Bumped

The latest tally looks even better for Democrat Mark Begich than the last one.

Ted Stevens (R): 147,004 votes (46.58 percent)
Mark Begich (D): 150,728 votes (47.76 percent)

Begich's lead now stands at 1.18 percentage points, or 3,724 votes.

Update [2008-11-18 21:10:23 by Jonathan Singer]: The Associated Press has called the race for Begich. That makes seven pick ups, and 58 to 40 seat advantage for the Democrats in the Senate (with two races still yet to be decided).

Today marks the three-year anniversary of my time as an editor at MyDD (having been commenting and writing a diary on the site for a long while before that). Since November 18, 2005, I have written roughly 2,400 posts, representing... well, a lot of time, energy and thought. It has been a blast, and I'm sure it will continue to into the future.

Some in the press may try to frame today's vote on Joe Lieberman, and specifically Barack Obama's actions in relation to the vote, on left versus right terms, that it was a Sister Souljah moment in a sense. Yet it seems to me that this actually fits more neatly into another frame -- namely that Obama putting policy above process.

During the general election, there were process arguments over whether or not it was correct for Obama to opt out of the public financing program, instead opting to fund his campaign privately. Leaving aside the debate over whether Obama made the right decision on a process level -- and I believe he did, because a campaign funded by millions of Americans giving on average a hundred or two hundred dollars is a publicly financed campaign, one that is not subject to the type of influence problems afflicted by campaigns relying more heavily on large dollar donations -- it's fairly apparent that at least part of the decision rested on the reality that Obama's likelihood of winning, and thus being able to enact progressive change, would be greater opting out of the system than it would be opting in. To put it another way, Obama put policy ends ahead of process.

The selection of Rahm Emanuel as White House Chief of Staff can be viewed in this frame as well. While some complained that Emanuel is too partisan, or that he is too tied to the previous Democratic administration -- process arguments, in a sense -- it appears that Obama wanted someone who had experience both in the White House and on Capitol Hill, and moreover someone who will be a bare-knuckles fighter on behalf of his administration and its policy goals. Again, putting policy over process.

Obama's buttressing of Lieberman's position within the Senate Democratic caucus also appears to fall within the realm of putting policy over process. No doubt Lieberman campaigned against Obama and would-be Democratic Senators, too. Process dictates (and I think it's right here) that Lieberman should not enjoy the benefits of the Democratic majority he undercut and campaigned against, retaining his chairmanship. Yet Lieberman could make Obama's life more difficult as an angry gadfly (a Tom Coburn, as it were) than he would as chairman of the Homeland Security Committee -- particularly if he owed his chairmanship to Obama, which he does. Under this rationale, Obama will have an easier go in forwarding his legislative agenda in the Senate with Lieberman beholden to him than Lieberman weaker, but mad at him.

This isn't to say that Obama made the right decision, only that his actions with regards to Lieberman aren't necessarily best described in terms of left and right.

Not exactly what a Senator up for reelection in a state that favored the other party's presidential nominee wants to see.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist remains overwhelmingly popular with a 68 - 18 percent job approval rating that makes him a strong favorite for re-election in 2010, but Sen. Mel Martinez's 42 - 33 percent approval rating makes him much more vulnerable, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

[...]

Although Sen. Martinez gets a somewhat favorable job approval rating, only 36 percent of voters say he deserves another term, while 38 percent say no and 26 percent say they are not sure. If the election were today, 36 percent say they would vote for Martinez while 40 percent would support his unnamed Democratic opponent and 24 percent are undecided.

Senators with approval ratings south of the 50 percent mark are never in a great position to earn another term -- particularly when they have a negative reelect number. Combined with the polling from over the summer showing either Congressman Robert Wexler (whom I like as a candidate in this race) or state CEO CFO Alex Sink giving Martinez a tough time, and polling from the fall showing Congressmen Alan Boyd and Ron Klein both doing the same, it's fairly clear that Martinez will be a top target for the Democrats this coming cycle.

From The Washington Post

Lieberman agreed to surrender his position on the Environment and Public Works Committee, leaving the panel and his subcommittee chairmanship there. But Lieberman will remain chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and head of the subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee that oversees air and land power issues.

[...]

The deal was negotiated by Sens. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) and Ken Salazar (D-Colo.), as well as Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.).

The Democratic caucus voted 42-13 to accept it. Those voting included the six incoming senators for the 111th Congress. Obama has already resigned his seat and Vice-President-elect Joe Biden (D-Del.) was not present.

[...]

In a more than two-hour meeting inside the Old Senate Chamber of the Capitol, where 19th century compromises were hatched, Lieberman offered apologies for some of his remarks during the campaign.

"There are some that I made that I wish I had never made at all," Lieberman said later.

It appears as though four in five Democrats in the United States Senate are content with their committee leadership including a member who actively campaigned not only for the Republican Presidential nominee but also Republican Senators up for reelection this fall. I knew the Senate was a collegial place... I just didn't know it was this collegial.

Let the record reflect that George W. Bush is handing off a recession to Barack Obama:

The U.S. economy fell into a recession last spring and will contract sharply this quarter as more than 200,000 workers per month are added to the rolls of the unemployed, a survey said on Monday.

The Philadelphia Federal Reserve's latest Survey of Professional Forecasters removed some of the glow from an earlier report showing industrial output rebounded in October after hurricane disruptions produced a stunning fall in September.

[...]

The Philadelphia Fed's survey predicted gross domestic product would shrink by 2.9 percent in the fourth quarter, a sharp downgrade from the previous prediction of 0.7 percent growth.

It said the U.S. economy entered a recession in April and that it will last 14 months, which would make it one of the longest recessions since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

While there may be efforts by some on the right to cast blame for the state of the economy early next year on the Obama, it's clear that any downturn began earlier during the watch of the Bush administration. In light of these data showing that a contraction in the economy began seven months ago, it is even more clear that the foot-dragging of both the White House and Congressional Republicans at a time when Democrats were calling for more robust stimulus measures -- and, I might add, an end to the War in Iraq, which comes at a great cost to this country -- was monumentally misguided. The only question, now, is whether Republicans will continue on the path of obstruction or, if instead, they will allow the Congress to move forward with the types of changes so required to begin to heal the ills in the economy

A stunning rebuke of Joe Lieberman from the man who chaired his 2004 Presidential campaign:

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), a close ally of Sen. Joe Lieberman, said the Connecticut Independent should pay a price for his campaign attacks against President-elect Barack Obama.

"There need to be consequences, and they cannot be insignificant," Carper said in a Monday interview with The Hill.

Carper, a fellow centrist who was Delaware campaign chairman for Lieberman's  failed bid for president in 2004, said he and many other Senate Democrats are disappointed and even angered by their colleague's sometimes-inflammatory rhetoric during this year's presidential campaign.

[...]

Carper did not rule out stripping Lieberman of his coveted gavel running the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, or imposing other sanctions like taking away seniority on other committees or a subcommittee on Armed Services.

[...]

"I'm very disappointed as a friend and a colleague," Carper said.

Carper is exactly the type of Senator I expected to at least silently vote for Lieberman maintaining his chairmanship tomorrow, if not additionally speak out on Lieberman's behalf. After all, Carper, like Lieberman, has been closely associated with the Democratic Leadership Council and, as noted above, Carper served as Lieberman's campaign chairman just four years ago. Moreover, Carper even backed Lieberman after the he had lost his Democratic primary and had decided to run as an Independent back in August 2006.

If the Carpers of the Senate aren't in Lieberman's camp, how is he expecting to get a majority of the caucus on his side to keep his chairmanship?

Eric Cantor, who is soon to be the number two Republican in the House of Representatives, has some tough words for his party.

Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, poised to ascend to House Republicans' No. 2 leader this week, said the Republican Party in Washington is no longer "relevant" to voters and must stop simply espousing principles. Instead, it must craft real solutions to health care and the economy.

The problem is, for all of the talk from Cantor, in reality all he and the House Republicans are offering is more of the same.

Mr. Cantor said Republicans should "be very wise about the battles we fight," but that they should fight every time there's a principle involved. For example, he disagrees with pundits who say Republicans should forgo issues such as immigration.

"It's not a dead issue. It's about how do we go about finally enforcing the law, and that's both in the interior as well as at the border," he said, adding that Democrats are likely to overreach if they go for a bill that offers citizenship to illegal immigrants, which he said is "amnesty."

Fine by me. If House Republicans want to hew to the type of knee-jerk conservatism that has lost them close to 60 seats during the last two election cycles, then they very well may find out that 60 isn't the limit on the number of seats they can lose. And specifically on the issue of immigration, if the Republicans want to write off Hispanic voters for a generation -- in effect doing to the entire Southwest (and in fact also large swaths of the rest of the country, too, including states like Virginia, Florida and Iowa) what they did to California, changing what was once a swing state into a deep blue one -- I say go ahead; a Democratic House majority with 270 or 280 or 290 members wouldn't be a terrible thing for the country.