UNRESOLVED SENATE RACES
ALASKA … (D) Mark Begich has pulled ahead of (R) Ted Stevens by 814 votes. State officials say another 30-thousand ballots will be counted next week. A former Stevens pollster says Begich will prevail. Stevens turns 85 next week and has been in the Senate since 1968.
Republicans are rooting for him to lose. They don’t want their guy being the first felon elected to the Senate and wouldn’t mind being spared Sarah Palin finding her way into his seat via special election.
MINNESOTA … (R) Norm Coleman is clinging to a 206-vote lead over (D) Al Franken. The state is preparing for an automatic recount of the nearly three-million votes cast. The winner won’t be known until sometime next month. Franken has narrowed Coleman’s original lead thanks to a series of clerical errors.
GEORGIA … The contest between (R) Saxby Chambliss and (D) Jim Martin is headed to a runoff. Chambliss was unable to avoid December 2nd, coming up just shy of the 50% needed in the original three-way race. John McCain has already made a stop in Georgia to campaign for Chambliss. Sarah Palin won’t be far behind. Democrats are better organized, but face an uphill fight.
FILIBUSTER PROOF … Democrats would have to win all three races to get to 58 seats. Vermont’s independent, Bernie Sanders already caucuses with them, essentially making 59. Joe Lieberman gets them to 60, which is why Harry Reid and the gang are bending over backwards for him.
Should the Connecticut maverick bolt, Dems could always work across party lines on individual issues, with the hopes of pulling in either of Maine’s liberal Republicans, Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins.
OBAMA-HA
NE ... McCAIN 4, OBAMA 1
Barack Obama did it. He won Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, garnering one of the state’s five electors. The country has always dealt with rogue electors, but this marks the first time voters actually produced an authentic split.
Nebraska and Maine both award a pair of electors to the overall winner and individual electors to the victor in each congressional district. McCain led by 569 votes the day after the election, but Obama gained more than 18-hundred in the subsequent count of early votes in Douglas County.
Not surprisingly, the “Lincoln Journal-Star” reports (bitter) Republicans are preparing to play politics with the system. They’re signaling a desire to use the state’s 2009 legislative session to change back to winner-take-all.
SHOW ME McCAIN …
John McCain is well on his way to winning Missouri. His lead is just under five-thousand votes with some 63-hundred provisional ballots still to be counted. Many will be disqualified and were they not to be, Obama would still have to win nearly 90% of them. McCain takes the state’s 11 electoral votes and its bellwether status too.
SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY?
DUCK!
Bad move Mr. Obama. Avoid her like the plague. Bill Richardson is far more qualified for starters. The world of political punditry seems to think you owe Latinos something for their loyalty. Problem is the world of political punditry has already forgotten that the magic of your election to the nation’s highest office is that you didn’t run as a black candidate … you ran as a candidate. Richardson is far more qualified as I’ve said. John Kerry would be fine as well.
Back to Hillary though. Anyone remember her sniper-fire dodging experience in Bosnia? Not the type of credibility one wants his Secretary of State taking to the bargaining table.
WE LIKE CHRIS MATTHEWS, BUT …
DECAF ONLY!
A few days after Waves of Wisdom defended Chris Matthews against his hyperpartisan critics, he managed to make an ass of himself on yesterday’s “Hardball.” We still like Matthews and find his honest perspective refreshing, despite his unprofessional interview of Minnesota’s governor.
Tim Pawlenty was right: the host needs to back off the caffeine. While Matthews’ points about Sarah Palin and President Bush were generally on target, it’s not a good idea to put words in your guest’s mouth. Pawlenty didn’t suggest the president was shirking his responsibilities and offered no criticism of the gubernatorial lightweight. Matthews was having way too much fun. The rest of us were left to wonder if he’d been drinking. “You’re great!”
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Tags: Alaska, Barack Obama, Chris Matthews, Election 2008, Georgia, Hillary Clinton, Mark Begich, Minnesota, Norm Coleman, Omaha, politics, split electors, Tim Pawlenty
