Wednesday, November 05, 2008
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Minnesota, Oregon and Alaska
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Posted by:
Hugh Hewitt at
9:37 AM
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The Senate results are here.
Norm Coleman has won re-election by a little over 500 votes out of more than 2.4 million cast.
Gordon Smith has a 15,000 vote lead in Oregon with about a quarter of the vote to go.
Alaskans returned Ted Stevens with a clear intent to keep that seat in GOP hands in the new Congress, thus presenting Sarah Palin with an important decision that will be closely studied.
If the Senate GOP, led by Mitch McConnell, Jon Kyl and Lamar Alexander, begin their new role with 44 votes, it is enough to make a clear and consistent impact on policy. Harry Reid did as much with 45 in the aftermath of 2004, but the key was that his caucus held together through thick and thin.
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I think after this election, he might be more of an I-R than an I-D. |
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The GOP leadership in the Senate needs changing, but who is there? McCain should spend his remaining term staying on the reservation and figuring out how to make sure his successor is a GOP senator. Other than that, I really don't want to hear from him.
Don't count on Lieberman for much help. He is a down the line social liberal who will support all of the socialist agenda. His only point of agreement with the GOP is the war on terror, and only then insofar as it affects Israel. That's fine, and I'll take the help, but don't kid yourself about Lieberman. He will never be re-elected again in CT, BTW, he has burned too many bridges here, even among people who supported him against Red Ned Lamont |
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Mitch McConnell, Jon Kyl and Lamar Alexander should all resign their leadership roles. Congressional Republicans have proven themselves totally ineffective under them. We nee NEW blood, aggressive, tax cutters and spending hawks who will get the real Republican message out there and give us a glimmer of hope of getting some seats back in the future.
We also need to get rid of all the RNC leadsership. We need a Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich as the RNC chair, not some guy I never heard of. |
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the R caucus won't hold nearly as often as the D caucus did. sad, but it's just the way it is. |
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Palin does not get the pick (I wish she did and could pick herself), it goes to a special election in Alaska.
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Xeres Franken at the Cold Gates of Minnesota. Xeres Franken is the unholy union of some of Xeres' toe cheese and the misshapen hunchback Spartan. |
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He had some moves - outsmarted Reid a number of times (which isn't that difficult) but he is not the voice we need.
We need communicators! Our message is right, but we have lazy, fat-a$$ senators who care more about keeping their positions than fighting for what is right.
Who can do it? I just don't know. There is more potential in the House than the Senate. |
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The Republicans have been too weak to stand up against the radical but consistent Democrat front line.
Maybe Townhall and the places like the Heritage Foundation can sell bumper stickers like: "1776-2008: Nice While It Lasted."
The Republicans will continue worrying about how to get a majority, but won't use the word "Freedom" or "Constitution" like the Democrats used the word "Change."
It is hard to rally around "Calculated Majority" as a campaign slogan.
So, the Republicans will never rally.
We're all socialists now.
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Newt - please come back! We need you. Run for Senate in two years; you' d certainly raise the IQ in the room (altho Forrest Gump would raise the IQ of the Senate, look around). Geez, I wish he had been our candidate... talk about smart and articulate and on agenda. Nuts. |
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He's a great pundit. He just engages in a bit too much wishful thinking right around first Tuesdays in November. (Not that he had a monopoly on that: many, if not most, of the right and center right pundits were holding out hope that the polls were way wrong. Well, not so much this time). Only a few (of the more obnoxious ones, unfortunately, and I disregarded them, too, as naysayers) from WSJ and NR had this pegged from the beginning. Nuts.
I think Hugh called it right several months back when he said that McCaiin is a great American and a bad senator and a terrible Republican. |
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There will be an automatic recount in MN because the margin of victory was inside .5% (this is MN state law). The Senate race between Coleman and Franken won't be decided for another month. If Al conjures up enough votes in a recount where is the best place for me to move to? Anyone? Bueller? |
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"Norm Coleman has won re-election by a little over 500 votes out of more than 2.4 million cast."
To win by this margin against an idiot like Al Franken really shows the bankruptcy of the GOP under neocon "leadership".
Time to repeal the 17th amendment. |
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Actually if there's a special election in Alaska, that's good. It'd be easier for Sarah to run than to appoint herself, which while not unprecedented, would be a bit awkward. I'd love to see Sarah in the Senate. If she's really sincere about cleaning up Washington, it's a great place to start (and not a bad jumping off point, as another Jr. senator could testify). |
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welcome to irrelevance. Think about this. If the real winner in 2000 had taken office, we might not have had 9/11, not had a recession, not had a war, not had torture..but maybe not had Obama...Your party is mean, nasty, and needs to go into the wilderness...and I won't cry...and we won't miss you. |
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Though I'm no longer a Minnesotan (came back to California at the beginning of the year), I'm thankful that Franken was defeated. While I can civilly debate and disagree with my friends who are Democrats there, Franken has never failed to show his political opponents an ugliness and open hostility that is unbecoming of a civil servant and statesman.
I'm also glad to hear of Bachmann's win there. Didn't the GOP essentially abandon her to twist in the wind after her comments on MSNBC were blown out of proportion? |
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Does anyone know if Sarah can run for the special election for Stevens' seat? Would she be more effective being in the US Senate, or would it be better for her to remain in Alaska and gain deeper executive experience? |
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I think you may have a point, though for totally different reasons than you realize.
Too bad Gore didn't win. I suspect he may have been a one term president. I think 9/11 would have happen, as Gore I don't think would have been any better when it comes to illegals like those hijackers and this event had been planned for a long time.
As for invading Iraq one would hope he would have better sense, but keep in mind that you have neocon Lieberman as VP and he would be carrying water for the Israeli lobby.
Oh, we were in a recession during the 2000 campaign due to the collapse of the dot.com bubble.
"Your party is mean, nasty, and needs to go into the wilderness...and I won't cry...and we won't miss you."
I wish the Evil party (that's the democratic party) would join them as well. They deserve one another. |
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keep up the evolution denying. keep up the global warming denying. keep up the mexican hating. keep up the love of torture....keep up the war mongering...it will keep you busy in the wilderness...where' you'll be for a long time. |
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to appoint two Justices to the SCOTUS. If he gets to appoint three, it will be very difficult to change the country's direction without violence. |
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Maybe Gore did win, but at the end it doesn't matter. Bush got the seat due to the ineptness of Gore's campaign.
You know, what I really get a kick out of folks like you. You and the junior neocons on this blog are two different sides of the same coin when it comes to your arguments. |
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The Dems allowed that numbnuts to run for SENATE? Shows to go you. The Senate is well represented by his ilk already. Perhaps they wanted a former celebrity from SNL.
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If she really wants to be president someday, she should appoint herself to the Senate and resign as governor. :) That will get her more involved in national politics. |
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If there is to be a special election in AK, can Palin run while still in the governor's office? I don't see why not, since she ran for VP while the sitting governor.
Stevens needs to step aside... or be pushed... hard. |
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Several of the TH pundits (and many of the commenters) seem to think that the Governor of Alaska can appoint a replacement if Stephens resigns his Senate seat.
Incredible ignorance. |
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Palin is better situated as governer than as a Senator. Putting her on the ticket may have saved Stevens seat for Republicans. That is a large contribution in this dismal year. But Stevens needs to go and Palin hopefully can find a like minded Repub to replace him and Alaska can be a huge influence for good in the country as a whole. |
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According to CNN - about 300. Wonder if Hugh's urging Minnesotans to get out there pushed him over?
Hugh off all the talk show hosts you have the best analysis
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The governor of Alaska can appoint a temporary replacement until a special election is held. Alaska requires that the replacement must be someone of the same party as the person being replaced.
The replacement could then run in the special election.
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"It is sad to see how many Alaskans are willing to vote for a corrupt felon as their Senator. It doesn't reflect well on them."
Well, given the choice between a felon and a Democrat... ;-)
From a practical standpoint, I would have voted for Stevens, and hoped that either he's cleared on appeal, or he leaves office with half a chance of being replaced in the special election by a Republican. Not pretty, but it's politics.
Stevens should have had the decency to step aside long ago to give Alaskans a better choice. |
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If all we conservatives go away, who's going to give you lazy liberals your tax refund??? You liberals are just hilarious. Everyone knows that the majority of businesses in this country are operated by conservatives (businesses that actually make money and actually employ people).
You are like spoiled rotten ignorant children. At the end of the day, we conservatives will continue to have the last laugh. We're just smarter than you - the truth hurts. And we actually have a work ethic - something you lazy morons know nothing about.
I've already got my CPA working on another LLC - I need a whole new list of tax write offs for 2009. I'll have to spend more time on paperwork, but I'll make damn sure you lazy libs don't get another dime of my money.
What a bunch of dumb ignorant fools - LOL - Liberals = lazy
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Remember when the republicans criticized Dems for holding up votes on judges? Think they'll remember that when Obama makes his picks? Doubtful. The electoral map shows the GOP is now basically a southern party with no presence in the northeast, upper midwest, and coastal states. Also lost Florida and North Carolina. Who is supposed to be the new standard bearer and lesd them out of the wilderness? Palin? What a joke. Bachmann? Please God, put her front and center of the party. Truly a whackjob. Obama is smart enough to learn from the Clinto mistake of overreaching early in his term. It's going to be a long dark period for the GOP. |
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Munck:
Several of the TH pundits (and many of the commenters) seem to think that the Governor of Alaska can appoint a replacement if Stephens resigns his Senate seat.
Incredible ignorance.
:End Munck
Thanks for the correction. But really? INCREDIBLE ignorance? Is it really INCREDIBLE? I guess I'm supposed to look at the other commenters as if they'd said "nucular" or something.
It may interest you to know the issue is somewhat more thorny that you seem to think. The 17th Amendment gives state _legislatures_ control over whether the executive can appoint an interim. Since Alaska's law stripping that power from the executive was passed by ballot initiative and not by the legislature, the law may be unconstitutional.
As far as I know, it has never been tested, and I doubt it will be tested in this case. Should Stevens resign, Alaska will probably just be without a Senator for 60 days or so.
Does it make you "incredibly" ignorant that you didn't mention this. Of course it does not. It just means that you haven't got all the minutiae of Alaska election law in your head. That's OK. I wouldn't expect anyone in this kind of forum to know and remember those kinds of details.
But it's also OK that someone else doesn't realize that Alaska is unlike most (all?) other states in this respect. That's also a piece of election lore I don't think it's reasonable to expect anyone in this kind of forum to know and remember.
The general thrust of the Alaskan part of this post and its comments is not about the fine details of election law, but about whether Sarah should consider going for the Senate seat herself, or whether she should back someone else, e.g. one of Stevens' primary challengers. |
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By the way: Gordon Smith is Mormon.
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"It just means that you haven't got all the minutiae of Alaska election law in your head."
I didn't have ANY of it in my head, other than a faint memory of the Murkowski affair (which I think happened while I was last there). I googled it, as I'll bet you did. The "incredible ignorance" referred to their inability to find out simple facts. |
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From a report:
Democrats in Oregon are claiming that a 'flood' in a building holding ballots is happening. they are trying to force memebrs of the press to flee the building.
This is the scam the demohacks pulled in washington state to steal the election last time in their state.
NO MORE DEMOCRAT THEFT |
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At least some folks up there are concerned about actually winning elections and governing.
It would be entirely typical of that disloyal and nakedly ambitious careerist Sarah Palin to hang Stevens out to dry and then run for his seat.
Buh-bye, Palin, hope you enjoyed your Pyrrhic 15 minutes of national fame.
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Liberals/democrats are far better at sticking together than Republicans. They'll pick up a mantra and all will chant in unison and move as one, whereas Repubs seem to want to go along to get along. They simply gotta stop that madness until such time as liberals are ready to act more in the interests of the country than their party. |
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Hugh,
Good post!! I hope the republican caucus will hold together like Harry Reid's caucus did in 2005. I have a strong suspicion that Joe Lieberman will have to caucus with the Republicans because of his support for John McCain and speaking at the republican convention. Interesting what role that would play.
Joel
http://conservativeleadership.blogtownhall.com/ |
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job. That is to respond in kind, and that is to BLOCK, IMPEDE, STALL, LIE, PULL PARLIAMENTARY HYJINKS, LIE, CHEAT, PULL MORE PARLIAMENTARY HYJINKS, GO BACK ON YOUR WORD, LIE, IMPEDE, BLOCK, STALL, PULL MORE PARLIAMENTARY HYJINKS, STALL, USE THE PRESS TO PERPETUATE THE LIE'S, DENY, IMPEDE, BLOCK, PULL MANY MORE PARLIAMENTARY HYJINKS, and last but certainly not least, FILIBUSTER, FILIBUSTER, FILIBUSTER, FILIBUSTER, FILIBUSTER, FILIBUSTER, FILIBUSTER, AD INFINITUM...............
Give the socialists nothing.......if they want "white" give em' "black", if they want "black" give em' "white".
Do not participate, simply do not participate, in the socialization of America.
And as a side note, to all of you "moderates", the Mctex's, the "joe's", and all the rest of you "moderates" here at HH, and you know who you are. This outcome is exactly what we said would happen, but, remember, "McTex", you just had to have McCain, didn't cha', McCain the "moderate". Well, Conservatives stayed home in droves, yesterday, didn't they! We know they stayed home because turnout was down from 04'. There was not this great, huge, gigantic turnout for obambi, no, Conservatives stayed home. When a Conservative runs, and is not some convoluted definition of what a Conservative is, we win, and we win every single time. And it's usually a landslide, too!
If you think, Nancy Reid, Harry Pelosi, and Barry the socialist is going to govern from the center, then you need to be on a lithium drip, because these are dyed in the wool, socialists, and that's exactly how they will govern.
Will the "reparations" issue come up in the first six months of Barry the socialist administration, or will he wait a year. But make no mistake, it's comin' and you white leftists are just as guilty, too, so get ready you white leftists, it's "get evenism" time. |
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we're gonna recount MN. No bum's rush for democracy. Couple hundred separate them? Let's make sure we got it right. |
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I'm gonna hold my breath until I turn blue.
No wonder everyone holds you guys in such disregard. No wonder you have lost your moral authority.. |
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this is a "we" and "they" country, and it's been that way for sometime. It's WAR, their serious, they want "fundamental change", they want SOCIALIZATION, of America. The U.S. Constitution, to them, is an impediment, to that end. Nancy Reid, Harry Pelosi, and Barry the socialist, would have NO trouble, in taking the Constitution, dividing it 3 ways, and wiping their a..es with it. "Fundamental change", it really means, thrashing 232 years of individual rights, and replacing it with "collective rights", "to each according to his means, to each according to his needs". That's what "fundamental change" means, and Barry old boy, it just don't work for me. You got that, there will be no "can't we all just get along", and there will be no, graciousness, on my part, no, no, because Barry old boy, you have not fooled me, i see and saw you comin', Barry old boy, your a stone cold, socialist. And Barry old boy, it just don't work for me, and mine, and it never will. |
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This is the state of things with these clowns. All filled with cocky talk about the election, as though they have some special bond with the way Americans think, and then when they lose, all sorts of intransigence and pouting and petulance. Sheesh..
These are not guys with much emotional equlibirium. |
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"I googled it, as I'll bet you did. The "incredible ignorance" referred to their inability to find out simple facts."
But you see, Alaska's law on this is very atypical. In most states, the Governor does appoint an interim. I wouldn't expect that anyone in this kind of forum would even think of Googling this information. Obviously, I _would_ expect them to check and accept any corrections. And, I'll bet they _would_ use Google for that. |
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let me be clear, if someone like you, didn't hold me in "that" regard, then i would know that i had taken a very wrong turn. A man's enemies reveal who he is, far more than his friends. Make no mistake, i consider you an enemy. Hey old buddy, i see prop 8 passed. Oh, my.. Also, how come all the markets are all down, today, i thought Barry brought change and hope, the markets look to the future, don't they, don't they see change and hope in it. Oh, my...Also, pathetic, Solomon said "woe unto the man, who the world loves, for he has no part in the Kingdom of God". Given those 2 choices, pathetic, I'm most certainly a most unpopular man, you though, I'm quite sure are loved and adored, in that world that Solomon's speaks of. Is this one of your "explicit scriptures", that you were referring to? Or do you know any, any at all. Oh, my... |
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When will the issue of "Reparations", be introduced. Get ready, all you white socialists, you gotta' ante up too, your people were slave masters too. What's fair, all you racial police out there. How much.. |
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"I wouldn't expect that anyone in this kind of forum would even think of Googling this information."
I did. A bunch of other posters on this and other threads knew it. Amanda Carpenter actually tried to look it up, but got it wrong. |
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"Also, pathetic, Solomon said 'woe unto the man, who the world loves, for he has no part in the Kingdom of God'. Given those 2 choices, pathetic, I'm most certainly a most unpopular man... "
Cottoneyed, you should give yourself more credit. I feel secure in saying that even if there were no God, you would still be unpopular. |
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How long will it be before the Senate Democrates change the rules to lower the number of votes needed on cloture to 55. And, they will use the fact that we considered it, even though we were blocked by the gang of 14 from doing it. And, their willing accomplices in the MSM will hail it as a new achievement in democratic (small D) rule. |
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"I did. A bunch of other posters on this and other threads knew it."
Kudos to the other posters for knowing something and correcting an error. As I said before, I would expect those who made the error to check and accept the correction.
But do you really _expect_ residents of the 49 (?) states where the Governor does appoint an interim to think that this is even the sort of thing that varies (so that research is needed to see what's true in this case)? That expectation seems strange to me.
At any rate, I don't consider those busy thinking about something else altogether "incredibly ignorant" because that bit of web research did not occur to them.
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"How long will it be before the Senate Democrats change the rules to lower the number of votes needed on cloture to 55?"
Of course, you may be right. Since our filibuster is going to depend on the backbones of Susan Collins and Lindsay Graham, I don't think the Dems will have to pull that trigger just yet. If they ever need it though, they'll use it without hesitation. |
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Should Stevens resign? Of course. But thanks for keeping the seat in Republican hands for now.
Should Sarah stand for Stevens seat? I think it would be a good move from her point of view. Right now, she's got the stink of losing on her. (This is, of course, completely unfair. She's the only reason that this thing wasn't a total humiliating blowout.) So I really don't think that Sarah! 2012 is in the cards. A term or two in the Senate could well rehabilitate her image and make her a strong Presidential candidate at a still vigorous age of 50 or 56. |
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But no matter, 'cuz he's good enough, he's smart enough, and, doggonit, people like him!
Hasta La Vista, Al. |
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americans can believe in. Today I listened to liberal talk radio - Randi Rosen Show. It was funny how she described the moment of BHO's acceptance speech. 'we are going to have an african american family living in the whitehouse built by slaves'. That is the depth of white guilty liberals who are about to find out what the term 'whitey' mean. I am not caucasian and I have many close non-caucasian buddies of the 'faith'. When Obama says 'it's our turn now'. It's code for letting the 'typical white person know' he or she will not be a part of spreading the wealth. After all, 'whitey' did cause a lot of harm and we all know Obama believes the Warren Court did not go far enough into 'redistribution'. Reparations and/or Redistributions - is the change we can believe in. Now this is what I call real hope. Do you think Putin will let up?
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That election ain't over just because you and Hugh says it is. Gotta recount--and who knows, maybe that weasel Coleman lost. |
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Oh well, wait and see.
Al Franken.
If he wins, it's just more evidence of how looney MN Dems have become.
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"Norm Coleman has won re-election by a little over 500 votes out of more than 2.4 million cast."
To win by this margin against an idiot like Al Franken really shows the bankruptcy of the GOP under neocon "leadership".
Actually, it shows that there is something really wrong with Minnesotans, or with their water, or something.
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Smith is most likely to lose by 20,000 - 40,000 votes.
Most of the uncounted votes are in Multnomah and Lane counties, which tend heavily for Merkley, especially Multnomah, which has has over 130,000 votes left to count and is more than 2 to 1 in favor of Merkley.
This only appears close because of the tardiness of Multnomah County vote counting.
The latest tally has Merkley with 1ess than thirteen hundred votes. As more votes are counted it will flip significantly more in in Merkley's direction. |
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Multnomah County just released new results (they haven't yet been added to the totals on the state site). Merkley's total increased by about 4200 (a little more, acutally) votes, Smith's by only about 1700 (again, a little more). So Merkley is now actually ahead by a about a thousand votes (a little more, actually).
That will just get bigger. |
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"But do you really _expect_ residents of the 49 (?) states where the Governor does appoint an interim to think that this is even the sort of thing that varies"
States have all kinds of different rules, and it's in the news all the time. MA changed their rules when Kerry was running so that Romney couldn't fill his seat if he won. Minnesota has strange rules that came up when Wellstone died. I vaguely remember that Texas is weird, too, but don't remember how; my course on Texas politics was in 1956. |
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In the mid-90s we had a U.S. Senate vacancy when Bob Packwood resigned. We had a special election to fill it, won by Ron Wyden (he beat Gordon Smith, who won the seat vacated by Mark Hatfield at the next election, and who is about to lose his seat).
Smith is down about 10,000 votes now, and media are calling it for Merkley.
57 votes. |
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MR. Smith campaign was dismal at best, his message was how he could work with Obama, I did my duty but I could not support his campaign. In the end turning his back on the Oregon Republican base earned him a just retirement. |
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The funny thing with Gordon Smith is he P.O.d right-wingers with his rhetoric, like calling the conduct of the Iraq war "almost criminal", but at crunch time he was a consistent R vote.
It'll be great to have two D votes from Oregon. |
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This subject is well past its expiration date, so this will be my last remark.
There was nothing unusual about the Paul Wellstone case. Wellstone died. Jesse Ventura filled the vacancy with his campaign manager Dean Barkley. The Dems did replace Wellstone on the ticket with Mondale. Mondale lost to Coleman. There was no need to fill the vacancy with a special election in this case because Wellstone died so close to the election. The Minnesota case, at least, tends to support the general impression that the Governor fills Senate vacancies with an interim: Ventura filled the vacancy even though the election occurred within days of Wellstone's death.
The Oregon case _is_ one where there was no interim Senator. But that happened over ten years ago. MA may well also be a state that's an exception to the general rule. But there was no actual vacancy there. Wisconsin also has no interim appointments. But there have been no recent unscheduled vacancies in Wisconsin (the last one occurred when Proxmire succeeded Joe McCarthy after the latter's death in 1957). All the other states allow the Governor to fill vacancies in some form or other.
So really, based on such sparse data, the most recent of which occurred ten years ago, you expect everyone to jump on Google. I don't think the stories that run contrary to the Governor-appointed-interim standard are really frequent enough or common enough to simply assume that _in_a_discussion_about_another_subject_ (namely, should Sarah stand for Stevens' seat) someone would naturally be expected to check every jot and tittle of the law. |
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"So really, based on such sparse data, the most recent of which occurred ten years ago, you expect everyone to jump on Google."
Yes, actually, BECAUSE there haven't been any recent cases, I'd expect people to look things up, especially since the most recent case did not involve a gubernatorial appointment.
There are many things that people are SURE they know, that turn out to be false. In these days of the internet, it's not that hard to look most things up. |
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is now down by almost 30,000 votes. He's toast.
And the sleazy Saxby Chambliss will have to go to a runoff election. Perhaps Georgians will rethink this race and send him packing. |
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You're right Hugh, Norm Coleman has carried Minnesota. As someone who has dealt with Minnesota election law, I can tell you that the automatic recount will validate the Coleman lead. Minnesota uses optical scan ballots. The machines that count the ballots have a statistically insignificant error rate. Therefore, the numbers we see now showing a Coleman victory will hold. This isn't Florida, so don't expect to see hanging chads. |
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"The machines that count the ballots have a statistically insignificant error rate."
The latest results I can find have Coleman up by 438 out of 2.9 million votes. That's 0.015%. An optical scanner with an error rate ten times that is considered to be high-accuracy. Automark machines, for example, widely used in MN, have a rating of about 0.100% accurate.
And the term "statistically insignificant" doesn't apply here. These are actual counts, not statistical samples. "Significance" doesn't apply.
All it takes is a single machine with a spot of dirt on the lens to give you thousands of incorrect counts. You're also going to have damaged ballots that wouldn't run through the scanner, but are still valid votes. That's the equivalent of a hanging chad. |
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...last post on this topic.
fbear, since you've just jumped in, I'll do one more remark to point out that there have been _plenty_ of data points that _people_ have seen that support the normal case: The Governor appoints an interim successor to the departing/deceased Senator. That happens all the time
What is sparse is the data suggests that this normal case doesn't always apply. You have to go back ten years to find the last case where a vacancy was allowed to persist until the special election could be held. Before that you've got to go back over half a century.
Now really, you expect people to just naturally assume that the normal case (which they've seen over and over) isn't universal? I grant that the normal case isn't always universal, but I don't consider it a display of "incredible ignorance" to make that mistake. And that was my only point. It's just a matter of being fair-minded and civil.
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Just found this one at the Senate's web site. There have been 10 Governor-appointed Senators since Wyden stood for special election after Packwood's resignation, and 53 since Proxmire won the special election after McCarthy's death. I really think I understand how people might assume that having the Governor appoint a successor (at least temporarily) is just the way it's done. |
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Unfortunately, the damage has been done. There no longer is a strong presence of GOP in Congress, and the party itself is in disarray. There is no leader and no prospective direct. This is the time for a purging, a purging of the old GOP to make way for a new generation of Republicans, ones ready to dismantle the illuminati administration of the left-wing Washington that now rules. |
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