Initial Thoughts On 2010 Election Results

Well, we know most of this year’s election results. Some of those results are good and some aren’t so good. Here are some initial thoughts I have this morning.

Governor
John Hickenlooper is our next Governor, despite running a fairly lackluster campaign and never really developing an image. My hope is Hick doesn’t take his base for granted in the same way that, unfortunately, Gov. Ritter did. But just as was the case for President Obama, one of the most overlooked aspects of executives is who they put into power around them. I don’t think enough of Obama’s economic advisers have average Americans’ best interests in mind. I don’t have any idea of who Hickenlooper will put into place around him, but those personnel choices will be critical in the kind of governing he will do. I’ll talk more about him as I bring up other races below.

Blue Dogs
Rep. John Salazar was beat by his last opponent, Scott Tipton. Salazar was an alright Dem based on his overall voting pattern, but he did vote against key legislative items (global warming bill being the largest in my mind). More importantly, he chose to publicly rebuke his party. Overall, I’m not going to miss him very much.

Rep. Betsy Markey lost by a wide margin last night. This is a Dem Rep. I will miss, association with the Blue Dog caucus notwithstanding. Contrary to Salazar, she actually voted to do something about global warming and more importantly, she decided to show some real courage by defending her vote. She took the time to explain to her CO-04 constituents why that vote, and others she took, were important to them. The right-wing Denver Post editorial board took her to task for being “too liberal for her district”. I won’t hold my breath waiting for them to take Cory Gardner to task for being “too conservative for his district”. This seat was high on the Republican Teabagger hit list and could be characterized as a lost cause in a right-wing wave election. Hopefully a Democratic wave election hits again soon.

CO-07
Rep. Perlmutter won re-election, which I find interesting. The 7th is a district that is up for grabs and the fact that he held his seat in a wave election speaks volumes about his campaign effort.

TABOR Measures
Thankfully, 60, 61, and 101 lost big time – between 2:1 and 3:1. In context of the other races, this means a lot of Unaffiliateds and Republicans voted against the measures along with Democrats. These measures would have destroyed Colorado’s economy. We at least have a chance to still save most of it, if we’re willing to have honest discussions about the importance of investing in ourselves and our state.

Tidbits From the Blogosphere

Sometimes, others say what you wanted to, but oh so much better than you could.  Here are some of those from today.

From Hunter, who dishes out the best smackdowns around (emphasis mine):

A very large chunk of our greatest-deliberative-body Democrats don’t want to pass healthcare reform, they want to kill it. Our leadership, frankly, doesn’t seem to give a rat’s ass either way, and all parties involved think we have the intelligence of doorstops, but I think what we would all really, really like most of all, in this ongoing and thoroughly asinine “debate”, is if this vaunted national leadership of ours would quit trying to blow smoke up our ass and tell us we’re hickory-smoked.

Fine, we get it, senators: you’re corporate whores, money-grubbing professional campaigners who don’t have the slightest interest in actually solving this problem. You seek any avenue to avoid the obvious, most cost-effective option, the one that will insure the most people and do the most to control costs, itself a mealy compromise offered to avoid plans that would work even better — but which none of the offending companies offering up their opinions and lobbyists for this debate would possibly tolerate.

I would add that they don’t have much, if any interest, in solving any problem that faces Americans.  The only problem they see: getting re-elected.

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From math4barack, an admonition against the CorporateDem Blue Dogs, who only care about debt and deficits when their party proposes spending money.  Record debt was recorded under the last “administration” and they spoke nary a peep about it.  Republicans since St. Ronnie have deliberately run up the debt in the hope that programs created by Democrats and loved by the rest of America are cut from the budget.  The hypocritical Blue Dogs should switch parties and save everybody from the grief they cause.

Will Progressives Hold Blue Dogs Accountable?

There are early signs that progressives are truly fed up with being treated like free piggy banks to the Blue Dogs.  There are two articles that indicate things could be shifting under the Blue Dogs’ feet.

Up front, h/t to PaulVA at Daily Kos.

The first comes from the union side of things.  The Sheet Metal Workers International Association is the first union to have suspended all campaign donations to every Democratic candidate until the Employee Free Choice Act and true health care reform have been passed.  Now that’s letting the money talk!  Further, AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Richard Trumka puts a shot right across the ConservaDems’ bow:

And then there’s that other group: those fair weather friends who can’t seem to decide which side they’re on. I’m talking about politicians who love to have our help come election time, but, always seem to forget us after the votes are counted.

He continues with language that allows for no misunderstanding:

we need to send them a special message: it’s that you may have forgotten what the labor movement did to get you elected; but, by God, we never will! And if you stab us in the back on health care this year don’t you dare ask us for our support next year!

PaulVA points out that labor has contributed more in this cycle than the health care industry, financial services or any other interest group to the Blue Dogs.  More importantly, labor supporters have provided the greatest difference in field operations for Democrats than any other group for a long, long time.  These ConservaDems, by and large, represent relatively right-leaning districts.  If the troops don’t show up in 2010, it will be much, much harder for these clowns to win their re-election campaigns.

Rep. Salazar is one of the folks, representing CO-03.  If substantial numbers of real Democrats don’t show up, Rep. Salazar, do you think you can power yourself to victory?  Will you really take the chance to find out?

Sen. Thune (R-SD) Obviously In Support Of Abortions; Blue Dogs Get Called Out

Some choice snippets from Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment last night:

We can accomplish health care reform while keeping patients and their doctors in charge, not bureaucrats and politicians.  – Sen John Thune (R-SD) , recipient of $1,206,176 from health sector in campaign contributions on 8/1/09).

Wow, Senator, this illustrates how desperate you and the other Republicans are, right? Because Senator Thune, if you really think “bureaucrats and politicians” need to get out of the way of “patients and their doctors,” then you support a woman patient’s right to get an abortion. And you supported Michael Schiavo’s right to take his wife off life support. And you oppose “bureaucrats and politicians” getting in the way. And we’ll just mark you down on the pro-choice list.  That’s a rare mis-step for you, Sen. Thune. – K.O. Special Comment 8/3/09.

I’ve made this point before, so it’s nice to see someone of Olbermann’s stature reach the same logical conclusion.  If the corporate media weren’t corporate, they would report on the mental gymnastics the Cons have to play to arrive at different conclusions on similar situations.  Unfortunately, it’s left to an outstanding host of a digital cable show – thereby minimizing the potential watching audience.

And so, I’ll do my tiny part to push the video to folks who might not otherwise see it.  No matter what your worldview or political affiliation, click on that link to see K.O.’s video segment.  A number of Republicans and Democrats get absolutely and appropriately skewered for their immoral acceptance of millions of dollars in campaign contributions to ensure thousands of Americans continue to die so corporations can profit just a little bit more.

Here’s another one:

John Tanner of TN (D-08) : You’ve taken $215K from hospitals; if I and an appropriate number of my friends were to put together $216K, if we could buy his vote or would there still have to be an auction?

I’ve wondered this myself.  And yet somehow, these politicians have the audacity to act offended when you pose this question to them to their face.  They’re simply shocked someone is calling them out on their actions.  Because, as we all know, their acceptance of campaign contributions hasn’t plateaued or slowed down … ever.  So save your pathetic reaction, politicians of all stripes.  I double-d0g dare you to kill health care reform this year.  Because you’ll be out of Congress next year, I guarantee you that.