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.
#31…Mike….LMAO….Good go…lets get the 2008 conspirousy theories going early. 🙂
Those of you that are real politics freaks have probably already noticed this. But out of the 28 seats the Dems have won so far, only 11 of them could actually stay in their hands in 2 years. Seats like Foleys
‘s or De Lays will go back to Rep. in a normal year. Dem’s will be lucky to have the majority for more 2 years in the House. Now, the Senate may take the Rep.’s until 2010 to get back.
Ohio was not as much a disater as the media would have you believe, all but 1 Rep. seat in the House stayed that way. They got wiped out State goverment wise and lost a Senate seat, that may only be gone 1 term. Brown is way to Liberal for the whole of Ohio.
Pa. was a disaster for the Rep., but it usually is. Those seats around Philly are probably gone forever. Same in Rhode Island(not that the Rep. there was actually a Rep)., New York and New Hampshire. Virginia dosen’t look good for the Reps for a few years.
But, people like Guiliani, and Mc Cain are still leading the pack for 2008, stronger now than last week. And who ever said the Independents are lost to the Rep’s…..you don’t know squat about politics. Fully 30% of the Independents are actually strong Rep’s who are afraid to admit they ARE Rep.’s. 🙂
Both Guiliani and Mc Cain are still favored by Independents over all the presently mentioned Dems for 2008. That all, includes Senator Clinton.
I honestly didn’t think the Rep.’s would lose the Senate. DeWine, Talent were decent men and good Senators. Allen is a horses ass, and Burns is to. Chafee wasn’t good enough to kiss his Dad’s butt. He was a basically stupid, arrogant ass. Good riddence. Santorum was a decent man, but bad for the country. And probably the most exciting race of the year, Maryland. Steele turned out to be one hellava candidate. One more week and I think he would have won that seat. Cardin is a political hack.
If Bush and Rumsfield actually decided Rummy was leaving last week, they will be taken out and shot by the Party. That decision cost them at least 5 House seats and maybe 2 Senate seats. Very stupid, Rove must not have known, or it would have been leaked.
Joshua, your hopes are interfering with your predictions.
Foley’s seat might revert, I don’t think Delay’s old will though. With the redistricting, the seat was a solid 45% Democrat. Most of the others will remain because they will see good governing and the Presidential election will bring the tide back to the Democrats.
Guiliani and McCain are long shot outsiders. As much as you like them, both have too much dirty political baggage to be serious national contenders.
I too wasn’t sure about the Democrats taking the Senate. I was cheering for it, but until the last week didn’t think they would pull it off. While I agree about Burns and Allen (hmmm, sounds like a comedy team), I also think you over rated Talent and Dewine. Tester appears to be a real star and Webb has been in Washington enough to know how to play the game. The country as a whole is better off without Santorum. He was a poor role model for every working Joe. We’ll see about Steele.
I did enjoy my morning coffee Wednesday. And thought about you in particular. It is too bad we both couldn’t be winners.