Victory courtesy of the Republican machines
Jim Webb, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Virginia who leads Senator George Allen, a Republican, by about 7,000 votes, began planning his transition to the Senate Wednesday, confident that the margin would survive state scrutiny or any legal challenge, aides said.
If the Webb victory holds up, it will provide the final seat Democrats need to take control of the Senate. With Jon Tester, a Democrat, unseating Senator Conrad Burns, an incumbent Republican in Montana, the Democrats are now one seat short of a 51-49 majority.
“The bottom line is the votes have been counted and Jim Webb has won,” said Kristian Denny Todd, a Webb aide. “It could have gone the other way, but it didn’t. We’re on top and that’s the way it’s going to stay.” She said that “Senator-elect Webb” is consulting with advisers and planning to take his Senate seat in January.
All of [this] occurs in relatively uncharted legal territory where it is unclear what a recount really means in jurisdictions where there is no paper trail and where the actual number of eligible provisional ballots remains in flux.
Barring surrender by one side, it looked like a drawn-out process could extend into December.
The recount is unlikely to resolve all the potential legal issues. In Virginia, “recounts” consist of re-tabulating the votes from the existing counts to ensure that the end-of-the-day tallies were summed accurately. Virginia uses a mix of optical-scan machines and touch- screen machines, with 11 different systems in total, across more than 130 jurisdictions, amounting to more than 9,000 machines. Touch-screen machines print out full tallies after all voting is done, and unless these printouts are unclear, officials generally do not rerun the machines. With optical-scan machines, only unclear ballots are run back through the scanner.
The bottom line is that there aren’t individual receipts or ballots to be recounted. Virginia already went through this in a contested race — and after several weeks of whining about the mathematics of retabulating the results from the “approved” machines, the total was changed by 37 votes.
This chickens have really come home to roost on this one. The Bush government wasted $2.5 billion on the cheapest, low-bid, unverifiable solution to the question of voting procedures — and are suffering the result of their own handiwork.
It just feels so good saying it:)
Senate Majority Leader Hillary Clinton!
I doubt it. Doesn’t matter what kind of job she did, she would take flak just for being in the position and that would screw up her ’08 presidential campaign.
Until it’s certified in Richmond, I still worry about Diebold-Rovian doomsday recount code in a double secret ROM.
And something else that feels good saying, “chief special prosecutor for war profiteering”.
Maybe it’s just that the voters have spoken?
Where are the dittoheads and the “you liberals” comments?
I think the most unbelievable thing for me, is that people who voted had common sense, i thought after 2004 all was lost for our democracy, but things turned around. Its really amazing.
So the Democrats managed to back into taking the House and Senate. Good for them. Time to switch my investments to tax exempt municipal bonds…
Don’t know anything about the Market either, eh, Thomas?
Sometime, in your spare time, check back on how the Market has done in the past half-century after Dems get elected. Uh, especially the Clinton years.
#5, give it time, James Hill is trolling about. I expect him shortly. Actually, as OFTLO mentioned the other day, I enjoy his comments. Not for the insight or brilliance; more for the audacity.
What are you suggesting with the headline? That Allen was the real winner, but lost because of Democrat vote fraud?
I have lots of experience with election recounts. Even with paper ballots, 7,000 votes is a huge lead. 37 votes “turned” sounds about right to me.
moss,
The Internet can only be invented once. We will indeed see how they do with the economy without the boom it created to save them.
(sorry if this double posts, captcha not nice to epifany browser now using firefox)
Just sharring my joy at voting for a winner this time (Claire McCaskill Mo.)
Why, Thomas — you must be younger than I thought. C’mon — use this Interweb to do some research. You can find pretty accurate numbers. Wall Street may have a lot of greedy fools on board; but, they keep good records.
I think you’ll find the Peace Dividend meant a lot more than any bubble.
moss,
> Wall Street may have a lot of greedy fools on board;
> but, they keep good records.
I guess Wall Street is only for the rich and/or greedy? Quite the economist you are. I must be old because I remember a time when Democrats actually cared about the middle class. Here’s to hoping that this new crop elected folks are more moderate and less like their party’s fringe (Actually, I wish the same towards any elected official regardless of party)
> I think you’ll find the Peace Dividend meant a
> lot more than any bubble.
Riiiight…As long as we count the fallout from your “Peace Dividend”, whatever that is, in the grand accounting of its presumed benefit…
Bill Clinton’s first two years weren’t that great with the tax increase and new regulations. Lots of people were talking about a ‘double dip’ recession. Once Republicans took over Congress and sent the word that they would be a brake on the Democrats, things started soaring. Capital gains tax cut in 1997 sent things further along. I don’t think the Democrats can do too much damage in the short term, since their majority is relatively narrow, and the tax cuts have been extended.
9: Yeah, I can’t wait to see how the neocons respond to this when the shock wears off. This wasn’t just a huge victory for the Democratic Party, it was a rejection of the policy advanced by Bush Republicans by the voting public. While popular support is no more an indication of the merit of an idea today than it was yesterday, those outside of the reality-based community were adamant that it WAS the most meaningful indicator.
I don’t see anyone admitting they were wrong, and they will likely place blame with having elected representatives that failed to act on their political ideals (even though no one would acknowledge when this happened before they lost the election). While doubtless we can expect to see them layer on even more denial as insulation, it remains that merely resolving to defeat the majority opposition will leave them in a position where they are unable to find traction for their agenda if they take public support for granted, and pretending that they still have it will make it more difficult still.
Since I don’t see anyone besides the more fire-breathing weekend liberals of the net roots mistaking the election results as a public mandate in support of an agenda, it’s gonna be rough claiming that we’re trying to implement a socialist nanny state with everyone focused on accomplishing things that had been impossible previously, like putting together an energy policy that isn’t a corporate welfare initiative with “energy policy” written on the cover or finding a way out of Iraq whose strategy is not to remain in Iraq. And the Democrats need not accomplish anything that could be considered a radical reform during the next term in order to be successful. Almost any level of accomplishment at at, however modest, will provide them with a greater record of achievement than the neocons managed in twelve years of near complete control of the government.
Unless they can find a means of compromising and working with the majority opposition, they won’t merely be unable to claim any particular accomplishment, but render themselves irrelevant as an encore to having screwed up so often and so completely.
“This chickens have really come home to roost on this one”
What does this even mean?
This post obviously didn’t have much thought put into it. Just yet another act of sensationalism.
At least a few of the dittoheads showed up — the folks who consider party loyalty more important than issues. The neocon nutcases in charge could put out PR today — saying the sun will rise from Rove’s butt, tomorrow, in the south — and a few goobers would show up saying it didn’t happen in the past because Clinton opposed it. Or Truman. Or Roosevelt.
Whatever — the issues, cause and effect relationships are ignored because the ideology says different.
Apparently, most folks get it. If no one else is up at this hour, I’ll try to clarify why the folks at the Trib wrote the article.
1. The Bush Brigade “resolved” voting problems by putting systems into place without accountability. No paper trail kept the price down — and everyone here knows the cheapest computing systems are always the best, right? Leaving out a component doesn’t matter.
2. They dragged their feet at every bump — why would a government founded on no accountability or responsibility wish to implement verification — just because voters wanted it?
3. They forgot that no accountability cuts both ways. At least, that’s what I would ascribe “the chickens” to.
In the Virginia election, there well have been mistakes, screwups, perhaps, foul play — but, there’s no way to trace back to the voter in the booth.
There’s still one House seat up in the air, this morning, because one state retained accountability. Perish the thought it took a Dem governor to reject the Diebold [etc.] solution — but, New Mexico went 100% back to paper ballots with OCR [real simple OCR btw] to read and collate. Every place there may be a challenge, human beings [remember those?] can review the ballots one-by-one. So, a Repub incumbent just may retain her seat — because there ain’t no chickens roosting on the polling places in that state.
Sorry to take up so much space, here; but, someone may as well explain common parlance to T.O.T..