U.S. voters go to the polls in Tempe, Arizona
Source: AP, via The Guardian

Today’s a big election day in the U.S. for the seats in Congress.

At stake is whether the war in Iraq will continue to victory or a cut-an-run strategy, similar to that employed to end the Vietnam War, is implemented. Both houses of Congress are up for grabs. The Republicans are in power right now but the Democrats have good chances of winning both.

For that reason, I’m on my way to the polling station which is about to close in one hour and twenty minutes. I’ll tell you how that goes.

Meantime, especially if you are overseas and watching the races, here are the primo Web sites for the most up to date election coverage news on this critical U.S. midterm election.

Start with The Drudge Report which shows the latest breaking stories in a jiff. It can be seen here.

Next, go to RealClearPolitics which is the true political junkie’s Web site. They’ve got a kickass blog going, right there in real time (it’s actually easier to read than Drudge just because its layout is chronological and its writers are really reliable and knowledgeable).

Powerline’s also got some superb live-blogging, its very easy to read and very informative, well worth a click here.

Then there are the bulletin boards, which sometimes have good real-time reporting from citizen journalists on the ground in odd places, and often get the news quickly. Two good rightwing ones are Lucianne and Free Republic, both of which have big live threads of everyone piling on and telling what they know as the election goes on. Read Lucianne.com here and FreeRepublic here. If you lean left or want to see the leftwing side of the table – they are the projected winners after all, check out Daily Kos, which has an excellent chart at the top of its page as well as lots of leftwing points of view as the race goes on.

Be back after I cast my ballot! cheers!

Went down to cast my vote in Beverly Hills where I live. It was an easy, pleasant experience, with no line, lots of food we could take on the table, and a nice area for voting. The friendly poll workers found my name easily, had me sign off, and off I went to vote. We had a voting system called ‘Inka’ which meant paper ballots, punched with an ink stylus. I took out my GOP Web site recommendations I printed out, ticked it all off like they recommended, handed it back to the man at the ballot boxes who gave me a receipt, and everyone waved goodbye as I left. I didn’t even get a ticket for my illegal red-zone parking! (I didn’t want to be late and I arrived at 7:50 p.m. after too long in heavy LA highway traffic, with ten minutes to the close, so I didn’t care where I parked so long as I could make it to the polls. No problem!) It was about a hundred degrees outside, one of the hottest November nights I can ever remember.

RESULTS

Well, the results are in and I am disappointed, but not insanely so. The Democrats have easily taken the House and the GOP is clinging to the Senate by a fiberglass shred, something like one vote. Of course I wanted the GOP to win, but the Dems might not be all that bad, or at least, at this point, I am not willing to think that right now until they do something atrocious.

On the downside, I am deeply fearful for the free trade pacts with Colombia, Peru and all the CAFTA states, they need to be ratified and gotten out the door. It will be a disaster if they don’t and a victory for Hugo Chavez. There has got to be a way to make this happen, we are right on the cusp of permanent victory. I am also fearful of Cut-And-Run from Iraq, where we make a Saigon-style exit and leave Iraqis to the terrorists just because we don’t have the stamina to see the victory though. Terrorists will take note of that and follow us home knowing that the response will be funds for sensitivity training as the solution. As for Iraqis, they will be left to die. It’s a very disturbing scenario and dangerously real. I am angry at George Bush for not winning the war sooner than he did so we would not find ourselves in this debacle. I really hope there is no cut-and-run.

On the upside, it’s natural for power to shift between two parties. That the Democrats could win means that they aren’t that damaged as merchandise as I originally thought, there must still be something vibrant about them to voters. (I can’t see it, but other voters can) That is helpful for maintaining accountability in democracy. All good democracies really need two sides, otherwise they go stagnant. So this is the silver lining. The Republicans had gone stale and many were just incompetent pork-barrelers. Hosing that place out of that crew might be helpful. Maybe there will be a more generous immigration deal that legalizes the illegal immigrants – I’d be happy to trade that with the Democrats in exchange for free-trade for the Americas. I am not thrilled with the changes the Democrats have planned for the House committees, like the easily-bribed Alcee Hastings as intelligence committee chief but I hope the FBI does a sting operation on this known bribe-taker and gets him out of there as soon as possible. Same deal with Charlie Rangel at the Ways and Means Committee – can you imagine a guy like that in charge of money? Or John Conyers, a man who dabbles in treason with communist regimes, in charge of Judiciary? It’s gonna be the pork barrel hog wallow to end all hog wallows. We will be lucky if there is no currency devaluation. As for do-nothing featherbed bureaucrats, they are no doubt rejoicing bigtime, good times are ahead with Chuckie at the helm. Bureaucracies are gonna be hiring relatives. Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi, believe it or not, I have no problem with. (UPDATE: I heard her on the radio, ugh! I do). I used to chat with her when she was a young congresswoman and she was always extremely nice to me even though she had no reason to be. Also, I remember back in my San Francisco days that the hard-left hated her insanely, calling her a rightwinger (their vision was 20-2000 on political distinctions), so that too speaks well for her. She’s leftwing but it’s my sense that she’s a reasonable person and won’t do anything too crazy. I actually like her. UPDATE: Pelosi’s on the radio and talking about Cut-And-Run. Ugh. Much farther left than I remember. She’s gonna be awful!

There was point-blank good news, too. The proposition I campaigned fiercely and passionately for, Proposition 87, won splendidly – and when I started, it was actually losing so I have the nice personal satisfaction of thinking I might have made a difference. Very pleasant indeed – there will be treasure in these waters with offshore drilling that won’t be taxed to death for the sake of socialist bureaucracy programs that actually retard progress on ethanol development!

And, my precious Arnie Schwarzenegger won the governorship very easily. Arnie was down on his luck with the communist unions after him about a year ago but he learned to get along with the Democrats and although he’s picked up a few loopy ideas like Global Warming that I wish he’d forget about, all in all, this is a very pleasing result. He’s my governor and I am always happy to see him successful. George Bush is going to have to learn as much as he can from Arnie because he’s got a House full of Democrats to negotiate with right now. I hope it’s not too hard.