(no subject)

[desh]

I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this. If Webb (D-VA) and Tester (D-MT) hold their leads, then the senate will consist of 49 Democrats, 49 Republicans, an independent who will definitely vote with the Democrats on basically everything (Sanders, I-VT), and Joe Lieberman. Therefore, Joe Lieberman will essentially be the second most powerful person in America. Lots of bills, leadership of committees, and so on will depend entirely on his swing vote.

Comments

[evr1bugsme.livejournal.com]

Well, that's exactly the problem with the make up of this Congress. Jeff listed four moderate Republicans, but Chafee got booted and a good number of moderate Republicans got booted in the House. That's a problem. Plus, Casey, Webb, Lieberman may be Dem/Dem friendly but they, and a LOT of the Dems elected last night, are also pretty conservative. Conservative to the point that if they were running in CT or RI they would be way to the right of the Republicans!!

I think that's an unfortunate result of this election. Yes, people tend to vote with their party when it comes down to it (especially on close votes and if there is a good Whip (ha..I didn't name the offices)), but I think those more independent minded Rs are critical. The importance of a majority of Ds controling scheduling, committees, etc cannot be overstated, but the lack of open minded Rs combined with conservative Ds could be a serious issue especially since these conservative Ds are new and with the House Dem leadership being more liberal the Ds may not want to follow the Ds on issues those Rs would have.

Historic day for women blah blah, I'm not convinced that Pelosi being in charge isn't going to help the Rs wayyyyy more than the Ds. Yes, yay, Dem control. But a good number of races were absurdly close yet everyone is ebullient about the result. I don't think the Dems have any more reason to claim a mandate than Bush ever did, but I dunno, maybe puffing up their wounded pride will be useful somehow? Guess we'll see. (...end random rant)