Dems take control of the house!

Discussion in 'Political Discussions' started by Abner, Nov 7, 2018.

Loading...
  1. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

    It's official.
     
  2. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    One of the more interesting results of all that is that Trump Water Boy, Devin Nunes, loses control of the House Intelligence Committee and Trump critic Adam Schiff takes over as Chairman. Look for a revitalization of that investigation. Also, it's rumored that the Dems will order the release of Trumps tax returns from the IRS. If Trump resists it could be an interesting court battle, one that might ultimately land in the lap of our newest Supreme Court Justice.

    [​IMG]
     
    Abner likes this.
  3. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

    Adam Schiff is very good! Thank God David Nunes will be replaced. Yes! And, that anti union asshole Scott Walker lost, ha ha!
     
  4. StevenKing

    StevenKing Active Member

    Yawn...and so the cycle repeats.
     
    Luciano700 likes this.
  5. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    I'm in mourning over Florida results... but overall, parties performed exactly as predicted. Good enough for me, for now.
     
  6. Maniac Craniac

    Maniac Craniac Moderator Staff Member

    With some elections not yet called, what it looks like is a small Dem majority in the House, a small Rep majority in the Senate and about 1/2 of the nation's governors will come from each party.

    Not exactly a "blue wave" but some meaningful gains for the Democrats, leaving us with a country still roughly divided right down the middle.

    The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh?
     
  7. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    I'm not sure exactly what a "blue wave" would look like but stripped to its essentials, the GOP went into the election controlling both the House and the Senate and the vast majority of State Legislatures and Governor's Mansions. Now, the Democrats control the House and picked up something like 300 State Legislature seats and some Governorships. The GOP added a few (exact number unknown as yet) U.S. senate seats but still does not have a filibuster-proof 60 seat majority. I have a hard time seeing how this was anything but a "whuppin'" for the GOP.

    Turnout in New Mexico was WAY up over 2014. In my own case, I was unopposed in the 2014 and 2018 general elections but the total number of votes I received county-wide went from about 26,000 to about 41,000.

    Sooo...the 2020 election season has begun... :)
     
  8. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    I agree with you, although I suppose one could argue that it depends on whether you measure these results against previous results, or against the (perhaps unreasonably) high expectations many had for a "blue wave", particularly given the history of mid-term elections in a president's first term.
     
    Maniac Craniac likes this.
  9. Maniac Craniac

    Maniac Craniac Moderator Staff Member

    Without having a quantitave standard, what one would consider a "wave" would be subjective. Republicans lost a lot on Tuesday, but it's quite common for the party in power to recieve push back in the midterms. Compare the past several midterms, and this looks nothing out of the ordinary. One could even argue that Reps did very well for themselves considering how ramped up Dem voters were and how comparatively little actually changed.

    We can call it a Blue Ripple, I guess.
     
  10. Maniac Craniac

    Maniac Craniac Moderator Staff Member

    Or, uhh, what Steve said.
     
    SteveFoerster likes this.
  11. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Well, it is typical that the in-power party loses a few seats in Congress in the midterm elections.
     
  12. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Wave or not, things will be noticeably different come January.

    Or will they?
     
  13. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

    You got that right. Plus, a historic amount of Dem women were elected (110). That ought to sit well with Trump, he he.
     
  14. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

  15. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Hm. There's a surprise. Our Neighbor to the West (Arizona) just baaaarely elected a Democrat for Senator. Pile on a few more Democratic House seats (as California gets its electoral act together) and "it's beginning to look a lot like..." well! A Blue Wave, in fact. The SOLE warmth the GOP is feeling is that they gained two Senate seats. Nothing to sneeze at but pretty puny compared to the nation-wide Democratic haul...For the first time I'm wondering if Mr. Trump will be reelected in 2020. Rather rare not to give an elected President a second term but it HAS happened twice in my lifetime, George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter. Maybe not so rare, though, depending on how you count LBJ who served more than one term but less than two terms.

    Fun to watch. :)
     
  16. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    I think 2020 will depend partly on whether the business cycled has crested by then, and partly on whether the Democrats have the sense this time around to nominate someone appealing.

    If things are close enough, it might also help Democrats if the Libertarians nominate Bill Weld this time around and give Republicans who don't like Trump a recognizable protest vote, but they're pretty good at missing opportunities so we'll have to see about that.
     
  17. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member

    No way. Weld is not known to have been a hooker, hasn't blue skin, hasn't declared himself a Druid and isn't Howard Stern.
     
  18. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    [QUOTE="nosborne48, post: 516076, member: 1914]Maybe not so rare, though, depending on how you count LBJ who served more than one term but less than two terms. [/QUOTE]

    In cases wherein a vice-president serves the remainder of a deceased or impeached or resigned president's term, whether or not you have to include that as one of your two terms depends on whether you served more than half or less than half of the previous president's term. Johnson served 1 year and 2 months of Kennedy's term and so was eligible to run again in 1968. Jerry Ford, on the other hand, served 2 years and 5 months of Nixon's second term. As such, he had to count that as one of his two terms. Thus, he was eligible to serve one more term. He, of course, ran for re-election in 1976 and lost.
     
    Last edited: Nov 13, 2018
  19. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Well, their last three nominees were a former state governor twice and a former member of Congress before that, so it seems unlikely they'll nominate someone like Stormy Daniels, amusing though that would be.
     
  20. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Regardless of whether you are right or not, let me just register, on behalf of all fellow Team Hillary fans, our extreme bitterness about the word and concept of "appealing" or "electable".

    Here's the plan: find a way to convince Oprah to run. We will have the extreme pleasure of seeing Trump melting down at the mere thought. And that is worth the price of admission, right there.

    (of course, it is not clear that there's anything in this, or any, universe that would convince Oprah to get into the fray. There's literally no upside for her whatsoever. So yeah, Kamala or Joe.)
     

Share This Page