Election Projections

Everybody has been thinking that the Dems will pick up the House, but that they wouldn’t quite do it in the Senate. I’d been waiting for the final projections from the Blogging Ceasar because in the 2004 elections his record was pretty good using his methodology. As I write this he’s still updating his final update for 2006. His final house numbers are not up yet, but his final prediction for the Senate is up. It is that we will end up with:

49 Democrats
49 Republicans
2 Independants

To me this would be a really fun result. (It probably won’t turn out this way, but…)

The two independants would of course be Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Now, Bernie is very liberal and will just go with the Dems without anything interesting. Lieberman has of course promised to “caucus with” the Democrats as well, so this is essentially a Democratic win. But…

It really isn’t completely. It potentially puts Lieberman in a position where he could threaten to withold his vote to organize with the Democrats into a majority block unless he got concessions on certain issues he cared about or on who exactly would be in the leadership slots. Not that he would vote with the Republicans to put in Republican leadership, he has made clear that he would not do that. BUt what do house rules say on leadership votes? Is 50 to 49 with one abstaining good enough to organize? A 50/50 tie is broken by the vice president, but 50/49/1 is not a 50/50 tie.

Does someone out there know exactly what happens in this scenerio?

No, if only Bernie was also a moderate, you would have control of the house essentially determined by the will of that “third group” and they might be able to force some sort of interesting arrangements. But… that is not quite what we would have.

And Lieberman, if put into a position like this, might just try to “kiss and make up” with the dems by not demanding anything at all and just voting for Pelosi for leader and be done with it. But given the way the Dems have treated him, milking it a bit and demanding a few concessions would be quite reasonable I think. And holding the stick at the ready that at any point if they pissed him off, he would call for a new leadership vote and put the R’s back in power… priceless.

And just to note, if any of that comes to pass, it is entirely the fault of the Kossites and the like who thought flexing their muscle and pushing out Lieberman was the smart thing to do. Ha!

Anyway, probably won’t be so lucky as to actually get 49/49/2 as the split… that would just be too good. But this will be fun.

As of now we still don’t have DirecTV up and functional at the new house. We’ll be working on that tonight. Cause I fully intend to spend most of tomorrow evening glued to election coverage. Love this stuff.

PS: Own personal view… either the R’s or the D’s in charge of everying is bad. It is critical right now that the D’s get back at least one house of congress if not both… However… if a Democrat wins the White House in 2008, I would very much hope that at least one house of the congress went Republican again. When *either* party controls all three, they just make a horrible mess. Just the tension between the legislature and executive given the seperate ways they are elected used to be enough to provide appropriate checks and balance regardless of party, but it seems these days for there to be any counterweight, the executive and legislature MUSt be controlled by different parties.

PPS: In the mean time though, regardless of the outcome, the process is fun to watch. We’ll see just how far off the projections all are. Do the Dem’s really take the House? The Senate? Or do they completely fall apart. Oh, can you just imagine the Dem reaction if they end up NOT taking at least the house? They would be apoplectic!