The Implosion Begins

Oh sure, Virginia has now gone very, very slightly to Webb (that 3,000 vote margin shifted). But really, honest, it's all about Ned. Honest.

But the wave of Democratic victory that is happening across the country would not be happening if the Lamont campaign did not step forward and change the narrative for Democrats.  Despite the fact that Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer and Bill and Hillary Clinton planted a big, fat knife in Lamont's back and sneered at Democratic voters, the the blue victories that are happening are a direct result of this battle.  The genie came out of the bottle and they could not put it back in.

Despite the ripple, this ain't no tsunami. Good luck with that strategy.

Senate Down To The Wire

Steele is still not conceding as I write this. Allen looks like he is still holding, but barely. (Around 3,000 votes separate. Recount WILL be in the future). Talent is holding. Montana is a coin toss. So, the House is lost and Pelosi will probably be Speaker.

One thing is for sure. Any conservative who complains in the future about the Supreme Court and its decisions better have voted in this election.

Or they are fooling themselves about how seriously they take politics or conservatism.

(Incidentally, for the childish, the Republican party lost an election. They are not "destroyed" and your side is not vindicated. The fact that with all the so-called discontent in this nation, you could barely, and it is barely, win. It is not a tsunami, it is not a landslide. Lamont lost by a lot. Keep that in mind. The ponies will not be forthcoming).

Rollercoaster

Well, the media has already begun calling races based on exit polling and a minuscule number of actual counts. So this will be a lot of correction and swing all evening long. I won't blog anything on exit poll-based calls, I'll wait for actuals. Blue Crab Boulevard - suffering through listening to talking heads so you don't have to.

UPDATE: 7:51CST. Interesting. The House seat formerly held by Mark Foley is running at a dead heat right now, with about a 1% lead to Foley's replacement.

UPDATE: 8:11CST. Allen holds about 2% lead on Webb. No - repeat, no - data on Maryland Senate being reported right now.

UPDATE: 8:28CST. This is just plain weird. Fox News just called Maryland for Cardin. With 1% of precincts reporting and a large lead in vote totals for Steele. What is up with that one?

UPDATE: 9:28CST. So, election night is arguably the big night for a blogger who does a lot of political commentary, right? So what does my hosting company do? Takes out my email to do some upgrades. Anything you send me will not be lost, but I have been effectively shut down in reading or replying to that email until they finish their upgrades. Oh, and I knew this how? Not by notification, but by not being able to get to email anymore.

UPDATE: 9:38CST. Joe Lieberman is giving his victory speech. That's one for a good guy.

UPDATE: 9:51CST. Michael Barone, on Fox News, just said he thinks Virginia Senate is heading for a recount. Ouch.

UPDATE: 10:00CST. Anchoress reports that Steele is NOT conceding. Good for him. That is still a pretty light vote total to throw in the towel.

MAJOR UPDATE: The Washington Post has WITHDAWN its prediction that Cardin won in Maryland. Steele is currently leading by North of 4%. Steele is still in this and may yet win.

UPDATE: Fox News just reported that control of the House has shifted to the Democrats. I expect a plague of seagulls any moment. Steele is still ahead and is not conceding. Allen is still ahead. Corker is still ahead.

UPDATE: 10:46CST. Talent is still holding in Missouri. Michael Barone doesn't like Steele's chances. Allen is still ahead in Virginia, but by very little. That will be a recount.

Baquet Resigns From LA Times

Los Angeles Times Editor Dean Baquet has resigned from the paper following a dispute with the owners of the paper over planned cost cutting measures.

Baquet will be replaced Monday by James O'Shea, the managing editor of the Chicago Tribune, the Times reported on its Web site. O'Shea will be reunited with David Hiller, who took over for Johnson after serving as publisher at the Tribune.

Baquet, 50, was forced to resign by Hiller after refusing to cut newsroom jobs, according to the Times. The announcement was to have been made Thursday, but was rushed after the news leaked, the paper said.

Baquet and Johnson had publicly rebuffed the parent company over possible job cuts. When Johnson was replaced, Baquet said he would stay on and try to convince the Tribune to increase its investment in the paper.

Well, I can't say that was unexpected after the Publisher was sent packing.

UPDATE: LA Times reaction here.

First Article About Exit Polls

The Associated Press has a screaming headline that says "Exit polls show Democrats favored". And there is no - not one bit - of real data to back that assertion up. None.

All 435 House seats were on the ballot along with 33 Senate races, elections that Democrats sought to make a referendum on the president's handling of the war, the economy and more.

Voters also filled state legislative seats and decided hundreds of statewide ballot initiatives on issues ranging from proposed bans on gay marriage to increases in the minimum wage.

In surveys at polling places, about six in 10 voters said they disapproved of the way President Bush is handling his job, and roughly the same percentage opposed the war in Iraq. They were more inclined to vote for Democratic candidates than for Republicans.

In even larger numbers, about three-quarters of voters said scandals mattered to them in deciding how to vote, and they, too, were more likely to side with Democrats. The surveys were taken by The Associated Press and the networks.

That's the sum total of real information. It doesn't say anything other than a generic question on who do you favor. It doesn't give any information on how people voted. But this will be seized on by some on the left as "proof" they won. This is a bad article and a misleading headline.

UPDATE: Ed Morrisey sees the exact same thing from ABC.

I said earlier this week that the networks couldn't resist using the exit poll data for longer than an hour after they got it in confidence. As it turns out, I had the timing exactly correct. And what did it tell us? George Bush's approval rating.

Well, that's a scoop.

Cleaning Up The Election Process

Glenn Reynolds has an article up over at TCS Daily where he preemptively calls for cleaning up the election system to make it more transparent before the 2008 elections. Frankly, when you have a politician who might be Speaker of the House making a preemptive call of, "We won or they cheated" there is an urgent need for improvements.

As I write this, nobody knows how the elections will turn out. That hasn't stopped some preemptive claims of fraud, though:

Pelosi cautioned that the number of Democratic House victories could be higher or lower and said her greatest concern is over the integrity of the count — from the reliability of electronic voting machines to her worries that Republicans will try to manipulate the outcome.

"That is the only variable in this," Pelosi said. "Will we have an honest count?''

Hmm. I thought there was also the variable of how the voters decide to vote on Tuesday. Pelosi seems to regard that as a foregone conclusion, though the polls have been wrong before.

But this sort of talk — destructive and self-serving as it is — merely underscores a point I've made before: An election system that is less than transparent is one that's open to conspiracy theories and fear of fraud, whether or not fraud is actually present. And I've heard quite a few other Democrats echoing Pelosi — and quite a few Republicans speculating that a Democratic Congress will ride in on a wave of votes from dead people and illegal immigrants. That sort of thinking seems much more common among respectable members of both parties than it was a few years ago, and I think there's reason to fear it's getting worse.

He's right. We need to make sure the next election is as clean as can be. You can already see partisans going off on both the left and the right right now and that has got to stop. Voter IDs and paper ballots are a good place to start.

So Far Voting Problems Appear Limited

There have been a lot of small problems reported so far today, but all in all they are not sounding really bad so far. There may be a few places where polling hours are going to be extended due to problems with equipment and a rash of smaller issues, but really not a huge mess anywhere being reported right now. The biggest problem is that any problem becomes an opportunity for partisan screaming. Which we really don't need. Turnout is being reported as heavy in a lot of places. There are a lot of blogs doing roundups right now, I won't try to add to what they are already doing. But in one of the weirdest incidents so far today, a poll worker in Kentucky has been arrested for choking a voter. It does not appear to have been a partisan issue according to police, merely an argument of filling out the ballot correctly.

It apparently started as a dispute between the two over marking the ballot, said Lt. Col. Carl Yates of the Jefferson County sheriff's office.

The voter told poll worker Jeffery Steitz that he didn't want to vote in a judicial election because he didn't know enough about the candidates, but Steitz told him he had to vote in the race anyway, Yates said.

Steitz, 42, eventually grabbed the man by the neck and threw him out of the polling place, Yates said.

"The poor guy went back in and he threw him out again," Yates said. "At least it wasn't over a Democrat or a Republican being on the ballot."

Election officials called police.

"That about tops off the day," said Paula McCraney, a spokeswoman for the Jefferson County clerk's office.

Man, are they strict in Kentucky.

UPDATE: Okay, problems do look like they are fairly bad in Denver today according to the Denver Post. That appears to be the worst one so far at least. The problems appear to be related to the heavy turnout according to officials:

Denver Election Commission spokesman Alton Dillard said there was no systemwide failures and that the delays were being caused by heavy voter turnout combined with "congestion" in the computer network used to confirm voter registeration. "it's our application. It got overloaded," Dillard said.

What Is American Culture?

The Anchoress asks and answers a question. And the answer can be found in Bugs Bunny.

66 Years Ago Today

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsed in a windstorm. It also provided some of the best newsreel footage of the day. You can see a video clip of the motion the bridge was going through shortly before collapsing here.

They Know Better. We Should, Too.

The New Hampshire Union-Leader editorial on supporting the troops. The are commenting on the Washington Post article from yesterday that revealed the feelings of the troops in Iraq.

Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, commander of Multinational Division North and the 25th Infantry Division, said "This is a worthwhile endeavor. Nothing that is worthwhile is usually easy, and we need to give this more time for it to all come together. We all want to come home, but we have a significant investment here, and we need to give the Iraqi army and the Iraqi people a chance to succeed."

When the troops on the ground say they believe in the mission and want to see it through, when they say that withdrawal will embolden the terrorists and endanger the Iraqi people, how can anyone take seriously the anti-war pronouncements of Carol Shea-Porter and Paul Hodes?

Democrats running for Congress say they support the troops, but it is not the kind of support the troops want. They want more resources to enable them to win. They don't want to be told that victory is impossible and that retreat is the only option. They know better. We should too.

The troops are steadfast in their determination. Do you really want to be less strong? Do you really want to take away all they have done - and despite the screeching, they have done an enormous amount of good. If they are "redeployed", the new Democratic euphemism for running away, we will have failed here at home to match their faith in the mission.

We will have failed them.

RCP: Too Close To Call

The Real Clear Politics blog is now saying it is quite possible that the Republicans can hold both chambers if everything breaks the right way. Which of course means that if you had plans to sit this election out to "teach a lesson" it is time to get up and get to your polling place. And vote.

On balance, all of this supports the proposition that there is indeed a revival of Republican enthusiasm at the end of this campaign and some closing of the huge generic spreads that had been boosting assertions of a massive 35+ seat Democratic wave. This late in the game, however, it is hard to quantify just what kind of difference this makes in all of the individual Senate and House races. But the evidence was persuasive enough for us to down-tick our projected Democratic gains in the House and Senate.

On Saturday we had felt that the most likely Senate pickup for Democrats was five, today in RCP's final projection we think four seats is now the most likely outcome. In the House, the generic close should work to keep Republican losses muted; we've projected 19 seats with a range of 14 - 24. That range gives the GOP a small hope of hanging on to the House if everything breaks their way.

Well? Why are you still reading this? Go vote.

Dad In A Can

You know, I have mementos around the house from my Grandmother and my Mom. Little things that remind me of them, I suspect most people have similar things, just little keepsakes. I never considered keeping the ultimate keepsake, though.

The entire dead body. In a wheeled garbage can.

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German man delivered his dead father's decaying corpse to a police station Monday saying he had kept the body hidden in a rubbish bin for months for financial reasons, police said.

The 45-year-old arrived at a police station in the western town of Viersen in the early hours of Monday with his father's body in a wheeled rubbish bin, Wolfgang Wiese, a spokesman for Viersen police, told Reuters.

The man told police his father had died in May aged 84. He had kept the death quiet because of financial problems and had hidden the corpse in the garbage container.

Now personally, I have no interest in what my descendants do with my remains after I'm gone. I won't be needing them at that point. But this seems more than a tad disrespectful. Couldn't he at least have gotten a nice trunk or something?

Big Plane, Big Problems

FedEx has just canceled orders for 10 Airbus A-380 aircraft due to delays in delivery. If this is the start of a trend, the company may well be in even worse shape than it already is in a very short time.

The world's largest express transportation company cited Airbus' production delays and said in a statement that its FedEx Express unit has ordered 15 Boeing Co. 777 freighters with a list price of $3.5 billion and taken options on an additional 15.

"The availability and delivery timing of this aircraft, coupled with its attractive payload range and economics, make this choice the best decision for FedEx," said FedEx Chairman and CEO Frederick W. Smith.

Boeing's stock rose more than 3 percent on the news while shares of Airbus parent European Aeronautic Defense & Space Co. slumped in European trading.

Airbus regrets the decision by FedEx, company spokeswoman Barbara Kracht said, "but we understand their need to urgently address their capacity growth."

The European plane maker recently doubled its estimate of production delays for the A380 jet to two years. To streamline production, Airbus announced Monday that it will slash the number of suppliers it uses from 3,000 to 500.

Very bad news for the Airbus folks. Other customers are starting to sound as if they are exploring other options.

Bombings In Mexico City

A coalition of various guerrilla groups has set off three bombs (so far) in Mexico City. Nobody was injured (so far) but several other devices were defused before they could explode.

A coalition of resistance groups claimed responsibility, but officials said it still wasn't clear who carried out the blasts.

The explosions shortly after midnight damaged an auditorium at the headquarters of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, a branch of Canadian-owned Scotiabank, the Federal Electoral Tribunal, and businesses and residences near the court.

Police deactivated two other bombs, one at a second Scotiabank near the court and another outside a Sanborns restaurant, a chain owned by billionaire Carlos Slim, near the PRI headquarters, said Mexico City Public Safety Secretary Joel Ortega.

Authorities said the deactivated bomb at the Scotiabank was inside a box labeled "Bomb-Danger."

Ortega said emergency officials received an anonymous call warning that bombs were about to be detonated.

Five leftist resistance groups said they carried out the blasts in support of a monthslong protest movement in the conflict-torn southern state of Oaxaca.

"We take full responsibility for these actions," the groups said in a statement e-mailed to the news media, which included the name of each group.

Mark in Mexico has much more about the groups involved and a history of bombings in Mexico as well.

Three weeks ago, a loose confederation of guerrilla groups in the state of Guerrero (Acapulco) conducted a clandestine news conference. Several dailies, including Reforma, were invited. The guerrilla groups announced that, if there was a military incursion into Oaxaca or if there was any police action taken by the federal government against APPO, the guerrillas threatened to strike.

Now, according to Reforma, the guerrilla groups have announced, via the internet, that they were in fact responsible for yesterday's 3 bombings in Mexico City. The following 5 guerrilla organizations have claimed joint responsibility for the blasts:
Movimiento Revolucionario Lucio Cabañas Barrientos
Tendencia Democrática Revolucionaria Ejército del Pueblo
Organización Insurgente 1 de Mayo
Brigada de Ajusticiamiento 2 de diciembre
Brigadas Populares de Liberación

They claim they will continue with "political and military" actions so long as Oaxaca's Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz remains in office and the PFP remains in Oaxaca.

Panama Wins UNSC Seat

Both Venezuela and Guatemala withdrew from the race in favor of the compromise candidate. Panama was elected right away by a large majority.

Panama got 164 votes in the 192-member U.N. General Assembly, more than the 120 needed to win a two-year term starting Jan. 1 on the U.N.'s most powerful body. Venezuela got 11 votes, Guatemala 4 votes, and Barbados 1 vote.

The race for the council seat, which began Oct. 16, became highly political because of the U.S. support for Guatemala and Chavez' speech at the General Assembly in September in which he called President Bush "the devil." A number of countries said Chavez' anti-Bush comments hurt Venezuela's chances.

Guatemala led Venezuela in all but one of the 47 ballots, but couldn't muster the two-thirds support needed to win in the General Assembly. The standoff was the third-longest battle for a seat on the Security Council in the U.N.'s 61-year history.

General Assembly President Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa, who announced the results, said she was "delighted" that all five new members of the Security Council had now been chosen — Belgium, Indonesia, Italy, Panama and South Africa.

(T)Hugo Chavez's big mouth most likely cost him that seat, but he won't ever admit that. He'll just blame the US.