It's 3.30am GMT and bedtime. As predicted Rick Santorum has lost Pennsylvania - a terrible defeat for conservatives - one of three Democrat pick-ups (so far).
Republicans are still in with a chance of holding Virginia, Missouri, Tennessee and Montana. They need to hold three of that quartet to keep a slim majority in the Senate and my guess is that they will. If they only keep two of those seats it will be a 50-50 Senate and Republicans will be dependent upon the casting vote of the Vice President.
For all of the reasons identified yesterday - pork-barrelled projects and a failure to progress reform - the GOP probably deserve to lose control of the House but keeping a majority in the Senate will be crucial to one jewel in the tarnished crown of George W Bush's presidential legacy. That jewel is his legacy of judicial appointments. Judicial activism has seen liberals advance causes that they have been unable to deliver at the ballot box. Abortion rights are the stand out example of that activism. The appointments of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court have tilted the Court in a more conservative direction. The next two years may see another justice retire and President Bush's most important final act will be the man or woman he sends to the Senate for confirmation.
There'll be more posts later - one will focus on what else George W Bush might do with his final two years and another on what Democrats would do differently with regards to Iraq. In the meantime RealClearPolitics.com is the ideal place for the very latest election news.
I'm not sure that Santorum losing was a "terrible defeat for conservatives." Some of Santorum's views werebeyond the pale even for right wing Republicans and I think that the result in Penn was a triumph for tolerance and open mindedness.
Posted by: Disraeli | November 08, 2006 at 10:28 AM
Virginia is going to be won by Webb, unless Glenn demands a recount. If you look at the Virginia State Elections Website (http://sbe.virginiainteractive.org/) you can calculate that there are only around 3784 votes left to be counted, and Webb is leading Glenn by 7146 votes...
I can't find the equivalent page for Montana yet...
P.S Why no HTML on this blog Tim?
Posted by: Chris | November 08, 2006 at 02:40 PM
Ok, just realised I read the page wrong, which doesn't actually specify total votes AND counted votes. However I'm watching CNN who are reporting that there are only a maximum of 400 ballots left to count. Voting officials have also been found to have possibly wrongly attributed 2000 votes to Webb, and they are being reviewed as we speak.
Posted by: Chris | November 08, 2006 at 04:04 PM
Rick Santorum is not a conservative; he's a dangerous fundamentalist. Conservatives should be trying to defend America's historic freedoms, rather than trying to restrict what consenting adults can get up to in the bedroom.
Posted by: CDM | November 08, 2006 at 04:33 PM
Politically, Rove aimed for a far-reaching realignment of American politics, designed to entrench republican hegemony for a generation. All he succeeded in doing was losing the House and possibly the senate for the first time in 12 years. His over reliance on wedge issues has reduced the once grand GOP coalition to a narrow ideological rump.
On the world stage, the attempt to circumvent the rules-based system of global governance in the run up to the Iraq war has left American power more widely distrusted and America more isolated than ever, her enemies emboldened and the alliance system in tatters.
And don't get me started on the pork-barrel buffet or the trillion dollar deficit.... call that what you want, but it isn't conservatism.
Unless and until the pragmatic, centrist tradition in the Republican party asserts itself, removes this malignant ideological growth and returns the GOP to its best traditions, the broader conservative agenda of sound finance, small government and low taxes will remain a chimera.
Posted by: Scott Green | November 08, 2006 at 05:28 PM
Democrats have taken Virginia according to AP and Reuters. Game, set match to the Democrats I'm afraid by the looks of it. A Spokesperson close to Allen has said that the senator is not intending to drag this out, and therefore will most likely not be challenging the result. (http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/11/08/election.main/index.html)
Posted by: Chris | November 09, 2006 at 02:49 AM
When it comes to American politics I'm less of a geek than many people I know. I don't have every single episode of The West Wing on DVD, but then again my twin brother does.
There's a certain flight from reality here, I fear. So far President Bush has used his veto only once, and that was against a Bill to chop up unborn babies and turn them into medicine. And the most damaging scandal to hit the Republicans in the House recently was over their complicity in the predations of Rep Mark Foley on teenage boys.
In places where baby-killing, boy-molesting pseuds are running against pro-gun, pro-Bible "Blue Dog" Democrats, the Republicans were bound to do badly. I don't despair of them yet, to be honest, because John McCain is now in with a very real chance in 2008 --and by then Nancy Pelosi will have reminded most Americans of various reasons why they don't want a screaming mad leftwing bitch like Hillary to be the most powerful person on the planet (again!).
To try to scapegoat Rick Santorum is short-sighted, and says more about the ideals (and morals) of his attackers than about political realities in the modern USA.
Posted by: Oliver McCarthy | November 09, 2006 at 11:40 AM