I don;t see that at all. What I saw was that _exceptionally huge_ money affected a lot of races. Not normal money, not even big money, but ridiculous money.
Like tequila shots at the end of a night, money gave people like a 20% bump they otherwise wouldn't have had. In races that should not have been close at all, money made them close. In races that should have tilted slightly to the incumbent (going be past races), the races tilted instead to the money, by a couple of points. In races that normally would have been close, money made it seem like a runaway. I also saw the actually emergence of some real, contested, 3 way races, where instead of the normal "loon on the edge" independent, instead the independents were MODERATES of either party who didn't want to swing to the poles. We aren't used to seeing it, so people didn't trust it yet, but I think the signs are starting to shift. On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 2:54 PM, Judah McAuley <ju...@wiredotter.com> wrote: > > You know, I was just thinking about who got punished in this election. > > When I look over the results, both in the primaries and the general > election, I see a polarizing effect. A lot of Tea Party sort of folks > made primary challenges to more established Republicans, coming at > them from the right. A surprising number were effective and went on to > win in the general election. There were obviously some high-profile > losses, like Sharon Angle and Christine O'Donnel, but there were a > bunch who also won, like Marco Rubio. This would seem to have the net > effect of pulling the Republican caucus farther to the right. > > On the other side of the aisle, there wasn't as much in the way of > primary challenges from the left (that happened more in 2006 and 08) > but if you look at who lost in the general election it is pretty > striking. There were some high profile progressive losses (Alan > Grayson most notably) but the 79 member Progressive Caucus only lost 4 > members. The 54-member Blue Dogs lost 29 of their members. That has > the substantial effect of pushing the Democratic side farther left, > overall. > > What does that mean, overall? It would seem to mean that Congress will > be more polarized in the upcoming session (if such a thing is > possible). It would also seem to mean, to me at least, that voters are > only paying lipservice to bipartisanship. They seem to be electing > people that more clear in their convictions and who have big, obvious > tendencies one direction or the other. I can understand why voters > would do that but at the same time, it seems like that is going to be > a barrier to moderates in a day and age where we don't have a good > ability to communicate nuance to an electorate. > > This seems like a continuing problem to me, that voters say they want > bipartisanship but then don't vote for it, and I'm not sure how that > will change. > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:330920 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
