Election Day 2010 Observations

The U.S. Senate

It’s possible that the Delaware Senate seat will not be needed for Republicans to wrestle control of that deliberative body. The Republican candidate will not lose because she is the conservative witch of the east, as the dead-tree media will lead you to believe. She will lose because she became winy during the final week of the campaign and did not hold her opponent, the bearded Marxist, Mr. Coons, feet to the fire.

Based on polls in the closing days of the election, I am inclined to believe that the Senate will be comprised of 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans with crazy Uncle Joe Biden casting the deciding vote on important issues.

Campaigns’ Closing Days
Did you notice that President Obama and V.P. Biden spent much of the closing days of the campaign in deep blue states. This is a strong indication that the dems are in deep doo doo. Normally, a party’s base would have already been secured. From there the campaign would then circle out to marginal areas to secure close races. The internal polls must have showed something different.

2012
Believe it or not, the campaign for President begins the day after today’s election. Obama is already down six electoral votes from the 2008 contest, based upon census estimates. Texas alone is expected to gain four congressional seats. Consequently, four additional electoral votes for 2012 will be added to Texas’ 34. California on the other hand will not gain any for the first time in decades. Should Obama run for re-election the swing states he won in 2008 would be major battlegrounds in 2012.

Re-apportionment
If it turns out to be a Republican Tsunami today, you can almost bank on the fact that the Republicans will control the House for the next decade. Many states will elect Republican governors today and help them with split or fully controlled legislatures. This is the democrat’s worse nightmare. The Republicans are likely to put in play more geographically reasonable re-districting maps. Gone will be the gerrymandered districts that the Democrats love to carve out.

It will all be fun to watch, read, and listen to tonight.

Will Republicans Gain Veto-Proof Majorities

Over a year ago I commented on a discussion thread on Politico.com, engaging in some drive-by commentary, that the Republicans would gain 47 seats during the 2010 election cycle. The lefties, liberals, and eco-topians jumped on my punditry with comments like:

What planet are you on?
What have you been smoking?
Brought your lap-top to the bar, again, ehh?
Hey Rip, where have you been?

Hope and Change springs eternal. Who is hee-hawing now? The election landscape has changed so dramatically that some are asking whether a veto-proof majority looms. It may be possible in the House of Representatives, but unlikely in the Senate. For a veto-proof majority the Republicans would have to win 290 seats in the House and hold 67 seats in the Senate.

Nothing the current administration has done to fight the economic malaise (a Carter phrase, since this is the second term he never had) has worked. The unemployment still hovers around 9%. The housing mess gets worse, exacerbated by little income growth and no employment growth. Stimulus. What Stimulus? The only thing that has been stimulated is the wallets of the various cronies, interest groups and fellow travelers of the Obama administration and their congressional allies.

We have reached the tipping point. As the party of government (Democrats) battles to preserve the paychecks of their apparatchiks in government; meanwhile the government of the people (Republicans) push back, offering tax cuts and spending cuts in an effort to turn the economy around. A political war is breaking out between the entrepreneurial class and the ruling class.

The question remains whether the Republican’s have the stones to offer meaningful cuts as in slicing department budgets by 25% or eliminating whole departments. We shall see. The “mad as hell” voter is out there and ready to pull the lever for any politician that will get us back to fiscal sanity. Now that would have a greater simulative effect by throwing the tax and spend rascals out.

The Obama administration continues to throw fuel on the American public’s dissatisfaction with its policies by offering up another stimulus package. If the first one failed, why would voters support another? This administration is pulling out all the stops to really put its allies in Congress on the defensive. The administrations policies have energized the opposition. The only question is the depth of Republican takeover of Congress, come November. Veto proof majorities may not be possible during this election cycle, but if there is no improvement in the economy, the American public will not put up with it. These are very interesting political times.