Winners and Losers

Winners:
Rahm Emanuel
Joe Lieberman
Nancy Pelosi
Mike Pence
Chuck Schumer
John Shadegg
Blue Dog Democrats
Club for Growth

Losers:
Liddy Dole
Ned Lamont
George Allen
J.D. Hayworth
Northeastern Republican Party

Overall Predictions

Matt
		Democratic	Republican	Dems+
	House (62)	28	34	21
	Senate (17)	12	5	3
	Governor(29)	17	12	6
Liz
		Democratic	Republican	Dems+
	House (62)	42	20	35
	Senate (17)	14	3	5
	Governor 29)	18	11	7

Governor Predictions

State	Democrat	Republican		Matt	Liz
AK	Knowles	Palin		R	R
AL	Baxley	Riley		R	R
AR	Beebe	Hutchison		D	D
AZ	Napolitano	Munsil		D	D
CA	Angelides	Schwarzenegger		R	R
CO	Ritter	Beauprez		D	D
FL	Davis	Crist		R	R
GA	Taylor	Perdue		R	R
IA	Culver	Nussle		D	D
ID	Brady	Otter		R	D
IL	Blagojevich	Topinka		D	D
KS	Sebelius	Barnett		D	D
MA	Patrick	Healy		D	D
MD	O'Malley	Ehrlich		R	R
ME	Baldacci	Woodcock		D	D
MI	Granholm	DeVos		D	D
MN	Hatch	Pawlenty		D	D
NV	Titus	Gibbons		R	R
OH	Strickland	Blackwell		D	D
OK	Henry	Istook		D	D
OR	Kulongoski	Saxton		D	D
PA	Rendell	Swann		D	D
RI	Fogarty	Carcieri		R	R
SC	Moore	Sanford		R	R
TN	Bredesen	Bryson		D	D
TX	Bell	Perry		R	R
VT	Parker	Douglas		R	R
WI	Doyle	Green		D	D
WY	Freudenthal	Hunkins		D	D

Senate Predictions

State	Democrat	Republican	Independent		Matt	Liz
AZ	Pederson	Kyl			R	R
CT	Lamont	Schlesinger	Lieberman		I	I
FL	Nelson	Harris			D	D
MD	Cardin	Steele			R	D
MI	Stabenow	Bouchard			D	D
MN	Klobuchar	Kennedy			D	D
MO	McCaskill	Talent			R	D
MT	Tester	Burns			D	D
NE	Nelson	Ricketts			D	D
NJ	Menendez	Kean			D	D
OH	Brown	DeWine			D	D
PA	Casey	Santorum			D	D
RI	Whitehouse	Chafee			R	D
TN	Ford	Corker			R	R
VA	Webb	Allen			D	R
VT		Tarrant	Sanders		I	I
WA	Cantwell	McGavick			D	D

House Predictions

State	District	Democrat	Republican		Matt	Liz
AZ	1	Simon	Renzi		R	R
AZ	5	Mitchell	Hayworth		D	R
AZ	8	Giffords	Graf		D	D
CA	4	Brown	Doolittle		R	R
CA	11	McNerney	Pombo		D	D
CA	50	Busby	Bilbray		R	R
CO	4	Paccione	Musgrave		R	R
CO	5	Fawcett	Lamborn		R	R
CO	7	Perlmutter	O'Donnell		D	D
CT	2	Courtney	Simmons		R	D
CT	4	Farrell	Shays		D	R
CT	5	Murphy	Johnson		D	R
FL	13	Jennings	Buchanan		D	D
FL	16	Mahoney	Negron		R	D
FL	22	Klein	Shaw		D	D
GA	8	Marshall	Collins		D	D
GA	12	Barrow	Burns		R	D
IA	1	Braley	Whalen		D	D
ID	1	Grant	Sali		R	D
IL	6	Duckworth	Roskam		R	D
IL	8	Bean	McSweeney		D	D
IN	2	Donnelly	Chocola		D	D
IN	7	Carson	Dickerson		D	D
IN	8	Ellsworth	Hostettler		D	D
IN	9	Hill	Sodrel		R	D
KS	2	Boyda	Ryun		R	R
KY	3	Yarmuth	Northrup		R	D
KY	4	Lucas	Davis		R	D
MN	1	Walz	Gutknecht		R	R
MN	6	Wetterling	Bachmann		R	D
NC	11	Shuler	Taylor		D	D
NE	3	Kleeb	Smith		R	R
NH	2	Hodes	Bass		D	R
NJ	7	Stender	Ferguson		R	R
NM	1	Madrid	Wilson		D	D
NV	2	Derby	Heller		R	R
NV	3	Hafen	Porter		R	R
NY	19	Hall	Kelly		R	D
NY	20	Gillibrand	Sweeney		D	D
NY	24	Arcuri	Meier		D	D
NY	25	Maffei	Walsh		R	D
NY	26	Davis	Reynolds		R	R
NY	29	Massa	Kuhl		R	D
OH	1	Cranley	Chabot		R	D
OH	2	Wulsin	Schmidt		R	D
OH	15	Kilroy	Pryce		D	D
OH	18	Space	Padgett		D	D
PA	4	Altmire	Hart		R	R
PA	6	Murphy	Gerlach		D	D
PA	7	Sestak	Weldon		D	D
PA	8	Murphy	Fitzpatrick		R	D
PA	10	Carney	Sherwood		D	D
TX	17	Edwards	Taylor		D	R
TX	22	Lampson	Sekula-Gibbs		D	D
TX	23	Rodriguez	Bonilla		R	D
VA	2	Kellam	Drake		R	D
VT	AL	Welch	Rainville		D	D
WA	5	Goldmark	McMorris		R	R
WA	8	Burner	Reichert		R	D
WI	8	Kagen	Gard		R	D
WV	1	Mollohan	Wakim		D	D
WY	AL	Trauner	Cubin		R	R

"Whose Country?"

Over in the Corner at National Review Online, John Derbyshire posted the following:

Whose Country?

This News item concerns Leftist legal-action groups suing a Pennsylvania town over ordinances the town has passed to discourage illegal immigrants from settling there. Near the end comes this sentence:

"About a third of the [sic] Hazelton's residents are Hispanic, up from around 5 percent in 2000, officials say."

[Derb] From 5 percent to 33 percent in just six years? And the President wonders why opposition to his open-borders-and-amnesty plan is so fierce?

Derbyshire surprised me with this post (as he does with most of his posts) because it confirms the isolationist/nativist attitude that I find so discouraging and wrongheaded coming from some conservatives. Nowhere does Derbyshire mention apprehending terrorists or decreasing welfare rolls (as many on the right do) nor controlling the population or increasing wages for the poor (as many on the left do). No, he goes straight for the gut -- people want a wall because they don't want to see their country taken over by a bunch of Mexicans.

That's disgusting.

A Lonely Independent

Here is a list of Democrats that have jumped the Lieberman ship (or never got on board in the first place) and support Lamont.

DNC Chairman Howard Dean
President Bill Clinton
Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY)
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY)
Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT)
Senator Harry Reid (D-NV)
Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI)
Governor Tom Vilsack (D-IA)
Representative Rahm Emanuel (D-IL)


Here are those who will keep supporting Lieberman or who have climbed on the ship post-primary.

DLC CEO Al From
Senator Tom Carper (D-DE)
Representative Chris Shays (R-CT)
National Review

One More Thing

I continue to puzzle over what happened to the notion of Democrats as the party of the blue-collar worker. DailyKos currently features a picture of the conspicuously Greenwich-bred Lamont family (Ned, wife, and three children) with the following caption: "This is what a political earthquake look [sic] like. Meet the new face of the people-powered movement." If the Lamont family is the new face of the Democratic movement, what happened to the day laborers and firemen? Will they fall into the same trap as minority groups like Jews and blacks, who vote for the Democratic Party in such predictably huge numbers that party leaders have no actual incentive to consider their interests in any serious way?

Questions To Ponder

A few lingering questions after today's election results:

-Who will publicly support Lieberman--any prominent Democrats OR Republicans?

-Will Lamont be forced to articulate a detailed position on an issue other than the Iraq War?

-Will Lamont's status as a billionaire beneficiary of inherited wealth finally force the media and public to reexamine their stereotypical portrayals of Democrats as the party of the down-and-trodden and Republicans as the party of silver spooners? Speaking of which, perhaps the reason that members of the liberal blogosphere seemingly have no trouble with Lamont's wealth is that so many of them fit similar profiles!

-To what extent will Lieberman's candidacy suffer on account of anti-Semitic sentiment, especially in light of the current crisis in the Middle East and the extent to which members of the general public seem to attribute America's decision to go to war in Iraq to its support for Israel?

-Will Walberg's primary victory and the corresponding publicity further reinforce the Club for Growth's association with socially conservative groups like Michigan Right to Life?

-If Walberg is elected in November, will he actually vote like a small government conservative?

Lieberman

It seems from Lieberman's speech that, at least for now, he intends to move forward with his independent candidacy. Of course, I hope that my predictions are wrong and that he not only stays in the race but is able to regain momentum and beat Lamont in November. He certainly has his work cut out for him.

Walberg beats Schwarz

The Club for Growth's Andy Roth calls it.

If true, this is the first time the Club for Growth has endorsed a candidate that has successfully defeated an incumbent in the primary.

Schwarz Swan Song

One thing I admire about Schwarz is that he had a full career apart from his political service (as an ear, nose, and throat doctor), and apparently continued to see patients while serving as a representative (or at least claimed to leave his Monday mornings free for that purpose). So at least the transition back to private life shouldn't be has difficult for him as it was for, say, former Vice President and Senator Al Gore. . . .

More on Lamont

A billionaire businessman from Greenwich (the beneficiary of inherited wealth) as the hero of the progressive blogosphere: a dynamic that continues to puzzle me. Perhaps the explanation lies in the extent to which money really does dominate politics in this day and age, and liberal bloggers realize that no one stands a chance of being elected to a major office without a huge reserve of personal wealth. On a somewhat related note, how will Lamont vote when it comes to the estate tax?

I have the feeling that Lieberman is going to face intense pressure to drop out of the race if he loses tonight, even though the gap between the two candidates will be small. If he does stay in the race, I predict that the Democratic leadership will treat him as a pariah, no major Democrats will endorse (or appear publicly with) him, and he will lose miserably in the main election.

Not a Good Day to be an Incumbent

All eyes are on Ned Lamont's likely victory over Sen. Joe Lieberman. But Joe is not the only incumbent facing a primary fight. Both Rep. Cynthia McKinney (GA-04) and Rep. Joe Schwarz (MI-07) are facing intra-party challenges, albeit for very different reasons.

McKinney is up against former DeKalb County commissioner Hank Johnson. If Johnson wins, it will not be because of the issues, but because of McKinney's questionable character.

Schwarz, on the other hand, faces a battle on substantive issues. His opponet, former State Rep. Tim Walberg, is endorsed by both the Club for Growth and the Michigan Right to Life. Walberg has thus hit Schwarz both on economic and cultural issues, a two-front war that Schwarz will be hard-pressed to repel.

10:48 pm:
43% of precincts reporting
Walberg -- 56.8%
Schwarz -- 43.2%

51% of precincts reporting
Johnson -- 58%
McKinney -- 42%

89.17% of precincts reporting
Lamont -- 51.6%
Lieberman -- 48.4%

Lieberman Loses Primary

Drudge has called it.

10:17 pm: 82.62% precincts reporting
Lamont -- 51.83%
Lieberman -- 48.17%

Will Democrats Dump VP?

Just six years ago, the Democratic party nominated Joe Lieberman as their choice for Vice President. Lieberman, who voiced his progressive views in a measured tone, won praise from all sides. Now, Lieberman is in the fight of his political life because of his perceived cushiness with the Bush administration and his zest for the war in Iraq.

Just one question: Did Joe Lieberman's views really change all that much in six years? Of course not. Lieberman is being targeted because the country and the Democratic party are weary of the war and because any amount of civil discourse in the favor of the President's position is tantamount to treason.

So what does this purge mean for the future of the Democrats? Will it help them? Will it hurt them? It all depends on the margin of victory, Lieberman's decision to run as an Independent or drop out of the general election, and the decisions of the mainstream Democratic politicians to support or shun Joe.

9:58 pm: 73.66% precints reporting
Lamont -- 51.73%
Lieberman -- 48.27%