So Long Uncle Ted
Posted by admin on November 19, 2008 under Politics, news | 
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Convicted felon, Ted “Uncle Ted” Stevens, R-Alaska has lost his re-election bid to Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich. (Source) This win, moves the Democrats incrementally closer to the magic number of 60, a filibuster proof majority. Two more senate seats are still undecided, and the Dems have a 56 to 40 lead over the Republicans and with two Independents who caucus with them, their total is 58.
One of those independents, Joe Lieberman got to keep his gavel in the Homeland Security Committee, so he will continue to caucus with the Democrats, though there is still much anger on the left towards him.
The remaining two races from the 2008 general election are in Georgia and Minnesota. In Georgia incumbent Saxby Chambliss failed to get over 50% of the vote, so an automatic run-off election was triggered by state law. The Democrats feel that their candidate Jim Martin has a real shot in the run-off election, and he’s being supported by party luminaries Bill Clinton and Al Gore traveling to Georgia to campaign for him. Additionally immediately after the presidential campaign was concluded all 25 Georgia field offices of the Obama campaign were converted to Martin offices. (Source)
In Minnesota Norm Coleman was the apparent winner by 215 votes, but an automatic re-count begins today of all 2.9 million votes. The recount is triggered when a candidate leads by less than 1/2 of 1 percent after all votes are tallied. Additionally Al Franken is challenging the vote totals in 49 of Minnesota’s 87 counties saying that many votes were excluded that should not have been. (Source)
Franken has a good chance with his appeal to count improperly excluded votes, since Minnesota election law favors voter intent over machine readability. That means that as many as 24,000 votes that did not register for the senate, could be re-tabulated.
Coleman’s campaign contends that those 24,000 people voted for president, but did not take a stand on the senate race. (Source)
# 5 – The vetting of Bill Clinton’s finances, regarding his foundation and international business dealings. Yes Hillary is a top contender for Secretary of State, and it’s routine that someone’s family finances etc. are scrutinized before taking such a top job but seriously, could this story be any more boring?
# 3 – Pirates seize control of Saudi supertanker; this is clearly an act of war, and just as soon as W figures out where Somalia is they are in for some shock and awe. Big time.
# 1 – The U.S. economy sucks, and Japan’s is worse. Is this really a newsflash anymore? Haven’t we entered the self-fulfilling prophecy phase of reporting on bad economic times? We get it already. Now get out on the streets and start selling apples.