A little bird told me…:
- Look for a potential upset in MN House District 3A, up in the far north part of the state. DFLer Tom Anzelc – endorsed to try to replace 17-term DFLer Irv Anderson – may have spent too much money (as in, all of it) getting through a bruising primary fight, and also faces a
VenturaIndependence Party challenge (which always soaks up DFL voters). Republican challenger Les Lemm looks to be in a decent position in this very DFL-heavy area. - In District 8A, Jim Hilty – a five-term DFLer from Finlayson, in a district that frequently doesn’t field Republicans – has only started campaigning recently against Republican Tim Hafvenstein. Hafvenstein has apparently run a pretty solid, well-funded campaign; a little bird says it’s an even race.
Stay tuned for more.
Word on the street is that MN-1 is shaping out to be very good for the GOP. Walz isn’t as strong as the polls had him being.
Then again, I can’t say I’d be surprised if that continues to hold.
Welcome to the minority Mitch !
And it appears that both Virginia and Montana in the Senate go Democrat. If I do my math, that means Democrats control both the House and Senate. I know how much Mitch detests exit polls but by the looks of the exit polls nationally, the reason it went this way was because people are tired of the corruption of the Republicans in leadership. It wasn’t the war and it wasn’t the economy.
There is nobody to blame but yourselves.
And my good friend Rebecca Otto kicked some major a** last night.
That’s gotta sting a little bit considering how Mitch predicted.
“”Les Lemm looks to be in a decent position “”
Wasn’t even close
Minnesota Legislature – House District 3A
DFL Tom Anzelc 9,454 60.1%
R Les Lemm 5,735 36.5%
IP Chris Pfeifer 520 3.3%
WI Write-In 17 0.1%
==
“”a little bird says it’s an even race.””
Minnesota Legislature – House District 8A
Candidate Votes Vote%
DFL Bill Hilty 10,580 68.2%
R Tim Hafvenstein 4,918 31.7%
WI Write-In 19 0.1%
my good friend Rebecca Otto
SCREEEEEECH
That harpy is your “good friend”?
Explains a lot.
Wasn’t even close
Yep. My little bird turned out to be wrong.
Stuff happens. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Mitch said,
“That harpy is your “good friend”?”
harpy? Whatever.
Soooooo anyway… Rightwing radio was pretty fun today.
Call after call after call of angry, spittle soaked wackos just hoping and praying that we have another terrorist attack against us after the Democrats take control just so they can say, “told you so…”
I’m trying very hard not to gloat but watching the rightwing meltdown is a hoot.
No Doug, it’s not that we WANT another terrorist attack; it’s going to happen now that the terrorists got exactly what they wanted in Washington: politicians who actually think you can NEGOTIATE with terrorists, that if they only understood our point of view they’d stop HATING US SO MUCH, and that if we just leave Iraq, they’ll shrug their shoulders, put down their guns, machetes and explosives and go on their merry ways. Ain’t going to happen. Unfortunately, the Republicans who acted like spoiled children, who wouldn’t suck up and go vote for the party who has actually saved American lives in the past 5 years, all because of a perceived slight, will find out oh, too late, that they made a big (as in expensive and dangerous) decision by leaving our nation’s security in the hands of elected officials who think Ted Kennedy is a demi-god and Hillary Clinton a saint. And oh, Nancy Pelosi as Speaker! Oh, my… Bush and Cheney had better triple their security details or some moron will try to expedite the inauguration of the first woman president, and a nasty one at that.
And speaking of spittle soaked wackos, how is Mr. Franken?
I don’t think this is a Republican meltdown. It’s just the kick in the pants the party needed to get serious about our candidates because OUR IDEAS WIN, even when our candidates don’t. As for Minnesota politics, I hope the people of St. Paul who don’t think we already pay enough “for a better Minnesota” remember their votes or lack of when the cumulative hit of the City Council, Ramsey County and TWO school board increases (anyone remember last December’s truth in taxation hearings, where they raised their portion of the property taxes by the double digits WITH NO VOTER INPUT?) puts a huge hole in our paychecks, and for several years. And don’t forget the school board levy has a built-in cost of living increase. Just as icing on the ‘progessive’ cake. Oh, does Washington County look better and better every day! But at least we still have the Governor and his veto pen to save us from death by taxation.
Meltdown?
I suppose in a world where Rebecca Otto is a perfectly fine politician, the right is melting down.
That’d be your world, Doug. Not the real one.
Rightwing radio was pretty fun today.
Call after call after call of angry, spittle soaked wackos just hoping and praying that we have another terrorist attack against us after the Democrats take control just so they can say, “told you so…”
Yeah, Doug – who’da thunk it? Angry, disappointed people calling a talk show and ranting. What’ll the world come to?
Of course, one did NOT hear some things, either – no whinging about fraud in the system. No demands for recounts (even though George Allen’s margin of defeat was about 6% of the Ohio 2004 results that the Dems are still snivelling about). No calls for secession. No blubbering about “Jesusland” (I guess the analogy would be “DeadFetusLand”) versus the enlightened people.
I listened to Air America for about 15 minutes all told on November 3, 2004. You really wanna compare reactions?
No, Doug, unless you’re ready to come to terms with the fact that your party is a bunch of snivelling spoiled infants, you really don’t.
Mitch said,
“Angry, disappointed people calling a talk show and ranting”
No Mitch, it wasn’t people who were simply disappointed. It was people who were apoplectic. It was a stream of calls blaming democrats for an attack that hasn’t even happened. It was call after call of people saying “we’re GOING to be attacked and when it happens, it’s because the Democrats are weak on the “war on terror””. “What is it that you guys know that you’re not telling the rest of us Mitch?
As for your observation that there was, “no whinging about fraud in the system. No demands for recounts”, I’ll remind you that in 2004, the claims about fraud, disenfranchisement, precincts with too few machines, vote flipping etc. were happening while the polls were open and the votes were being cast. Those claims would have been made and on record even if Democrats would have won. The claims weren’t happening because they were sore losers as you like to insinuate Mitch. They were being made as the events were happening in real time. We were watching it happen even before the results started coming in.
And to suggest there weren’t issues this year Mitch is just wrong. There were but it wasn’t as rampant as 2004.
Another interesting item that I’m sure you will pooh pooh is that nationally, the exit polls after Tuesdays elections were within 1 percentage point with the exception of Virgia and Montana – the two states where the Senate races were nearly too close to call. The exit polls in Virginia had Allen losing by 6 points. Isn’t it interesting that Allen’s reaction was that he was “shell shocked” and in the middle of a “nightmare”. If I had been told that the election was already a done deal in his favor, I’d be shell shocked too.
You guys failed to predict the massive turn out and the fact that Independents went to Democrats in overwhelming numbers. Lesson for the future Mitch, if you want to flip votes, you have to do it in more than high democratic areas – especially when even Republicans are voting AGAINST Republicans
The reason Allen and so many others didn’t make an issue Mitch is that it would open the election to direct scrutiny and an examination of the inconsistencies.