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In the race for the Senate, Democrats won 51 seats. Republicans won 46 seats. 3 seats are still open. With 51 seats the Democrats have a majority in the Senate. Some Republicans are accusing Tea Party candiadates for losing the Senate race:
In Nevada: "Republicans originally backed former state party chairwoman Sue Lowden for the race, but Angle beat her this summer in a surprise primary win. Angle ran a conservative campaign that caused many detractors to characterize her as an extremist -- and Reid used this image to his advantage. Reid labeled Angle "crazy," "dangerous," and "extreme" in his ads, and by his own account, the strategy of persistently pushing Angle's image as a fringe figure worked."
Senate majority leader Reid was re-elected in this one. I suppose that the rather extreme right wing views of Sharon Angle disenchanted many voters who opted for Reid. Angle suggested that the US should withdraw from the United Nations. The US should ban same-sex marriage. Abortion should be illegal, even in cases of rape and incest because those children are part of God's plan. She opposes the separation of church and state in the US Constitution. She believes that healthcare should be completely privatized and supported a bill that would exempt insusrers for paying for mammograms and colonoscopies. She believes that the Social Security system should be "transitioned out". She does not believe in Global Warming and completely rejects the belief that man-made pollution is a cause for any climatic shanges. She wanted to repeal regulations that ban offshore drilling and drilling in Alaska, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Sharon Angle wants the border with Canada clamped down citing that it was through Canada that the 9-11 terrorists entered the US, this in spite of the fact that both the FBI and the CIA have rpoven that none of the terrorists came through Canada but directly from third countires with visas issued by American embassies.
Her views were a bit too much for many people, and it is not surprising that Reid would win in spite of his being unpopular. I suppose it was better to vote for an unpopular man than for somebody with extreme right-wing views.
In Delaware: "... to the detriment of the GOP's fortunes in the general election. Republicans wanted former Rep. Mike Castle, an established statewide GOP leader, to vie for the open Senate seat. But tea party candidate Christine O'Donnell took the primary in an upset and went on to lose handily in Tuesday's election."
O'Donnell's case was something else too. Things and comments she did during her youth really hurt her chances. As a young girl she dabbled in "witchcraft" and her opponents seized on that to try to shatter her image as a good Christian. Her comments on masturbation were held to riducule and many of her views were rather extreme, as was the case of Sharon Angle. For example, O'Donnell proposed bringing biblical principles into law-making and government policy, thereby ending the separation of church and state. She opposed abortion and sex education in schools. She also opposed teaching the Theory of Evolution in schools and replacing it with creationism. Her oponents also used her financial troubles and misuse of campaign funds against her. According to polls, in July of this year she was ahead of Chirs Coons by 41 to 39%. By August she was trailing by 10 points, and by September she was trailing by 15 points. The final result favored Coon with 57% of the vote while O'Donnell had 40% of the vote. I suppose her opponents capitalized on her past and some of her extreme views. In this case Coons was clearly the more popular of the two candidates, even though O'Donnell seemed to have more media attention focused on her.
In Colorado Ken Buck lost. He called global warming a hoax, took a homophobic stance and opposed abortion even in cases of rape and incest. Mr. Buck also made sexist remarks that later allienated women Republican voters. Democrat Michael Bennet won that race.
Alaska seems to be still up in the air. The election was too close to call. Joe Miller (Tea Party favorite) was leading the polls until mid-October when his staff detained and handcuffed a journalist illegally. The journalist asked Miller about his being disciplined while working as a lawyer for the Fairbanks North Star Borough (county). Miller's supporters and security guards detained the journalist and handcuffed him. Miller refused to address publicly the issue of his problems with the Fairbanks North Star Borough and that probably hurt him. Miller also held some extreme views such as eliminating the federal minimum wage, unemployment benefits and farm subsidies. He also said that the Berlin Wall was an example of how a nation could deal effectively with problems of illegal immigration. Another Republican, Lisa Murkowski, mounted a write-in campaign. At this point it seems that Murkowski might be ahead with 41% of the vote, Miller with 34% and McAdams (Democrat) with 24%. Hnad-counting of the ballots will start on Nov. 18, so it might be a while before official results come out.
The race for the House of Representatives was entirely a different matter. Republicans have officially won 240 seats (218 required for a majority). Democratx have officially won 184 seats. 21 seats are still under review. It is here where the Republicans won big and where the Democrats will have a hard time passing laws. Many laws will probably go to the Senate, and Obam's administration will have a really difficult time getting anything done now.
In the governor races the Republicans won 28 governor seats, the Democrats 15, 1 independent and 6 still under review. Probably 3 more states will have Democrat governors, and 2 more will have Republican governors. The Republicans won big in here too.
In seeing this, I suspect that there will be finger pointing and some Republicans will probably blame Tea Party candidates for splitting the vote in the Senate race. It seems that people did reject the more notorious far right-wing candidates. This is interesting for Sarah Palin because those were some of the people that she supported publicly. It will give her a hint of how to chose a better strategy for the 2012 presidential election.
(kaŝi) Se interesas vin la progreso de turniro en kiu vi ludas, vi povas diskuti pri ĝi kun viaj kontrauŭloj en la forumo de la turniro. (HelenaTanein) (Montri ĉiujn konsilojn)