The Hound Of Ulster

His name is Robert GATES. He was the President of Texas A & M until this morning - though he plans to stay on there until he is approved. He is also a Bush 41-ite. I have no idea if he’s any good. (Yes, I know Wikipedia is not a great source for accurate info. But I posted that partially so people could see just how rapidly and thoroughly Mr. Gates’ entry had been updated. But HERE is a non-Wiki source, for those of you that are still uncomfortable.)

Lowry likes the MOVE, but gets very little Corner support. Most people seem upset about the timing, though I tend to side with Lowry. No particular reason to allow Rummy to serve as the punching bag for the coming months of Dem leadership. Seems like a strong (and compassionate) move.

York THINKS the Dems need to hold fire on this one.

Democrats are already circulating accounts of Robert Gates and Iran-contra. If there is a Chairman Levin, he will probably have a few questions. In fact, the Gates confirmation hearings will be an early test for Senate Democrats. They will undoubtedly realize that they need to suppress their desire to take an early scalp lest they face accusations of trying to undermine the troops and the war effort. But they’ll be conflicted.

Should be “interesting.” (Oh, and the “Is John Bolton Next” headline on Drudge freaked me out. It’s probably right, of course. But I want to avoid thinking about the UN implications of last night, for the moment. Can only take so much of this at one time.)

Well. That was my first real experience with political defeat. in the 10+ years that I’ve been a member of the voting public, I’ve always come out ahead. Haven’t always gotten what I wanted, but I’ve always been more pleased than displeased. Until last night.

That was unpleasant.

All the late numbers broke the Dems’ way, it would seem - except for Burns, and that didn’t break enough our direction to save anyone or anything. The defeat was very thorough and quite spectacular.

Yet I find myself fairly upbeat. And I find myself at a bit of a loss as to why. Resignation set in fairly early last night, so that might have something to do with it. As does the fact that I have absolutely no idea how this will actually play out over the next several years. I’m sure the political impact will be drastic, but I don’t know what it is. So my ignorance of the upcoming fight makes me more optimistic than I might be if I knew.

But mostly I’m upbeat because what happened last night seemed perfectly fair.

There will be a great deal of talk about how yesterday’s results are a referendum on the war in Iraq. Reid is going full-bore on that matter already, and I shudder to think how quickly the Dem-controlled Congress could turn this war into something that resembles Vietnam in many more ways than it does now.

Still, the facts seem to speak otherwise. If this were all about Iraq, Lamont would have won. It’s hard to imagine a more drastic example of war vs. non-war than the CT race. And Lieberman won fairly handily.

Plus, Lincoln Chafee ran actively as an anti-war Republican incumbent, and got thrashed. So I can’t convince myself that this is “all about Iraq.”

Another sure-fire “analysis” that is bound to crop up is the “mandate against Redstate radical social conservatives” one. Looking at the SD abortion ban loss, the Terrible Two victory, and California’s notification defeat would led some strength to that claim.

But what should we do with all the marriage definition victories, then? Can’t get much more radical Redstate socially conservative than that, can we?

So, I don’t think it was all about tolerant liberalism. And I don’t even think it was really all about Bush.

What do I think it was about?

Well, there was actually someone in the country with a lower approval rating than the President. Everyone seems to ignore that fact, but it’s a fact none the less. Much is made of Bush’s nearly constant existence in the mid-to-high-30’s, and I’m perfectly willing to concede that those numbers are almost shockingly low. But The United States Senate would be thrilled to have ‘em.

Yep, that’s right. The Senate hangs out in the 20’s, with occasional excursions into the low 30’s.

Maybe these Republican senators (and former senators) should take a second to examine their own role in yesterday’s “little” debacle. Maybe they can spend a little time thinking about the old saying that much is expected from those to whom much is given.

The GOP has been given a long stretch of fairly unimpeded power. And the results have been disappointing, at best. True, some good things have been done. I look at the Supreme Court and I see Justices Roberts and Alito. So it’s certainly not fair to call their time in the driver’s seat a total loss. Plus, there’s always the fact that some of those folks do not deserve to be painted with the same brush as the others. (The Santorum loss stings. And I suspect it will sting for the next six years, if not longer.)

But the Senate as a whole did very little of what they were elected to do, and spent a great deal of time doing exactly what the American public hates in their politicians. The pork-infested, corruption-riddled cronyism of these guys makes yesterday’s defeat understandable, if not easy.

And no, it’s not easy. It’s very hard. As a friend of mine mentioned, the thing that is most troubling about this setback is that it comes at the expense of some really good candidates. Steele, for example. And Santorum. And McClintock. And any number of lesser knowns.

But I can’t help feeling that a time away from power might be exactly what we need. And perhaps more importantly, exactly what we deserve. A general honing of our political message and our political principles appears to be in order. That’s never an easy time, and this particular lesson comes at a tricky historical juncture. But I think it might be for the best.

Fr. Fox would be proud of me.

Remember that section from the Charlie Brown baseball film? The one where Linus looks at the team they’re facing and say: “Disaster time. We’re doomed.”

Well, that’s what I feel like.

This NBC headline made my heart drop.

Democrat McCaskill claims victory over Sen. Talent in Missouri

And given the 40,000 lead she has at the moment, with 88% reporting, it’s hard to argue with her. The night has taken a turn even further to the worse than I would have thought possible.

The Two is now up by 2%. Same folks voting for both, it would appear.

It would also appear that the pundits and leftists were not as wrong as I would have liked to think. Time to come to grips with that chilling thought.

I wonder if Stevens can hang on for another 2 years.

(And HERE is something important to remember. )

Spinning a bit more drastically now.

CNN and CBS both have the House in the “21-24 Dem Pickup” range, but that’s really just making a bad situation worse.

The really bad stuff is in Virginia and Missouri.

Allen’s trek from 97% of VA reporting to 99% reporting moved him from several thousand votes ahead of Webb to several thousand behind.

But even that isn’t as bad as the Missouri news. Talent has dropped behind McCaskill, with something around 70% reporting.

Or is that right? Now I’m getting conflicting numbers.

Captain Ed says this:

12:43 - And we didn’t need this news, but Talent just dropped a thousand votes behind McCaskill in Missouri. That might lose us control of the Senate … very bad news.

Drudge still has him with a 40K lead.

But NBC’s state-by-state breakdown has him down over 14,000. What’s going on here?

My heart can’t take much more of this.

Looks like Corker has won, though. So that takes a bit of pressure off things. Time to start watching Montana. (Or not, as the case may be. That’s not looking promising at all.)

Oh, and now Drudge fixed it.  Down 14K.  And The Two is losing by the smallest of margins.

Starting to feel a bit more blood-bathish.

Captain Ed doesn’t see a rout.

10:19 - Still no indication of a ‘wave”. CNN has its count up for the overall gain/loss, and it only shows the GOP down 3 so far. We still have half the country to see, but so far it’s not a bloodbath.

DeWine, Chafee and Santorum are all gone. I’m pretty sad about one of those, and borderline happy about the other two. I don’t want it to cost us the Senate, but I’m all for having RhINO’s struggle. And Chafee is the worst RhINO around.

I find myself very interested in Missouri and Maryland. Here’s The Captain on those two races:

10:10 - Fox is calling Missouri for Talent, and I believe they called Tennessee for Corker as well. It’s looking like the GOP will hold the Senate.

10:25 - Jim Talent is stretching his lead in Missouri. He’s up ten points and 37,000 votes with 25% of the precincts counted. It’s a fairly surprising result, although it appears that Amendment 2 pulled conservatives to the polls to defeat it.

10:43 - Allen’s still up by 27K with 94% counted, and back up to 50%. Steele has narrowed the gap to 5,000 in Maryland with 33% reporting, so that’s still an open contest.

How ironic would it be if Fox pushed his opponents to victory?

(Oh, and that -3 is from CNN. They’re being much more conservative in their calling. CBS is at -11. That’s the place Drudge is using, I suspect. Far more dramatic.  And Drudge likes dramatic.)

10:52 -CNN now shows eight losses for the GOP, including Curt Weldon, who had a federal probe launched against him in the final weeks of the campaign. We’re well into the Mountain time zone, and while the GOP has lost those seats, I’m not seeing a wave. I think my call of 20 seats may prove correct, and that may be overstated. We’ll see.

So, things seem to be in a controlled spin. Going down, yes. But not crashing.

Here is the number we need to watch:

DEMS NEED: +6 TO TAKE SENATE
DEMS NEED: +15 TO TAKE HOUSE

CNN and MSNBC have summary pages to keep an eye on throughout the night, and so does Captain Ed. He breaks things down into the HOUSE and the SENATE, and will be keeping them updated. Maybe not as graphically pleasing as the bigger sights, but I’ll take it.

The Corner is upset about the exit polls. Hugh is not, for a number of reasons: HERE and HERE. The Captain also has THOUGHTS. (I seem to remember The Corner being upset about the exit polls last time we did this. Haven’t they learned anything? Or is there something different about it this time?)

Hugh also has some RNC bullet POINTS, and SEVERAL MORE POSTS on turnout.