Notes Toward a Post We Don’t Have Time to Research

NBC counts 130 “Tea Party-backed candidates” running for House seats. Only 40 won, with eight races still undecided Wednesday afternoon.

HuffPo counts 48 conservative Blue Dog Democrats running for re-election. Only 23 won, with three races undecided Wednesday afternoon.

Daily Kos counts 72 members of the House Progressive Caucus. Only three lost.

Obviously those Republican seats came from somewhere. And we remain settled in our judgment that the Democrats sealed their fate when they passed an insufficiently robust Stimulus bill in early 2009. (Passing a major healthcare bill whose chief benefits won’t be seen for four years didn’t help, either.)

But if we’re to glean a “message” from Tuesday’s vote, we need a close analysis of each seat that flipped, particularly those that might have been recent fluke Blue wins in traditionally Red districts. Or those districts that are suffering even worse unemployment than the national average. This in addition to the noteworthy, if historically typical, fact that younger voters tend to stay home during midterms.

Bottom line, a big win is a big win. We just wouldn’t mind a little more clarification about who — and what — exactly lost.

27 Comments

In Indiana’s rural and conservative and Democratic Ninth District Blue Dog Representative Baron Hill lost again, clearly as the result of Todd Young’s brilliant strategy of placing a campaign sign in a yard in Jasper (see the Onion). He had previously lost to Mike Sodrel back in the Bush landslide of 2004, then defeated Sodrel in 2006. I suspect we’ll see Rep. Hill on the ballot again in 2012 when the pendulum swings back.

The American Spectator had this to say about Mr. Young way back in August, “Todd Young appears to be a joke.” I imagine he’ll be another Mike Sodrel who accomplishes exactly nothing in his two year term.

I love how conservative pundits spin electoral results – for instance, after the massive Rethug losses in ’06 and ’08 they decided it was because the candidates weren’t “pure” conservative enough. Yet somehow the word on *this * election is that it’s proof Dems were “too leftist”.

Wut?

And of 54 Palin backed candidates (who won their primaries), 32 wins, 17 losses, 5 undecided.

So let’s do the math and give everybody their grades, Batman:

Teabaggers: 40/130 to 48/130 = 31% to 37% success rate = F

Blue Dogs: 23/48 to 26/48 = 48% to 54% success rate = F

Talibunny: 32/54 to 37/54 = 59% to 68% success rate = F

House Progressive Caucus: 69/72 = 96% success rate = A

There I go again, with my elitist edumakation agenda.

Gee that’s too bad for the Blue Dogs.

@ManchuCandidate: True, there are fewer worthless Dildogs, but I’m sure the Demonrats will continue to find some way to give the Retreads everything that pops into their psychotic pea-brains. We are a neo-fascist right-wing country, just like Big Media sez. Time to quintuple-down on the krazee.

@¡Andrew!: Yes, those Ay-RAB numbers are part of the Islamofascist conspiracy to take over US ‘Merikah. Guess Oklahoma will be using Roman numerals and not teaching algebra any more in light of outlawing Sharia law.

@SanFranLefty:

“Children, if you don’t learn Roman Numerals, then how will you know when movies were filmed?”

-Edna Krabappel
The Simpsons

@SanFranLefty: Oh and the metric system causes lesbianism. I’m sure they’ll get around to banning that next.

@SanFranLefty:
Also Astronomy as many of the terms used have a Muslim taint to them.

@¡Andrew!:
Considering most of the Demrats who peed their pants at the mention of said things like Single Payer and War Crimes were said Dildogs I suspect that the Demrats will do all right. The problem was in the Senate not the House.

@SanFranLefty:
It pains me to admit, but whoever did the numbers gave the Talibunny too little credit. She got a C where I come from.

I am a bit lost with all of this higher math, but I think a few questions might help me sort it out.

1) When the bluedog Democrats lost their seats, did they lose them to the triumphant progressive caucus or did they lose them to Republicans?

2) How do they determine who gets the chairmanships, subpoena power, etc. in the House of Representatives? Do they allocate on which ideology had a better winning percentage? Or do they just add up the number of Democrats and Republicans?

@ManchuCandidate: Really? I thought below 70 was a D at best. Then again, I never got anything lower than a B, so who knows?

@mellbell:
In Canada City…

D -50-59%
C -60-69%
B -70-79%
A -80+

Being a lousy student in university… well, I saw alot of Cs and Ds with way fewer As and Bs than my parents wanted.

@ManchuCandidate: Wow, talk about low expectations! My public high school:

F = <70
D = 70-74
C = 75-79
B = 80-90
A = 90+

@SanFranLefty:
Just different. According to our teachers, it was because my school didn’t inflate grades. They were tough… for high school. Only two people in my graduating class of 300 scored an average higher than 90.

This does explain the grief I got from my parents as a kid about my “brilliant” cousins who all had 90s unlike stupid ole me who went through high school with mid to high 80s but I ended up going to the Canada City equivalent of an Ivy League School (as seen in my reply to Mellbell but I sucked as a student when I got there…) Parents didn’t understand the difference.

@ManchuCandidate: True that. I was harsh to say “low expectations” – just graded differently. That said, I think grade inflation is worse today than it was 25 years ago…

@SanFranLefty:
Not really harsh. My old man freaked out the first time I got a report card with numbers not grades. He thought Canada City students were retards (me included.)

Yeah, I kinda wonder about grade inflation these days, too. Even in Canada City everyone claims to be a fucking genius. Might explain why so many so called smart people choose poorly.

@SanFranLefty: Mine was even tougher (the internet knows what my smartypants brain can’t remember!):

A = 93-100
B = 86-92
C = 79-85
D = 70-78
U* = <70

* For "unsatisfactory performance," which is kinder than F for "fail," as far as it goes.

@libertarian tool:

3) When learning lessons from a massive failure, is a casual instant analysis preferable to thorough research?

4) When somebody writes, “Bottom line, a big win is a big win,” does it undermine that statement to observe that the victors get the spoils?

@Dave H: Mike Sodrel’s trucking company offices in Indianap0lis have (or at least did have a few years back) three large wooden crosses in the patch of lawn separating the semicircular front drive from the street. I can’t think of the appropriate word to convey how utterly inappropriate I find that.

TJ/

Day two of the Republican failure to fix the economy. What is their problem?

@SanFranLefty: As someone who worked in an institution of “higher learning” in OK, I can tell you for a fact that one can graduate (with grade-inflated A+ “honors”!) from an Oklahoma high school without taking day one of algebra.

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