a...

NPR Complains About John Kerry Coverage, Post Political Editor Boasts He Buried It Posted by Tim Graham on November 9, 2006 - 08:48. On the weekend before the election, the NPR show "On The Media" brought their usual liberal criticism of the media to bear, with co-host Brooke Gladstone complaining how the national media was somehow an over-enthusiastic puppy in?coverage of Kerry's don't-be-stupid-and-get-stuck-in-Iraq comment: "But the media can't stop masticating on this latest liberal gaffe like a Washington Monument-sized Snausage." (As in "scrumptious" doggie treat.) Her guest was Washington Post national political editor John F. Harris, who boasted he?succeeded in...

The country is buzzing about Rush Limbaugh's post-election comments that he felt liberated now that he would no longer have to shill for those who had not earned his unequivocal support. Limbaugh said, "I feel liberated, ladies and gentlemen, because I feel like I don't have to carry the water for people that I think don't deserve to have their water carried." Limbaugh's success as a talk-radio host comes from his incredible talent at analyzing the lay of the land, breaking down the issues of the day for his audience and seeing things that most people miss when sizing up...

Living in Italy, one often has the challenge of explaining the workings of American politics to Italians, a people whose own political system can sometimes admittedly resemble a psychedelic jigsaw puzzle of ever-changing design. For such an endeavor, the Italians have a unique way of wishing one luck. They say ?In bocca al lupo?, or ?into the mouth of the wolf.? Tuesday, an evening that henceforth many will think upon as ?the night of long teeth?, the Democrats effected a sweeping re-balance of Congress ? although it should be said that the Democrats did not so much win this week...

I've been thinking a lot about our devastating losses in the Midterm Election, and trying to ask myself, "Where do we go from here?" In order to properly answer that question, we need to determine HOW we get into this situation where we have lost both the Senate and the House of Representatives. The mainstream media would like you to believe that the 2006 Election signals the end of the so-called "Reagan Coalition" and the beginning of a move to the Left in American politics. I do NOT agree. The Reagan coalition has NOT been destroyed, but I do think...

(In my article on "The Battle for the Soul of the Republican Party" in the Fall, 2006 issue of The New Individualist I analyzed the likely results of a GOP turning more and more to big government, interventionist policies. In that issue TNI editor Robert Bidinotto's piece on "Back to the Future?" looked at the philosophical degeneration of the Republican Party. The results of the party's direction were seen at the polls in the 2006 elections.) November 8, 2006 -- Months of prognostication about the predicted pitiful performance at the polls by Republicans has now given way to prescriptions about...

YES, I THOUGHT the GOP would do better Tuesday -- I certainly didn't see 28 (as of this writing) House seats going to the Democrats. I thought the GOP was sure to retain the Senate. Democrats beware, however, if you think this was a victory for your party. As Democratic pollster Douglas Schoen noted in a conference call Wednesday morning, Dems won the House by picking candidates who were "running away" from liberal Democratic positions. Independents, who rejected President Bush and congressional GOP leaders, have not signed on to soon-to-be Speaker Nancy Pelosi's agenda. Yes, I am disappointed. I strongly...

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, likely new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and the media will portray Tuesday's takeover as a repudiation of President Bush's leadership on the war in Iraq. The public's media-tinted perception of U.S. progress in Iraq, and its subsequent willingness to vote for Democratic House and Senate candidates does not, however, fully explain the switch in party control. No explanation of the Democrats' takeover is complete without laying partial blame on President Bush's so-called compassionate conservative agenda. The term compassionate conservatism was coined by University of Texas professor and...

KOKOMO, Ind. (AP) -- The Democratic challengers considered most likely to unseat incumbent Republican congressmen in Indiana next month are all running as conservatives. Former Congressman Baron Hill's Web site mentions "My Faith in God," "The Sanctity of Marriage," and opposition to late-term abortions. Joe Donnelly says he opposes abortion and wants no part of a mandated troop withdrawal from Iraq. Vanderburgh County Sheriff Brad Ellsworth campaigns on his career in law enforcement and appears on his Web site carrying a hunting rifle. Ellsworth is running against incumbent John Hostettler in the Eighth District, Donnelly against Chris Chocola in the...

Democrats win control of Senate with Jim Webb victory in Virginia.