After A Nail Biter Of An Election Night Illinois Has A Republican Senator
According to the Chicago Tribune with 97% of the precincts counted Republican Mark Kirk is going to be out next Senator - taking the "Obama" seat. Because of our election laws (and because he was also elected to fill Obama's unexpired term) he will be seated at once, lowering the odds of lame duck lameness. The results as of 11:32 PM CDT.
With 97% of precincts reporting:
Kirk (R)
1,717,193 48.3%
Giannoulias (D)
1,638,323 46.1%
This was a real nail biter. Earlier in the evening with of 26% precincts reporting Giannoulias was winning over Kirk by 57% to 38%. It had me worried until about 10:30 local time when the numbers started shifting.
Cross Posted at Classical Values
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5 comments:
Good for Illinois!
For me what this election shows is four things
1. The death of conservatism was announced prematurely.
2. The mushy middle of the country was indeed "duped" into voting for Obama, BUT
3. Sarah Palin's Senate candidates got trounced. Badly. In some cases, despite bad or even repulsive opponents. (Hello, again, Sen. Murky!)
4. The Democrat machine is alive and well. And establishment politician incompetence is not by-itself a sufficient argument for conservatives. If Fenty vs. Gray in DC did not reveal this a couple months ago, the national midterms and the victories of Harry Reid, Loretta Sanchez, Barney Frank do emphatically.
Voters take a much more "national" view of senatorial elections than house seats. What this says for the future:
(A) Sarah will have a bad time of it trying for the nomination. If she wins it will be bloody and ugly. c.f. Alaska.
If Sarah wins the nomination, hello President Obama until Jan 2017. c.f. Christine O'Donnell
(B) Even if a less "Sarah PAC" candidate wins the nomination, odds are good we are looking at 6 more years of Obama. c.f. Harry Reid and Barney Frank.
(C) No chance of overturning Obamacare until 2013. And that chance is VERY small then. See points (A)&(B). Better hope Anthony Kennedy comes down on the Constitutional side of this one.
(D) No chance whatsoever of entitlement reform barring a massive catastrophe that wipes out Obama in 2012. This is extremely unlikely. Again, c.f. the Gray/Fenty race in DC.
I'm going to go out on a limb and make a very rash prediction.
Obama will not be President in October of 2012.
The long knives are out. At least 66 long knives. And 68 if you count our SOS and her husband.
Palin has done a great service even if her Senate candidates didn't win.
She has put the fear of God in Republicans. They can be primaried.
BTW Tom it is interesting that you make (in an oblique way) some of the points I have been making for a while.
If we are going to do better in liberal areas we are going to have to run more socially liberal candidates there. i.e. libertarians.
It is also interesting that in the above I have been arguing your points.
Perhaps we will have a meeting of minds after all.
Hate to inject conflicting data Tom, but It is my understanding that Exit polls from Connecticut indicate that Christine O'Donnell WON the independents. It's the $%&*# Republicans which sold her down the river.
http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/11/outrage-odonnell-wins-independents-but-not-enough-republicans-to-win-delaware/
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