I woke up feeling wonderful.  Way to go to all the Dems.  And for those who crossed over, welcome to a breath of fresh air.

Yes, re: the blog’s graphic, it was a wave that came in and washed the country clean yesterday.  There were wins, there were losses, but Americans are awake…. maybe with collective insomnia, given the disasters brought by BushInc… but hey.  Insomnia’s not all bad.

Really happy.  Of course there’s work to do.  But really happy this morning.  I’m so proud of everyone for their committment to the cause and the work, work, work done to take us this far.

For those voters whose candidate lost, there’s another election in two years.  Really.  That’s the beauty (and freakout) of our system.  Two years.

Namaste, all.

I can now say that I am a proud citizen of New Hampshire, and a proud citizen of the United States of America.
After the re-election of George Bush in 2004, I became a political skeptic. I felt like our country had put the wrong people in power across the board and I wasn’t sure I wanted to take part in future elections.
However, I voted in this election in the hopes that I was wrong about my country (and my state) in it’s ability to ask for positive change. I was absoloutely wrong, and I couldn’t be more exstatic about it.
My state has been known as a predominantly Republican state since 1911, and now it is in the blue. That says something about the progress that we have made and the progress that we will continually make. It gives me hope.

I’m a Democrat, and today I celebrate.
Thank you, John Kerry, for helping that happen.

Senator Kerry and the rest of the team,

Congratulations for helping to save this country. When things looked so grim in 2004, Senator Kerry told us he wanted to give everybody a big hug. Well, we felt that hug and will never forget the power of working together for what is right.

Now we have a chance to show the rest of the world something we all have known, this country can do what is right when the people are given the opportunity.  Thank-you Senator Kerry for leading the way. We look forward to your leadership in the next Congress.

You don’t need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows

We had a tsunami here in Seattle, along with our flood.

Thank you John Kerry.

Come back soon.

Thank you, John Kerry, and to all the countless volunteers who persisted past whatever muck was thrown at us. Past the cynical feeling that our citizenry still didn’t get it, and the dirty tricks would prevail again.

There was voting fraud and machine meltdown, but not with the same GOP complicity to make the difference. Enough said enough already, and went along with us to make this wonderful opportunity happen.

I hope America will still wise up to the perils of a truly un-Democratic electronic voting, despite that we won. There were the predictable glitches and breakdowns of systems not well-designed. Thankfully, there were not as many compelled to create phantom voters, shift the votes, or listen to the words of their GOP and fundie leaders.

Finally, enough sunlight on the subject by the media. Even they were frightened enough.

We thank everyone today, but none more than the generosity and resilience of John Kerry.
Thank you.

Thank you Sen. Kerry & all those behind the blog scenes for all you’ve done to help us get our country back on the right track.

For those of us in districts/states where we didn’t quite make the gains we would have liked, we are still energized & ready to start working to win next time—after a few days rest, of course. 

I’m much more hopeful for the fate of our democracy now, but I’m not done fighting to make it better.

Thank you Sen. Kerry & all those behind the blog scenes for all you’ve done to help us get our country back on the right track.

For those of us in districts/states where we didn’t quite make the gains we would have liked, we are still energized & ready to start working to win next time—after a few days rest, of course. 

I’m much more hopeful for the fate of our democracy now, but I’m not done fighting to make it better.

Great victories.  Now we have to do something constructive with them as 2008 is just around the corner.
Dems have a lot of capital now and we must not waste it on paybacks.  If we do, we will deservedly find ourselves on the outside looking in two years from now.
What Pelosi wants to do is great.  Perhaps Kerry’s plan is more complete.
We are treating this as a defeat of Bush.  We must make this a referendum against the Conservative philosophy else we will be faced with more capable Conservative opponents.
Therefore, we need to bury ideas such as:
Business should right their own rules and regulations without outside influences.  The energy companies wrote the energy policy and drug companies wrote the Medicare drug plan.
The Conservative philosophy says this is a good idea, as companies know what is best.  The trouble with this idea is not all stakeholders are involved.  Yes, energy and drug companies need to be a part of the solution.  However, alternative energy, environment, senior groups, etc must also have a seat at the table.  In this way, we get better policies that help more people, have less unintended consequences, and bury the Conservative philosophy that says only business knows best. 
We must pound nails through their coffins.  The Conservative philosophy gave us a failed Iraq war and a failed response before, during and after Katrina.  We cannot afford more instant replays of those operations.
Does all of this sound familiar?  This is right from Lakoff.

We all want to know the “architect” of Tuesday election wins?

I acknowledge that it is everyone who worked hard at phoning, mailing, polling, campaigning to get the Dem majority back in the House. And, maybe even the Senate, too!

Perhaps we can thank Howard Dean for the 50 state campaign that many Dem candidates fought.  By growing the party from the ground up, we now have a set of candidates and organizations in place for future elections.  Instead of the Repub Party only playing in our backyard, we forced them to defend all over.  The vaunted money-rich Repubs ran out for money and had to abandon some of their candidates.  We got financial parity with them because we made everyone important in our campaigns.
Make no mistake; Repubs will not make this mistake again.  We must continue the work started by Dean in all precincts and continue to grow our supply of candidates and make our organizations better.
The election is over.  I thank everyone who worked to make this happen.  Have a well-deserved beer and get back to work.
Bob C

MSNBC has broken the news, and the Associated Press has now confirmed, that the Republican leadership and the White House are officially announcing the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

YESSSS!!!!

and look for plenty more where that came from,
Otter

(battlebob… jinx!!)

Senator Kerry and Friends!

Congratulations to all of us for the fine effort put forth for Democrats across this country.  Especially the veterans who served our nation in Iraq and have returned to serve us once more in our government.  I was a bit disappointed by the VFW which apparently endorsed Duckworth’s opponent over a veteran who had served in a foreign war..but that is another matter.

What we do here is not to destroy our Republican opponents; they would choose to destroy us.  But to force them to recognize that Conservative means a balanced budget, not tax cuts for the wealthy and expenditures for the military industrial complex.  That Conservative means not involving oneself and one’s country in a foreign war unless all other means have been exhausted.  And never proactively attack another country that has not attacked us.  We also need to remind them that Conservative includes Conservation, protecting our natural resources and fighting to prevent the scourge of global warming that threatens all of mankind.

Americans have sent a message to them through us.  And we need to pick up that cause that has brought us to victory at the polls.

Under Nancy Pelosi and hopefully in the Senate as well, we need to restore integrity to Congress.  Provide for election financing reform.  Provide real oversight to this Administration.  And restore America to its rightful place in the world.  The job has just begun.

And Senator Kerry, I apologize for the Democratic leadership that silenced you in the days preceding the election.  Wisely, you chose to avoid making yourself the issue and allowed the public’s limited attention span to return to the issues facing America: the failures in leadership both in foreign policy and domestic programs of this ‘stay the course’ President.

But it is now time for your voice to be heard!  We are your extended band of brothers and we have your back!

Robert Freedland
John Kerry for President 2008

Thank all who voted Democratic. A special thank you to Senator Kerry! And good news:

GOP officials: Rumsfeld stepping down
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/11/08/rumsfeld.ap/index.html

A joyous day!

This overwhelming sense of hope has been so long delayed, so long kept to single small fires… today, this gorgeous, beautiful day, I feel we’re in flight.  Nothing short of grace.

CNN projects that Montana state Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat, will defeat Republican Sen. Conrad Burns.

One more to go…

We the People ....  vote Democratic!

Thank you Senator Kerry for your leadership and your endless efforts for the 2006 election candidates.  All of these people owe you a huge debt of gratitude and respect for keeping the Democratic Party alive and well.

Thank you to every citizen who voted for change.  You “had enough” and you “spoke truth to power.”

Thank you johnkerry.com community and volunteers across this great nation.  We can be proud, yet let’s keep our sleeves rolled up for the continued work to be done for our country.

John Kerry President 2008

Poor President Bush. Now he knows what it feels like to be held accountable for your actions.

Remember when he promised to be “a uniter, not a divider”? He certainly kept that promise. He just united the whole country AGAINST him.

Remember that old saying:

ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS.

Well Randi Rhodes said we’d take back the Democratic lead in 2006 after we had lost back in 2004 and she along with so many other good hearted Dems were right on the money!  Thank Heavens we are now on the way to less corruption and more power to the real people of America!  God Bless our troops and bring them safely back home soon.  War is bushit, War is a racket to make money for big banks and businesses.  That’s all it is!  Good people need to realize this and always endeavor to implement other solutions to solve a fight or help a cause.

One more thing to Dumbya and Donnie…

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

Bush to Rummy:

Don’t be here now.

it’s a zen boosh thing,
Otter

Hey, now that Rummy’s gone, How about a new slogan:

“STRAY FROM THE COURSE.”

Let’s lead the way out!!!!!!

Otter,

Thanks for posting that letter, I would love to see it circulated EVERYWHERE.

Had a wonderful day yesterday as an Election Judge for my precinct. Hopefully the first of many. Although arduous - today has been one nap after another. Picked up a virus but I forgive whoever came out to vote with it.

I also feel more hope and optimism than since Carter was innaugurated.  Not that Clinton wasn’t hopeful, I just knew the vast RW conspiracy was nowhere near defeat then.

Thanks to EVERYONE for all the work that needed to be done to see this day.

And especially to Senator Kerry and staff for their lead role. I hope you all had a well deserved rest.

Just wanted to add one heartfelt THANK YOU to everyone, first and foremost to senator Kerry.

Kate: “Stray from the course”, sounds great!

Otter: great little letter. Let’s hope it will be like this.

Hey!  Check out the Wyoming House! 

“But the 970 vote spread between her and Trauner would not trigger an automatic recount by the state. The vote spread would have to be no more than 931 for a recount to take place. “

Is anybody helping this guy?  This is a BIG story, Wyoming rejects Cheney!!

http://www.kgwn.tv/home/headlines/4593111.html

from michiganliberal.com

My sentiments exactly.
Good night all

Everybody’s spinning the democratic takeover.
The GOP is already claiming there’s nothing wrong with tax cuts and trickle-down economics; in fact, they say they lost because they didn’t take these things far enough.

Dubya has suddenly found his long-lost bipartisan alter ego and has promised to “reach out” to the dems.  Yep, George, it was really about cooperation all along, wasn’t it?

The blogosphere says the public has rejected conservative values and embraced liberal ones, while the DLC wing of the party says the election is a repudiation of liberal values and an embrace of centrist values.

And here in Michigan, the GOP (when they’re not trying to decide whether to make hamburger or swiss steak out of Saul Anuzis) says Granholm didn’t win on the strength of her record, or the sheer lameness of Amway Dick—nooo, she won because she succeeded in “nationalizing the election” and running against Bush.

All this spin is making me dizzy, so I’m going to find a comfortable seat, clear my mind, and try to explain to you What I Think It All Means

Senator Kerry, you did more than most people to ensure a Democratic victory in 2006 and I hope you savor the sweet taste of victory.  However, our battle is not yet over.  We now need a president who is a visionary and a statesman, who can repair the damage inflicted on this great country and restore America’s reputation in the world.  We need a great person to overcome the great obstacles that still lie before us.

There is only one man I can think of who even comes close to fitting the bill.

Please, John Kerry, America needs you now more than ever.

I hope the democratic leadership appreciates John Kerry’s contribution to the democratic wins.  You guys got to let them know you expect some respect.

Thank you, Senator, for working so hard to make all this happen!  It is an absolute dream come true for so many of us.

You want to know how the real voters of the real middle America feel now? You want to know how the new demographics defeated the old attitudes on November 7? You want to know why estrogen is the new testosterone when it comes to winning at the polls?

Go there, read that: 

http://guerillawomentn.blogspot.com/

Oh, yeah…

And while you’re on a roll, go there and read that too:

http://culturekitchen.com/

sisters are doin’ it for themselves,
Otter

Thank you Senator Kerry for all your efforts this 2006 election year.

Although you haven’t gotten the credit you deserve for taking back the House and Senate, your actions speak louder than words and your hard work will pay off in the end.

And with this wave - the 1st step of removing Rumsfield was accomplished by the Prez!  Even though the claim is that he was moving down this path.  I wonder if it would have happened if not for the wave?

then again, turnabout is fair play -

Does that mean that President Bush was For Rumsfield before he was Against Rumsfield?

A supplement to my post at Posted by battlebob | November 8, 2006 8:50 PM

From MichiganLiberal.com

All day I’ve been trying to come up with a common thread to connect the national election with what happened here in Michigan—something that will explain why so many traditionally red counties here went solid blue, and why we took back the state house and almost took the senate without really trying to do so.
And here it is in a nutshell:  security.

Now, since 9/11/2001, when you heard that word, you thought about terrorists, right?  Planes flying into buildings.  Anthrax letters.  Snipers in Washington DC.  Of course—that’s what George and Karl wanted you to think about.

But the meaning of security has changed in the past five years.  Security has become such an unfamilar feeling that we’ve come to define security by what it’s not.  At the national level, that means things like a budget deficit so huge that we wonder whether we’ll ever pay it off even if we do stop outsourcing our entire manufacturing base to third world countries.  Things like the Iraq war tying up nearly all of our available combat troops plus most of our National Guard and reserve so we can’t defend ourselves if another country attacks us.  Things like 2,800 combat casualties and no end in sight, and a president who, we now realize, lies every time he moves his lips.

Feel more secure reading these things?  Didn’t think so.

At the state level, we’ve also come to define security by what it’s not.  Things like the auto industry twitching in rigor mortis and then hearing an entitled theocrat tell us he has a plan to fix this but he’s not going to tell us what it is, just that it has something to do with cutting taxes.  Meanwhile, middle-class jobs are as scarce as the Kirtland’s warbler, and you can’t sell your house and go to another state because all of your neighbors are trying to sell theirs too.

It’s pretty bad when an entire country has come to define security as the way they used to feel before George Bush took office.

So, to the democrats, in Washington and in Lansing:  put security first.  And that does not mean building a wall next to Mexico, staying the course in Iraq, or bombing Iran.  If you’re in debt up to your eyeballs and your roof is leaking, you don’t go out and charge $10,000 worth of merchandise down at the gunshop to fix the problem.

Nope, you arrange to pay down your debt, and you find enough money to fix the damn roof.

Security means we stop bleeding money and start creating an economy where those who work can pay their bills.  It means thinking about the future for our kids, instead of the next quarter for the shareholders.  It means smart foreign policy from people who know how complicated the world is in the twenty-first century.  I could go on and on (health care, anyone?), but you get the picture.  These aren’t liberal or centrist or conservative policies.  They’re policies that make us feel secure instead of afraid.

Michigan reelected Granholm because we believe she’ll try her damnedest make our lives secure again.  We booted out the GOP incuments and elected democrats because we believe the dems, not the GOP, will make us more secure.

I’m looking forward to the day when so-called conservative values are no longer a viable political philosophy, and instead we evaluate policy according to whether it makes us more or less secure.

In fact, I feel more secure just thinking about it.

Keep it up everyone, this place is great, we all did so much hard work and now the election is over. we have a mandate.

Kerry should sign the SF180 giving complete access to his military records so the SwiftVets will be silenced once and for all.

His not signing the SF180 makes it look like he has something to hide. We all know he has nothing to hide, right? He needs to show America that he has nothing to hide by fully disclosing his military record.

Support,

He has done that and the media have reported on his records.  There is nothing there.

Awesome job done.  We have now the two houses and can start to work.

I hope the senator consider seriously another run in 08.  He has shown anybody who was listening that he would be a good president.  It is time not to let this job to amateurs. 

We need a good leadership who understand that the WH is not about “deserving it”, but wanting to serve.

Dick,

Is there a list of Democratic governors that John Kerry supported and got elected?

I’d like to know how those numbers too.

Tia,

There are governors included in the list above.  In addition to those listed above, JK also appeared with Deval Patrick at functions sponsored by the Massachusetts Dems, as well as with MN Gov candidate Hatch and FL Gov candidate Davis who were both defeated.

The following governors or candidates were elected and received support from the various PAC associated here.

IA-GOV Chet Culver
KA-GOV Kathleen Sebelius
ME-GOV John Baldacci
MD-GOV Martin O’Malley
MI-GOV Jennifer Granholm
NH-GOV John Lynch
PA-GOV Edward Rendell

In 2005
VA-GOV Tim Kaine

Martin O’Malley in MD and Tim Kaine in VA in 2005 were the only pick ups.  The others were incumbants or sucessors to former democratic governors.

For the Republicans who peek in here:

GOP officeholders turned off and lost Republican voters
BY JEFFREY R. LEWIS
November 9, 2006
As a lifelong Republican, I was not surprised by the widespread repudiation of my party in Tuesday’s election. Even more, though, I’m frustrated by the reasons behind it—that congressional Republicans and the Bush administration are more interested in courting an ultra-conservative base and currying favor with their corporate backers than making life better for middle class Americans.

I am frustrated that the party is shutting out and turning off Republicans like me.

My values are fundamentally conservative, and I voted for the “compassionate conservative” who sought the White House six years ago. But ever since, Republicans like me have watched in dismay as the Bush administration turned its back on the Americans who needed compassion the most.
Make no mistake, the biggest issue in this election was President George W. Bush and his handling of the Iraq war. But on Election Day, it was those of us angered at the national party’s abandonment of real Republican values who swept so many incumbent Republicans from their seats.
When I grew up, Republicans considered waste a sin and indifference to the suffering of others immoral. Today, the administration’s policy on stem cell research has turned both of these injunctions on their heads. If Orrin Hatch and Ted Kennedy can agree on the value of stem cell research, surely enough common ground exists to support a bipartisan solution. In California, a successful ballot measure backed by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Silicon Valley venture capitalists and voters from both sides of the aisle is already helping bring American entrepreneurial ingenuity to bear on the challenges and opportunities of stem cell research.

What could be more Republican than that? Why can’t the president follow suit?

This administration’s health care policies have been a disaster. If the president had meant what he said about reaching out to those who did not vote for him, he might have begun by using traditional Republican principles as a basis for new health care initiatives that can make a meaningful difference in peoples’ lives.

Never has the discipline of a free market, for example, been more needed than with respect to today’s pharmaceutical industry. Yet nowhere is the “free market” less free. With drug prices rising at three times the rate of inflation and exploding health care costs hurting increasing numbers of middle class Americans, the administration’s rejection of market-based cost containment measures is baffling.

Why on Earth would a free-market administration prohibit Medicare and governors from negotiating directly with drug manufacturers to obtain the lowest possible drug prices—except to protect pharmaceutical industry profits? And why would the administration insist on using the private sector to set prices, rather than the market itself? Clarion calls for smaller government ring hollow when government edict requires that private companies be paid to do something that consumers can do more efficiently themselves.

Moreover, corporate protectionism doesn’t work; drug prices continue to climb, while growing numbers of seniors are being forced to choose between food and medicine, and millions more uninsured middle class Americans simply go without. Foisting a costly and inefficient system on middle class Americans who have traditionally been the heart of the Republican Party is neither compassionate nor conservative.

In the meantime, truly compassionate conservatives would insist on easing the plight of the 45 million Americans who have no health insurance—men, women and children who die sooner than the rest of us because they receive only about half the medical care of the insured. Further, the share of Americans without insurance is growing, while health care costs rise much faster than wages or inflation. As a result, health care costs are quickly and quietly bankrupting thousands of American families. How does that preserve “family values”?

And uninsured Americans who do get seriously ill eventually end up in hospitals, usually at taxpayer expense. The public cost of uncompensated care amounts to a $30-billion tax burden on people who have insurance. How about a tax cut for us?
I am a Republican who believes government should be responsive to reason rather than special interests, that government should spend no more of the taxpayers’ money than absolutely necessary, and that the market is usually the best and most efficient arbiter of prices. But I also believe that problems are really only opportunities to create solutions, and that sometimes we need our government to put politics aside and bring disparate views together to find those solutions. Unfortunately, the Republican leadership and President Bush have stubbornly refused to walk across the aisle to do that.

Ironically, their insistence on playing politics—by pandering shamelessly to the far right and corporate lobbyists instead of listening to Republicans like me—has brought about one of the biggest Republican political disaster in a generation.

JEFFREY LEWIS, 52, a Detroit native and a graduate of Henry Ford High School and the University of Michigan, chairs the board of the Women’s Institute for a Secure Retirement and is a former staff director for the late U.S. Sen. John Heinz, R-Pa.

Thanks Sen. Kerry for all you did to make this happen.

We can only thank Jeebus that George Bush is so arrogant and thick-witted that he believes his own bully boy Iraq slogans and decided to drag his war drums out and beat them in the week running up to the election.  Ned Lamont’s candidacy may have initially dislodged the Rahm/Chuck gag from the mouths of Democratic candidates who were suddenly free to talk about Iraq, but had not the President decided to launch the Mighty Wurlitzer in a phyrric battle against John Kerry just prior to election day the overwhelming Democratic victory might never have reached “wave” proportions. Even members of his own party are now giving voice to the cringing horror they felt when Junior broke into the warhawk boogie before the cameras at the most colossally ill-timed moment imaginable, wondering why he was doing the work of their opponents for them.

From http://www.firedoglake.com/

Thank you John Kerry, if it was by accident or not , The Smear and Fear attack on you in the last week brought out the ugliest images and behaviour of Bush right before the election That set up the wave. Rove and his “Smear and Fear ” Machine is dead.