Aftermath: The best and worst of The Wave
posted at 12:55 pm on November 3, 2010 by Ed Morrissey
Just a few personal leftover musings from a historic night ….
First off, I always have fun on Election Night, regardless of outcome, because it always reminds me of how blessed we are to have a stable electoral system that (nearly) always reflects the will of the electorate. No one who sat through the 2006 and 2008 campaigns could seriously doubt that the electorate intended to deliver a spanking to the GOP and succeeded in doing so. The same holds for last night, in the reverse.
However, I’d be lying if I said that 2006 and 2008 were anywhere near as enjoyable as last night, for obvious reasons, and especially 2006. On that night when Democrats took over both chambers of Congress, I took part in a CNN blogger special at a coffee house in DC filled with bloggers from across the political spectrum. We had a great time hanging out with each other, and most of them were gracious in victory, but getting hit with a major loss while on national TV isn’t the most pleasant feeling in the world. Watching your party take control of your state legislature from the confines of GOP HQ? Better.
That doesn’t mean it was a perfect night, though. We had some disappointments along with some pleasant surprises in what was a banner night for Republicans nationwide. Here are my nominations for the best — and worst — of the 2010 Wave.
SENATE
- Biggest nailbiter – Pennsylvania. While Illinois looked better than the first numbers showed, because much of it came out of Chicago, I couldn’t get a handle at all on Pat Toomey’s eventual narrow victory over Joe Sestak. It looked as though it was slipping away late into the count, but Toomey’s districts finally arrived to carry him over the top. I believe I actually said, “Whew!” when media outlets began calling it for Toomey.
- Biggest victory – Mark Kirk beats Alexi Giannoulias in Illinois. Not only does Kirk take the seat immediately to fill out the remaining term left on interim Senator Roland Burris’ term, but Kirk takes the seat that propelled Barack Obama to the presidency.
- Most disappointing – Nevada. I was prepared to lose California and Connecticut as the states are blue anyway, but Republicans had a good shot at winning Nevada. Reid has lost popularity in the state, and his son went down to a humiliating defeat at the top of the ticket for governor. Even after the networks called it, I was asking everyone whether the numbers looked right to them.
- The Here We Go Again Award – Washington, where Dino Rossi may wind up in yet another recount in what we knew was a close, close race.
HOUSE
- The Schadenfreude Award/Most Satisfying – Alan Grayson gets an 18-point walloping after one of the sleaziest campaigns ever. Congratulations to Dan Webster.
- Biggest victory – I’d call this a tie between SC-05 and VA-05, with perhaps a little MO-04 thrown in as well. Tom Perriello’s defeat in Virginia came after a high-profile intervention by Barack Obama which reinforced the national-referendum aspect of the midterms. In terms of impact in the House, though, the loss of two major chairs by the Democrats is a hard slap across the face. Ike Skelton (MO) chairs the Armed Services Committee and John Spratt (SC) the Budget Committee — you know, the one that failed to produce a budget despite a 77-seat majority in the House. Democratic leadership just took a big kick in the teeth.
- Biggest victory (personal) – I have gotten to know a few of the candidates over the past month, and I’m thrilled to see Renee Ellmers (NC-02) and Chip Cravaack (MN-08) win upsets over entrenched incumbents. Ellmers ran against Bob Etheridge, who attained YouTube immortality for putting a cameraman in a headlock while demanding, “Who are you?” Oberstar gets to live in a district he has only visited over the last 50 years … finally.’
- The Comet Kohoutek Award for Least-Deserving Hype over Competitiveness – I’ll give this one to MN-06, where Democrats poured money while explaining that Michele Bachmann was vulnerable in this election cycle. They even sent Bill Clinton into the district more than once to campaign for Tarryl Clark. Bachmann just barely managed to get by … by thirteen points. Clark didn’t even get to 40%.
- Biggest disappointment - Thankfully, we didn’t have many of these. If I had to pick one, I’d say NY-22′s decision to stick with Maurice Hinchey after he assaulted a reporter, demanded the nationalization of the oil industry, and opposed the natural-gas industry was one of the most bizarre.
- Biggest disappointment (Minnesota edition) – Teresa Collett ran a note-perfect campaign in MN-04 against an incumbent who told voters that “al-Qaeda no longer poses a threat to the United States” eight days before al-Qaeda launched a parcel-bomb attack against our cargo systems. The D+13 district gave Betty McCollum a 24-point win over Teresa, who clearly deserved much better. Too bad the same can’t be said of St. Paul voters.
MISCELLANY
- Best news no one was watching – The GOP wins in gubernatorial and state legislature elections positions the party for a decade of ascendance.
- Best web tools on Election Night – Thanks to very spotty internet connections at the GOP HQ last night, I had to be very particular about what sites I used to update my data. It may be anathema to write this, but the New York Times had the best tools to follow the races without question. Easier to load than most, the graphical displays and roll-over data made it easy to keep up with fast-changing results, and their updates appeared constant.
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A Santa Clause? As in the Tim Allen movie?
Ward Cleaver on May 17, 2013 at 7:28 PM
Terry Mac is a stooge in so many ways, his energy stance is only one of them.
Don’t pull a Minnesota, you Virginians, just don’t. They’re planning a massive tax increase for us this year and we don’t have oil to cushion the blow.
Bishop on May 17, 2013 at 7:30 PM
but he’s such a dedicated public servant. he even left his wife in labor to attend a political fundraiser. /
Lost in Jersey on May 17, 2013 at 7:36 PM
Four comments or bust.
viking01 on May 17, 2013 at 7:50 PM
If we elect Terry we are done. Cuccinelli is the real deal, but these morons in NoVa will probably screw it up.
La Troienne on May 17, 2013 at 7:57 PM
McAuliffe is an awful choice but I’ve got to say that one of the Dems running for LT Gov is even more intriguing. He’s actually running as a proud former member of the Obama administration. Can’t let the stupid women that vote with their private parts and all the illegals that are on the commonwealth’s rolls forget just who cares about the 2012 elections
Happy Nomad on May 17, 2013 at 8:30 PM
Could Virginia voters be any more stupid than Minnesota voters….
crosshugger on May 17, 2013 at 8:34 PM
I’ll never vote for that apostate Terry.
Spade on May 17, 2013 at 8:36 PM
The local free papers around Charlottesville are promoting MacAwful pretty shamelessly. And the local news has been constantly running negative stories about McDonnell even though he’s been a neutral to slightly popular governor.
stefanite on May 17, 2013 at 8:56 PM
There is another (earlier) election in Virginia that is just about as important. Special election on August 6 to replace outgoing State Senator Blevins (R). The senate is currently tied 20-20, with tying vote going to the lt. gov. There are about a half dozen people running for the lt gov nomination, all claiming they will side with conservatives on the tie. But it won’t matter if the Republicans lose the special election on August 6. Expect a flood of liberal interest money to pour into the 14th district this summer.
My oldest (18-year-old) has been working on the Cuccinelli campaign. We’ve suggested he switch over to the Cosgrove campaign for the summer.
CJ on May 17, 2013 at 9:03 PM
I took a few liberties with your sentence. The LIV didn’t do their homework and reelected Obama. I have no sympathy for any of them.
TulsAmerican on May 17, 2013 at 9:43 PM
There’s a more important reason we need to elect Republicans at every level at this point. We need to remove activist partisans from appointed positions and begin a process of removing them from hired positions through attrition. What we are seeing with the IRS and other scandals are not a reflection of Barack Obama and his administration, they are a reflection of what Democrats have become more generally. This is a systemic problem within the Democratic Party and they must be purged at all levels; federal, state, and local.
crosspatch on May 17, 2013 at 9:53 PM
The “low information voter” concept is a canard to excuse the fact that the conservative movement and the GOPe fail at messaging. I’m not using that crutch again.
Myron Falwell on May 17, 2013 at 10:07 PM
McAuliffe is a uberdouche.
Hopefully my fellow Virginians will work that out. We did in 2009, we can do it again.
22044 on May 17, 2013 at 10:30 PM
would’ve been better if he said ‘Sanity Clause’, as in the Marx Brothers.
Fenris on May 17, 2013 at 10:49 PM
Hmmmmm…. Let’s see.
A republican Governor, Lt. Governor and attorney general and Eric Cantor.
Versus Al Franken.
You tell me.
BacaDog on May 17, 2013 at 11:21 PM
If we elect Terry Mac I’ll have to move again dammit. I already fled one Dem controlled state (MD) and I only have a year left on my degree now.
SgtSVJones on May 17, 2013 at 11:34 PM
cough, ahem.
S. D. on May 18, 2013 at 2:48 AM
Not all of us are morons up here.
zoyclem on May 18, 2013 at 6:40 AM
“Terry McAuliffe is nobody’s friend. If Terry McAuliffe were an ice cream flavor, he’d be Jamocha almond idiot.”
BigGator5 on May 18, 2013 at 8:35 AM
He is one of the consummate liars we see from the left quite frequently. Susan Rice, Stephanie Cutter, Bill Burton, Joe Lockhart, Jay Carney – they can all look you in the eye and not even flinch when lying.
I will say this though, Terry is dedicated. Nothing will stand in his way of political gamesmanship and fleecing the taxpayers. He’ll even drop his wife off at the hospital to have one of their children while he attends a political fundraiser. What more could a left winger ask?
iamsaved on May 18, 2013 at 8:36 AM
Hey, give Virginia a break. Hundreds of thousands of liberals from primarily the Northeast and from other left wing bastions have been flocking to Northern Virginia as political appointees, government contractors, and federal bureaucrats sucking up tax dollars at the government trough.
Rick Perry, the Texas Governor, better be careful inviting all those companies to come to Texas for a “better” life. The liberals will leave the dung hills they’ve created on the Left Coasts and turn Texas blue.
iamsaved on May 18, 2013 at 8:42 AM
I voted for Governor McDonnell, but I’ve been saying “anybody but Cuccinelli” for years, ever since it was first rumored that he might run. I was hoping to get the chance to vote against him in a Republican primary. Cuccinelli is as Christian as John Ashcroft and as willing to use his office for political gain as Barack Obama. Neither of those facts bode well for freedom in Virginia.
Also, it should be pointed out that, at the state level, the political parties have different divisions than they do at the national level. Here in Virginia, for instance, the Republican Party supports taxing northern Virginia to build roads in southern Virginia, while the Democratic Party supports the opposite. Given that NoVA already pays more in taxes than the rest of the State, and given that traffic in NoVA is far worse than anywhere else, voting for Democrats every once in a while is a necessity. And the Republicans have only themselves to blame for letting their share of Richmond become corrupt.
hicsuget on May 18, 2013 at 9:05 AM
No one to blame but yourselves? Seems we had the same to blame in the election last year. But many did not have the benefit of articles like this one where the press had, and failed, its obligation to bring the American people the truth of what was going on. The press had the where-with-all to dig into the IRS, and Benghazi and absolutely failed. The American people, it turns out, don’t pay much attention but more might have if given the chance which was absent. AP is the one area where the press should have learned its lesson that these politicians can not be trusted. Politicians with a desire to destroy this country are even more of a reason the press should be interested in doing its job. That is the premise that all should consider when they think about the current brand of politician and deal accordingly. The question that gnaws at lot of us now is: are the press so liberal and so ideological that they want to destroy our country also?
Pardonme on May 18, 2013 at 9:20 AM
Explain how state taxation in NoVA is higher than down South? What tax do they pay that I don’t?
Oldnuke on May 18, 2013 at 9:37 AM
You’re absolutely right about the traffic. Haven’t been North of the Rappahannock in years. I understand that the Springfield mixing bowl is still a mess even after all the ‘Improvements’.
Oldnuke on May 18, 2013 at 9:40 AM
Terry McAuliffe is Terry McAuliffe’s best friend, and that’s as far as it will ever go.
SomeCallMeJohn on May 18, 2013 at 9:43 AM
Only if you despise the Republic and believe Obeyme and other liars are worthy of your worship.
oldleprechaun on May 18, 2013 at 9:45 AM
You’re either an idiot or you didn’t read what I wrote. (Or both–I guess they’re not mutually-exclusive alternatives.) You seem, in particular, to have missed that I said I am opposed to Cuccinelli in part because he is too much like Obama.
I vote for Democrats only often enough to keep Republicans honest, and usually only at the state and local levels. If more people voted against their preferred party when their party nominated a dunce or a scoundrel or a fascist, our Republic would be in much better shape.
hicsuget on May 18, 2013 at 10:01 AM
And Cuccinelli is none of those. Either do some more research, or take your stupidity elsewhere.
22044 on May 18, 2013 at 10:38 AM
I imagine the Virginia gubernatorial election is going to come down to whether Cucinelli can avoid saying something really stupid in the next few months. If he follows in the footsteps of Angle, Akin and Mourdock, McAuliffe becomes Governor. Otherwise, he keeps his lead until election day.
Mister Mets on May 18, 2013 at 10:50 AM
He’s known as a disciplined campaigner. Before he was AG, he was a state representative in a district that is more D.
Ron Johnson, Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, & others were both conservatives and good candidates, hopefully Ken gets added to that list.
The evil media will throw squirrels at him, though – hoping to get him off-track.
22044 on May 18, 2013 at 11:05 AM
Or, closer to home, George Allen.
I wasn’t implying he was all three–dunce and scoundrel in particular are difficult to achieve in one person. I was instead speaking broadly about the need to support the other party when your party nominates a dud. Such an action is a boon, not only to the Commonwealth, but also to the long-term health of your own preferred party. Federalist No. 10 is useful here.
hicsuget on May 18, 2013 at 11:20 AM
You’re full of it. NoVa is NOT overtaxed. And the roads there are NOT worse than elsewhere in the state. I have driven the length and breadth of Virginia in the last dozen years, and a vast chunk of revenue to Richmond comes from Hampton Roads, and very little of it returns to there. It mostly goes to Northern Virginia to keep all the national teat sucklers happy.
Absolutely correct. The only reason the roads need so much money in NoVa is because there are 8 lanes worth of traffic flowing into DC and its environs every dang day.
Yes, that is true.
GWB on May 18, 2013 at 11:36 AM
While I disagree with almost everything hicsuget wrote I have to give him a little due here. He didn’t say the roads in NoVA are worse than the rest of the state he said traffic is worse. I’m pretty sure he’s right about that for reasons
pointed out. In addition all those liberal government teat-sucking imports don’t live in the district. A lot of them don’t even live in NoVA they commute from out in the hinterlands making a bad traffic situation even worse.
Oldnuke on May 18, 2013 at 12:34 PM
I used to drive that area every day many years ago. Basically the reason for it was the way the road grid was laid out. The roads were at that time like spokes of a wheel radiating outward from Arlington. If you lived in Springfield and worked in Herndon, lets say, you had to drive IN to the Beltway, go around the beltway to get your “spoke” going out. This means that the traffic on the spokes is carrying all North/South traffic as well as East/West traffic. A “Springfield Bypass” had been in the planning stages for decades at that time but none of the communities wanted it cutting through their neighborhood. And from my glance at a map just now, it doesn’t look like anything resembling what was envisioned then has been built even today. So if you live in Lorton or Woodbridge and work in Reston, you still have to go in, around, and out. The notion of an expressway that went from Springfied or Newington across the county to Fairfax and Reston doesn’t seem to have ever materialized.
Bottom line is the best of government planning can not do a bit of good if the people who live in the area keep making it impossible to do. This expressway was being actively discussed 30 years ago and had already been in the planning stages for nearly 20 years at that time. Once the town of Burke Centre was created and populated, that was pretty much the end of the discussion. The people Burke have fought every single development effort since the 1950′s. That is also where Dulles Airport was originally going to be, but they fought that, too, so it was built way out in Chantilly.
Basically, if you don’t like the traffic in NoVa, blame Burke.
crosspatch on May 18, 2013 at 1:20 PM
Heh, I think you split the quote there. I don’t want to take credit for iamsaved’s “Hundreds of thousands of liberals…”.
I will stand corrected on the difference between “traffic” and “roads”, though I don’t know why you need money “because of traffic” if you’re not spending it on roads. So, I’ll repeat what I said in the middle of that rant:
Whereas, the roads in Hampton Roads have some real problems. And not as much money (though this might have changed in the last two years) dedicated to them as NoVa.
GWB on May 18, 2013 at 1:39 PM
Yeah, right. And just when in recent memory has a Democrat done anything at all to improve traffic conditions?
zoyclem on May 18, 2013 at 1:43 PM
The teat suckers who work for agencies like HUD live mostly in Maryland. Us NoVA folks work mostly for DoD. Freedom isn’t free.
It is true that we pay taxes at the same rates as the rest of the State. However, we make a lot more money than the rest of the State, so we end up in higher tax brackets and make an outsized contribution to the coffers. Some might find it ironic that, in Virginia at least, the Republican Party represents the looters and the Democrat Party represents the producers.
hicsuget on May 18, 2013 at 2:34 PM
Off the taxpayer’s dime. Somehow I don’t think that endears you to the rest of us on April 15th. And, you get paid a lot of those higher rates because of a self-perpetuating cycle of “cost-of-living adjustments” that inflate your pay, which drives up the costs more, which further inflates your pay, etc….
As to the Democrats not being the looters? You probably need to look around at all those folks living in NoVa who work in DC. Awful lot of Dems in that demographic. Hmmm, let’s see…. Looks like 8 out of 12 counties near DC went >+10 for Obama in 2012, while the entire state went just +3. Hmmmmmmm. No, working in DC doesn’t make you automatically a looter, but it sure doesn’t give you the benefit of the doubt.
GWB on May 18, 2013 at 3:18 PM
If Cuccinelli is “like Obama” could you please back that statement with facts? And if you vote for Marxists to “keep Republicans honest” you’re helping them pack local and state boards and courts with other Marxists. Once they are able to pack local courts with far-left judges, guess where those judges go. Federal courts. But then it’s tough to figure that out when you’re an idiot.
oldleprechaun on May 18, 2013 at 4:29 PM