Midterm Elections 2014

[AshlynCreamher]

Are you going to vote today?

[Ben in LA]

Of course.

[fred41]

Yes...I actually get the day off to do just that.
Folks in some countries literally risk their lives to vote and yet many folks in the West just can't be bothered.It's amazing. The last union vote on my job had some very real and different choices. They mail a ballot to your house. All you have to do is check a box and place it in the mail (postage is already paid).Mind you, most people in NYC pass a mailbox at some point in their day just going out to get coffee. Only 40% voted. SMDH.

Besides...I always get a private chuckle out of watching the poll workers often make a relatively simple task very complicated...lol.

[trish]

Just voted.

[Odelay]

Longest voting line I've ever been in. Took over an hour. Did blow through a couple of chapters of Gaiman's American Gods, while waiting, so it wasn't all bad.

[trish]

Thank God the Republicans took the Senate. I don't have to worry about Ebola now. Whew! That was a close one.

[Stavros]

Some curious results -does the election of Tim Scott in South Carolina, and Mia Love in Utah indicate that the Republicans have tamed the wilder elements in their (TEA?) party, and that they are rebuilding trust on social issues with voters who waver between Republicans and Democrats? The GOP was expected to do well in the mid-terms and the Democrats did not actually do as badly as some might have expected (or hoped), so the question whether or not the Republicans can win the next White House is still live, but they must find a candidate. Scott Walker is mentioned in the British press, but I don't know who he is, unless he is that pop singer from the 1960s who went into politics...?

One also notes that Mitch McConnell's wife is Asian-American, and that Mia Love is married to a white man...whatever next, a Gay Republican President?

Incidentally, it was pointed out that Tim Scott is the first black Senator from the South since Hiram Rhodes Revels, but I had never heard of this man and had to look him up on google. The curious parallel then with now is the means by which people (Democrats, mostly) tried to use electoral law to bar him from taking his seat in the Senate. This is the relevant section from the wikipedia entry -makes for interesting reading anyway...


At the time, the state legislature elected U.S. senators from Mississippi. In 1870 Revels was elected by a vote of 81 to 15 in the Mississippi State Senate to finish the term of one of the state's two seats in the US Senate, which had been left vacant since the Civil War. Previously, it had been held by Albert Brown who withdrew from the US Senate in 1861 when Mississippi seceded.
When Revels arrived in Washington, DC Southern Democrats opposed seating him in the Senate. For the two days of debate, the Senate galleries were packed with spectators at this historic event. The Democrats based their opposition on the 1857 Dred Scott v Sandford by the US Supreme Court which ruled that people of African ancestry were not and could not be citizens. They argued that no black man was a citizen before the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified in 1868, and thus Revels could not satisfy the requirement for nine years' prior citizenship.
Supporters of Revels made a number of arguments, from the relatively narrow and technical to fundamental arguments about the meaning of the Civil War. Among the narrower arguments was that Revels was of mixed black and white ancestry (an "octoroon") and that the Dred Scott v Sandford ought to be read to apply only to those blacks who were of totally African ancestry; supporters also argued that Revels had long been a citizen (and indeed had voted in Ohio) and that he had met the nine-year requirement before the Dred Scott decision changed the rules and held that blacks could not be citizens. The more fundamental arguments Revels supporters made boiled down to this idea: that the Civil War, and the Reconstruction Amendments, had overturned Dred Scott. The meaning of the war, and also of the Amendments, was that the subordination of the black race was no longer part of the American constitutional regime, and that therefore, it would be unconstitutional to bar Revels on the basis of the pre-Civil War Constitution's racist citizenship rules. One Republican Senator supporting Revels mocked opponents as still fighting the "last battle-field" of the War. On February 25, 1870, Revels, on a strict party-line vote of 48 to 8, with only Republicans voting in favor and only Democrats voting against, became the first African American to be seated in the United States Senate. Everyone in the galleries stood to see him sworn in.

Hiram Rhodes Revels - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[timmartin]

WSans fear and anger, the republican party ceases to exist.

[trish]

Scott Walker is mentioned in the British press, but I don't know who he is, unless he is that pop singer from the 1960s who went into politics...?

Scott Walker is now the re-elected governor of Wisconsin. In his first term he all but busted teacher’s unions and other public unions by putting an end (under much protest) to the practice of collective bargaining. One thing, I think, this election demonstrates is the power Citizens United placed in the hands of conservative interests. Unions were powerful because they could put people in the streets and on the phone. Their presence was never stronger than in this election, but last night union candidates lost all over the nation. Bodies mean nothing when money can dominate the airwaves. The re-election of Scott Walker will embolden like minded governors. It is the beginning of the end of teachers unions in the U.S. just as Reagan ushered in the end of private unions decades ago. I predict dark years ahead for the faculty of second and third tier State universities. Education is now in the hands of science deniers.

Since the Republicans have not gained a super-majority in the Senate gridlock will likely continue. After all, gridlock was not the consequence of having a Democratic Senate and a Republican House; it is the consequence of having a black socialist President from Kenya. Certainly no Obama appointees will get approved. We will continue without a Surgeon General (in spite of the fact that Republicans are peddling fear on the Ebola front). Obama care will of course not be repealed, but it may be whittled away to the point where it is effectively gone. Furthermore, no liberal minded Supreme Court Judge dare retire or die in the next two years, maybe not in the next six years.

It appears (to me) that serious Republican still have a TEA party problem. The hog castrating Joni Ernst from Iowa will now join the U.S. Senate. She will not be a moderating voice. Aaron Shock of Illinois was re-elected the Congress; even though he’s secretly gay, he’s tea-dyed in the wool conservative on economic and social issues. These are just two examples of the TEA party’s presence.

In spite of this the Republicans will probably not move on social issues. This is because they want to have a shot at the 2016 presidential election. The national momentum on gay rights is out of their control. The smart ones will step aside and let it proceed. Quite a number of Republican women were swept into office last night, so they got that going for them. We will probably see some compromises on immigration reform.

A number of States last night had referendums demanding a hike in the minimum wage. All those referendums passed. Thinking conservatives have got to see this as the one flaw in perfect evening. Bruce Rauner, who turned the Illinois governorship from blue to red last night, wants to abolish the minimum wage entirely. He took the governor’s seat last night, but Illinois citizens passed the (non-binding) referendum to raise the minimum wage to ten dollars. What does that mean? Probably that instead of electing a new governor, Illinoisans were throwing out one they didn’t like.

Safe to say, the election proved that I'm still out of step with nearly everyone else in this strangely surreal land in which I live and hopefully will continue to thrive.

[Stavros]

Trish, thank you for that bracing response, there are a lot of details that I don't get here in the UK, so I can only make general remarks. I think the election of the women was seen by some to be not just a sign that the GOP had taken note of an important vote winning constituency, but that the women elected were 'normal', that is, not from the Michelle Bachmann zone of discontent. This was the comment from a Republican woman on a BBC discussion panel held in Washington last night.

From what you are saying, on social policy Republicans may have to soften their tone on some issues to sway voters, but do not intend to bend on economic policy, health care or micro-economic issues such as unions. We have something in this country called 'the Living Wage' which is being countered to the 'Minimum Wage' using a different calculation. We are already being fooled by the fall in unemployment and 'economic growth' because many jobs are now part-time, people are on zero hours contracts and being paid as low as a wage as can be without being illegal- this may be something we have in common, but the abolition of the minimum wage would be a major blow to Americans who, as I understand it, have not had significant wage increases in the last 20 years or so. It is actually economic madness, and probably anti-American as I recall being told when I was an undergraduate that one of the reasons American workers were more prosperous than us is that they retain(ed) more of their salary to spend than what at the time was the highly taxed economy of the UK. I suspect that economic liberals would argue that the Federal government is to blame for taking so much of workers pay in taxes and that the Affordable Health Care Act is one example of the state making decisions that cost that individuals ought to make for themselves.

It is a curious situation because the austerity measures that have been taken since 2008 are supposed to be underpinning economic growth, yet outside a few special interests, most people don't seem to me to be enjoying 'the recovery' so I wonder how coherent either the Democrat or Republican arguments on the economy will be from now to 2016, and even more, if any voters believe what the politicians tell them. I think we are going to have another coalition government after next year's General Election in the UK, and that is a sign of disapproval and discontent.
The choice of candidates will be interesting, but there is still a long way to go.