The one man we can blame or thank for putting the Democrats in control of the United State Senate is...Stan Jones?
From the go-figure file, we find some pretty persuasive evidence that Jones was the spoiler in the Montana Burns/Tester Senate race, which went down to the wire. (Republican Sen. Conrad Burns held out for three days before conceding.) It's enough to make you rifle through your pocket copy of the Constitution, have a drunken conversation with your portrait of Abe Lincoln, look up to the heavens, and ask: "Stan Who?"
But of course, you know Stan Jones by his real name, which is That Blue Guy. He's the Treasure State's frequent Libertarian Party candidate who a few years ago, in one fell swig of colloidal silver, turned himself a becoming shade of aquamarine and destroyed whatever (very slim) chance the LP had of ever being anything except the butt of many jokes. (Look up "argyria" for more on Jones' pre-Y2K experiments with silver-laced elixirs.) But as Brian Doherty explains in the D.C. Examiner, even the bluesers get lucky sometimes:
The GOP's post-mortem also includes the realization that libertarians, a group they always assume will vote for them, cost them control of the United States Senate.
Montana's incumbent Republican Sen. Conrad Burns lost to Democrat Jon Tester by more than 2,500 votes. Stan Jones, the Libertarian Party candidate, whose claim to fame is his Star Trek-like blue skin, earned 10,339 votes, four times the number of votes Burns needed to hold on.
Jones' skin is permanently blue-gray because he drank too much colloidal silver thinking it would help prevent disease. Many pundits thought his presence in the Senate race was the perfect illustration of the complete irrelevance of third-party candidates in our two-party political system. Instead, he changed the outcome of the entire midterm elections...
The GOP can consider blaming libertarians in Missouri, as well. Incumbent Sen. Jim Talent lost to Democrat Claire McCaskill by 45,000 votes, with Libertarian Frank Gilmour receiving more than 47,000 votes.
Jones is living it up in his role as a spoiler, though he loathes Democratic Senator-elect Jon Tester. Republicans, meanwhile, are cursing Jones' name with all the passion Democrats used to damn Ralph Nader for "stealing" votes that, they believed, rightly belonged to Al Gore. To engage the spoiler concept too seriously is to give too much credence to this all-your-votes-are-belong-to-us mentality: Your vote is your own, and you can use it to support whatever candidate or send whatever message you choose. (LP thinkers can lecture you all day on how your vote actually says more if it stands out from the pack, but I'm never sure about that math.) More broadly, this demonstrates a split between the world views of third-party voters and major-party voters. Third-partiers tend to like divided government, enjoy saying no for its own sake, and disdain a whole range of good-government bromides that go unquestioned in the mainstream discussion. (When was the last time you heard a prominent politician suggest that bipartisanship, for example, might not always be a good thing?) Faced with the party loyalist's accusation that "You threw the election!" a third-partier is just as likely to turn blue with laughter.
The ballot filing deadlines have passed for next year's City Council election (less than 150 shopping days left!), and at least three of the seven Council members up for re-election -- Tom LaBonge, Wendy Greuel and Greig Smith -- will be running unopposed. (An eighth seat, for District 7, will have a special election to replace the departing Alex Padilla.) Is there no one in these fair districts who covet a U.S.-leading City Hall salary of $171,648, with all kinds of built-in raises and such?
You'd think that in a tumultuous electoral season, there'd be more political competition. But scandal-plagued House Republicans ran unopposed this year even in Southern California, so perhaps it should come as no surprise that City Council would have some races that are positively Castroesque, despite the better salary.
* Post updated with more accurate info.
In the interest of full disclosure, here's the wildly inaccurate prediction I made back in February about the outcome of the mid-terms. For months now, as the Republicans' doom has become increasingly apparent, I've been itching to change my bet that they would manage to hang on to both houses, but I figure the whole point of making bold predictions is to be gloriously right or spectacularly wrong. In this case it's also worth looking at how specifically I miscalculated: underrating Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), thinking the Democrats would need some semblance of a Contract With America, not allowing for the possibility that the GOP would lose the Senate as well, and so on. Since prophets are supposed to be blind or simple-minded or hermits or something, I'm just as happy not to be a reliable source of betting tips.
I'm still on with my Bill Richardson-at-the-top-of-the-Dem-08-ticket prophecy, however.
One highlight of last week's sack of the GOP is the emergence of Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) as the party's Aeneas. Small-government conservatives are angling to get control of the scattered Republican forces (and possibly defeat a House minority leadership bid by Ohio's get-along-go-along Rep. John Boehner). Toward that end, they're lining up behind principled conservatives like Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) and looking for particular energy from the Apache State—small-government conservatism's true home—in the form of Rep. John Shadegg and the always impolitic Flake.
Dig Flake's hilariously candid pre-election interview with my alma matter on the vexed question of why libertarians should have voted for the GOP. His answer: "If you believe in limited government, the Democrats don’t offer you very much... But having said that, there’s nothing we’ve done as Republicans that ought to make libertarians excited about our record." Asked whether the GOP has abandoned its small-government ideals: "Well, that’s the natural conclusion to draw." What could a Republican congress do to win pro-freedom votes? "At this late date? Adjournment." And have they learned the hard lessons? "Maybe the [Terri] Schiavo experience or the prescription drug deal or some of the other items have taught us a lesson. I can’t honestly say that they have."
Flake has also hit The Wall Street Journal's editorial page post-election, with a set of recommendations/lamentations about how the Republicans can get their groove back. His article is for subscribers only, but you can get the general gist through Sentence Fast-Forward®:
I was rummaging through my closet the other day when I came across an old T-shirt. Stamped across the front were the words "SCRAP THE CODE: The Armey-Tauzin Tax Reform Debates."...
What a difference a few years makes...
And we wonder why we were beaten like a rented mule on Tuesday?...
The factions of the party must decide: Are we going to re-emerge as the party of ideas—or be content as assistant hirelings of big government?...
"We've overspent, badly, and it was offensive to you as well as our conservative principles. We're sorry, and we're going to do better..."
In 2002, we repealed the Freedom to Farm Act and in its place installed the "Farm Security Act"—those who value the adage about trading freedom for security can pause and shudder here—with even more lavish subsidies...
On one point, I suspect even Flake is too optimistic. "[O]ur constituents need no convincing," he writes. "They know [excessive spending] is wrong." Even candid politicians need to dispense bromides about the wisdom of the electorate, but exit polling doesn't seem to have furnished evidence that Republican overspending was an issue for most voters. There was this pre-election CNN/Opinion Research poll indicating 54 percent of Americans believe the government is "trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses" and only 37 percent feel Uncle Sam "should do more to solve the country's problems." But this is the old My Parish Priest/My Kid's Teacher thing: Everybody agrees the institution is rotten to the core, but nobody sees their own little corner as being part of the institution. If Republicans in power act pretty much like Democrats, that's because nothing wins more friends than concentrated benefits with distributed costs. Start finding specific areas to reduce and you find spending cuts are as unlikely to pass the Dicky Flatt test as spending increases.
Aside from our post-mortem editorials on Bush, Schwarzenegger and the new Democratic Congress, and also our Garry South column on why the Angelides campaign went so horribly wrong ... what are some of the other local reactions? Let's check in:
* Joseph Mailander, who columnized for us against Measure H, celebrates with a blast of blogger triumphalism:
But really, the big winner this morning in town is: THE ANGELENO BLOGOSPHERE. (And how's that for self-promotion?) If you doubt it—check out what kind of morning the fishwraps are having. The Angeleno blogosphere was worked on R, but it worked H all on its own. With R, the blogosphere obligingly ferried the message of others, but with H, the blogosphere took its own message to readers both in cyberspace and print, and became a key component of the message itself.
The LA blogosphere is worth two to five points an election. That's not much, but it's two-to-five more than broadcast pundits and print-only scribes are worth. Tune into Shirley Bebitch if you must -- it might be relaxing, it might be safe, because she never says anything real on the air, anyway -- but bloggers educate, activate, and disseminate, and all that counts in close elections.
* "Councilman John" over at Mayor Sam dissects a disappointing evening for local Democrats, concluding:
So why did you lose locally Democrats? Because you deserved to.
* Gay Republican USC fanatic BoiFromTroy sees a path for the national GOP in the Golden State:
Looking at how the new Congress can move the nation forward, not backward, I suggest looking to what Governor Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez have done over the last year in California.
* At LAvoice.org, Mack Reed has some advice for Eric Garcetti and City Hall:
Make good on your promise that three-term incumbents can be effective rather than entrenched, that they can accomplish more if their second term is a middle term followed by a third. Ignore the lobbyists who benefit from your ill-labeled "reforms."
* The Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum pooh-poohs the notion of the president playing nice with the Democrats:
Bush's actions over the next few months will almost certainly be as combative as always. He just doesn't have anything else in him.
* Local conservative talk-show host Hugh Hewitt, who had apparently predicted the Republicans +3 in the House, starts the blame game:
The post-mortems are accumulating, but I think the obvious has to be stated: John McCain and his colleagues in the Gang of 14 cost the GOP its Senate majority while the conduct of a handful of corrupt House members gave that body's leadership the Democrats.
* The Huffington Post group weblog is mostly a Mardi-gras-style celebration zone (with headlines like "Paul Wolfowitz also needs to resign!" and "Sailing on a Deep Sea of Blue"), but Jayne Lyn Stahl sounds a sour note about the Left Coast:
As the governor has amply demonstrated his enthusiasm for using the National Guard to patrol the border between California and Mexico, despite the Feinstein victory in the Senate race, and the ascent of Nancy Pelosi to Speaker of the House, one can't help but think that we, in California, are still in Ronald Reagan country while the rest of the world is watching Bill Maher.
Could Republicans win four of seven statewide races? It's a possibility. Gov. Schwarzenegger, Insurance Commissioner-elect Steve Poizner are cruising to comfortable double-digit victories, as is Attorney General-elect Jerry Brown and Treasurer-elect Bill Lockyer (all four were endorsed by The Times). A fifth, Times-endorsed Democrat John Chiang, also seems headed to victory for controller.
The two remaining are up in the air as of press time. For Lt. Governor, widely seen as the most competitive of the statewide contests, Democrat (and Times-endorsed) John Garamendi was clinging to a 48.0%-46.6% lead over Republican Tom McClintock, with 59.4% of precincts reporting. And Democrat Debra Bowen was up by three-tenths a percent over Times-endorsed Republic Bruce McPherson for secretary of state.
So which votes haven't been counted? San Bernardino County hasn't reported any returns, nor has liberal Monterey and Santa Cruz. Conservative-leaning San Diego has only reported 39%, liberal Alameda is at 43%, and L.A. still needs to count more than half its votes.
The Times' editorial board is going 1 for 3 on ballot measures in the city of Los Angeles. Measure H, the $1 billion affordable housing bond we supported, is falling far short of its two-thirds requirement, with a 55% yes vote thus far. Measure R, which extends City Council term limits and introduces some lobbyist-reporting changes that we felt bypassed and undermined the city's Ethics Commission, has 60% and needs only 50.1%. Measure J, a technical adjustment about building fire stations on smaller lots, is sailing to passage, with 78%. Still, only 7 precincts of 1,799 have reported, according to the County Registrar.
Preliminary results from an L.A. Times exit poll show Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger leads Democrat Phil Angelides by a comfortable margin. The race between Democrat John Garamendi and Republican Tom McClintock for lieutenant governor is much tighter. In the race for attorney general, Democrat Jerry Brown also is leading Republican Chuck Poochigian in the preliminary results. [...] Two major initiatives — Proposition 86, the cigarette tax, and Proposition 87, the oil tax to pay for alternative fuels — were too close to call based on exit polling. The oil tax increase was doing slightly better than the cigarette tax increase. The absentee ballots were trending heavily in the "no" category for the initiatives, but poll voters were making the race tighter. The infrastructure bonds are doing well, all leading with healthy margins. Independent voters were trending heavily toward approving the bonds.
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