Election Hangover

The Republicans were swept from the House and the Senate in what appears to be a referendum on Bush’s War Policies. I think it should send a strong and clear signal to the Iraqi government that it is time for them to pull themselves together and start letting more of our troops phase out.

And, I think that is all that this Democratic victory means at this point. It sends a signal. The Democrats will not be able to push through any leftist agendas without some Republican support on the issue, such as repealing any tax cuts or raising the minimum wage. The only thing the Democrats will be able to do to affect war policy is an attempt to defund the war, and that would be a political nightmare.

Essentially, all new government legislation will stop until the next President comes to power, because there will not be enough votes to override a Presidential veto or enough votes in the Senate to invoke cloture. The bad news about this is that there are still big problems with illegal immigration that was not fixed in the last congress. And no new tax cuts will be coming along either. And with the Dems in control of the committees, this also means that no conservative judges will be appointed.

So what can we expect from this new Congress? The only thing they can do without getting vetoed or filibustered will be to open investigations. There will be subpoenas flying all over Washington for the next two years, and it will likely get ugly.

There is very little news of voter fraud today, surprisingly. I guess all of the Democrats that declared that voter machines were rigged changed their minds when the results came out in their favor. I don’t know about other people’s polling experience yesterday, but mine went very smoothly. Turnout was quite heavy, but the lines moved and the voting machines were very easy to use.