the citizen-viewer

Control of the Senate now hangs on the results in Virginia, where the results are so close that a recount is mandatory.
A variety of voting equipment includes several kinds of ballotless voting computers which can’t be meaningfully recounted. There is no way to prove that these machines registered and tallied votes correctly. Avi Rubin has more on this.

In Connecticut, Joe Lieberman beat Ned Lamont thanks to the Republicans who flocked to his side. Anyone who doesn’t understand that he is, in fact, a Republican should have gotten it by now. If Allen wins in Virginia, I won’t be surprised if Lieberman suddenly discovers a compelling reason to abandon his pledge to caucus with Democrats and joins the Republicans instead, because with the majority party he can do more for the people of Connecticut and for the soul of man. With Joe, there’s always a higher purpose and he knows what it is before anyone else. If he doesn’t bolt on his own, the Dems should kick him out. Better to stabbed in the front than the back; it’s easier to pull the knife out.

In neighboring Rhode Island, my home state, they had the opposite problem: a liberal Republican bearing a beloved political name. At last my fellow Rhode Islanders wised up and realized that despite his voting record and the name, Lincoln Chafee was helping the Republicans stay in power and that’s why the GOP backed him to the hilt. I saw Democratic winner at a cheese-sandwich lunch on Providence’s East Side and he seemed like a decent guy, aside from disgracefully pandering on the bombing of Lebanon to a presumably heavily Jewish audience. At least he won’t be running for president anytime soon. Not with a name like Sheldon Whitehouse anyway. No, he’s Episcopalian.

Here in Pennsylvania, as everyone from here to Pluto knows, the odious Sen. Rick Santorum (come on, click it!) will soon be taking over some of the home-schooling, if the way his son cried during the concession speech is any indication. If only there had been a way for him to lose without Bob Casey Jr winning, my day would have been bright indeed. The way the Democratic party leadership rammed that empty-suited legacy down the Pennsylvania voters’ collective throat was a scandal that proves they deserve to be called the Democrat Party.

Check out this glossy flyer we received a few days before the election. For a few minutes I thought the GOP was handing them out to discourage Democrats from coming out.

Yes, why are they? Well, let’s see, he’s anti-choice, pro-war, and, ah, white? Sold me. Actually, what turned me off was the picture on the left, the one where he’s chatting with the black/Asian interracial lesbian parents of a cross-racially adopted white baby. He’s laughing because they said something about getting married before Bob Casey III gets into office.

(So what is it with these legacy candidates? While Bob Casey, son of former governor Bob Casey was running for Senate in Pennsylvania while in New Jersey it was Tom Kean, son of former governor Tom Kean. And the aforementioned Lincoln Chafee, son of John. The list goes on and on. It’s turning into a permanent nobility around here.)

One Congressional hopeful who was left standing on the platform as the Democratic train chugged away was Lois Murphy (PA-6), who appeared to lose to Republican incumbent Jim Gerlach by only just over 1% of the vote. Murphy was roundly criticized by voters in and near her district for a flood of robocalls in the last few days of the campaign. It turns out that these calls, which began with a claim they are giving”information about Lois Murphy,” actually came from the National Republican Congressional Committee. Who knows if 3000 potential Murphy voters were so annoyed that they withheld their votes from her.

I really would like to see some serious research into the robocalling phenomenon and its impact. If I had been a fence-sitter who voted for Gerlach over Murphy because of these annoying calls, I would want his head on a pike.