Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Black Tuesday for Republicans, Value Issues

It was Black Tuesday for Republicans and value issues.

In the House, they lost at least 27 House seats and won no seats previously held by Democrats. It's the exact opposite of what happened in 1994, when Republicans won back the House. Among the Democratic winners, Minnesota is sending the first Muslim to congress.

In the Senate, Republicans lost at least 4 seats--including Jim Talent in Missouri and good guy Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania. So they've essentially lost control of the Senate too. In Kansas, Attorney General Phill Kline lost handily to Paul Morrison, 58%-41% (see previous post).

On the cultural values front, South Dakotans rejected a law that would have banned virtually all abortions (56%-44%), Arizona became the first state to defeat an amendment to ban gay marriage (51-49) and Missouri approved a measure backing embryonic stem cell cloning (51-24).

However, 7 states passed constitutional amendments defining marriage as one man and one woman: Idaho (63%-27%), South Carolina (78-22), Tennessee (80-20), Virginia (57-43), Wisconsin (59-41), Colorado (56-44 and 53-47 on no domestic partnerships), and South Dakota (52-48).

You win some and lose some. That's democracy.

1 comment:

JSUMC said...

Yes, I am in mourning as well. Now we see what big "PLANS" the dems have to do things differently.