Some Post Election Homework

Here are some articles about the 2006 election that I found was interesting...

Election 2006: The Worst Show on TV by Matt Taibbi
This is a diary Taibbi wrote on election night while watching the results on cable news. Very funny, insightful, and a little crude. Taibbi discusses how the election coverage has copied ESPN and is all about who is going to win the next big game.

On Lieberman winning...

To me, this ruins the whole evening. I can't see any way to describe any day in which Joe Lieberman wins an election as a good day, but here's the good news: Six years from now, both the Republicans and the Democrats will run serious candidates, and Joe Lieberman will be scrambling for the last eleven percent of Connecticut's half-in-the-grave vote, running on a ticket of "the terrorists support both of my opponents." It'll be worth staying in journalism just for that.

On the 2008 hopefuls...

It's not a coincidence that the early White House hopefuls were all herded on the air the instant the polls closed. Once the last vote is counted, the next story is the next race. All politics has to be contained within the parameters of that who's-winning narrative.

What the Congress actually does, how it actually spends its money, what happens in its committees -- it's all irrelevant, except insofar as that activity bears on the next presidential race. That's why the "experts" on these panels are so unanimous in their belief that the Democrats should lay low for the next two years and not push their subpoena powers. They all think pushing it in Congress would negatively affect the Democrats' White House chances. In other words, it's bad strategy for the next football game, just like Howard Dean's crazy antiwar stance was deemed "too liberal" for the gridiron by the same geniuses a few years ago -- even though history ultimately proved Dean right on that score, for all his other flaws.

Taibbi spent election day using a fake name and volunteering with the Rick Santorum campaign in Pennslyvannia. Taibbi did this, so that he could attend Santorum's Victory/Defeat Party. This is a hilarious look at inside the Rightwing's poster boy defeat. Taibbi provides some good thoughts on the Republican corruption and negative campaigning from both parties...

Beyond the Republican shipwreck, unfortunately, lies an utter vacuum of positive ideas. The Democrats may have been less over-the-top about their negative campaigning, but they still spent more than $72 million on attack ads, only slightly less than the other guys. They had nothing to say except that the Republicans sucked -- which was true, but where does that leave us?

This was the year the national elections devolved into nothing more than a forum for organizing the disgust and revulsion of the population, with both sides firmly entrenched in their own tribal paranoia and ready to disbelieve any unwelcome result the voting machines might spit out, all confidence in the system lost. No one really won -- it felt more like the country decided to pull the plug on itself or burn cigarettes in its arm.

Learning From Lamont by David Sirota
Sirota worked for the Lamont campaign and weighs in with his thoughts on the Lamont-Lieberman race.

I know that some people say that Lamont was a failure, however if you would have told Ned Lamont back in January that he would beat Lieberman in the primary, he would have been pleased with the result. The same can be said about Howard Dean finishing 3rd in Iowa in 2004, Ed Fallon getting 26% of the vote in the primary for Governor. Big Money has such a grasp on the political arena, that someone who challenges that is facing an uphill climb. Each candidate that challenges the status quo, pushes the movement forward, and eventually real progress will be made. You have to look at the big picture of the progressive movement and not at each single race.

Daily Kos takes a look at the 2008 Senate races and it looks like Democrats have a shot at picking up some more seats.

My early prediction will be that Democrats defeat incumbants in Minnesota, Oregon, Colorado New Mexico, and New Hampshire. Republicans will defeat one Democratic incumbant in either New Jersey or Louisiana. Democrats will have a net gain of 4 seats.