US Midterm results: Mixed feelings.

[Foxboy]

Okay, the positive:

1. the folks I voted for won
   
2. The f$cking negative ads are DONE... for two years.
   

The negative:

1. In a lot of other states, the Negative ads worked
   
2. The swarm of smug incoming due to the total Senate results.
   

''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Morganite]

Do I read an implication that there was someone running for something in your state that didn't run any negative ads? They seemed to be the order of the day for all comers in the elections for national office here in Iowa. (I'm not sure how to evaluate the governer's race, since I don't think I ever saw *any* ads for the Democrat or Libertarian candidates. Somehow it felt like Jack Hatch never really had his heart in it from the beginning, but it could just be that my exposure was limited.)

Would it qualify as smugness for me to say that most of the people I voted for won too? Though it looks like Gronstal will continue to be the Iowa senate majority leader(/king), which might have given me more pleasure than a lot of the national results, and that's one that didn't happen.

Also, the official election results page for Iowa is giving me that "I'm living in the future" feeling. I'll probably throw out random comments on elections local to no one but me (if that) at some point.

-Morgan.

[Foxboy]

Well, given that at least one county-level post had the same candidate for both parties, like it has for the past 10 years.... No negative ad there.

I think the main deciding factor here in the Granite state is that the Republican Candidate, Scott Brown, was an ex-Senator from Massachusetts, and he REALLY misread the constituency's opinion on "attack the candidate via screaming about Obama" ads.

Oh, wait, I almost forgot the funding figleaf.

The "Political Action Campaigns" that were placing ads in support of "Anybody but an Obama crony. I don't care if they've voted against anything he's introduced. They're the blue side, they're a CRONY." Those guys went too far. The actual candidates are pure as the driven snow... {/sarcasm}
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Morganite]

Well, given that at least one county-level post had the same candidate for both parties, like it has for the past 10 years.... No negative ad there.

Well, I did say "national office". We had plenty of lower-level posts that only had one candidate too*, but that's not quite the same. (And if "same candidate for both parties" means something different than "only one party fielded a candidate", that sounds like a bit of a story.)

*I was a bit surprised by the number of state senate races that were like this. But I guess with how they have county-by-county voter registration demographics, I guess there's places no one feels it's worth the effort to run as a given party. It seemed kind of weird though that the Republican-only ones were all towards the beginning of the list, and the Democrat-only ones were mostly towards the end.

The "Political Action Campaigns" that were placing ads in support of "Anybody but an Obama crony. I don't care if they've voted against anything he's introduced. They're the blue side, they're a CRONY."

Don't know if I recall any with exactly that format. The ones that really stood out to me were probably:

-"Beware, this candidate is receiving campaign money from rich out-of-state interests! This ad paid for by a rich out-of-state interest."

-"Issue A is important! Our guy is better on Issue A! Vote our guy! Funded by the Committee For Entirely Different Issue B, Who Don't Really Give A Crap About Issue A."

-"Music of Doom! Candidates name! Music of Doom! They're awesome! Music of Dooooom! Vote for them! Signed, people who like this candidate." Uh, did you really think the music of doom made sense for a candidate supporting someone? Every time I heard it, I thought it was going to be an attack ad.

-Morgan. If the Democrats aren't the senate majority anymore, do they have to transfer ownership of the "Senate Majority PAC" name?

[LilFluff]

Well, here in Arizona we elected a governor whose big achievement was assisting in screwing up an ice cream company. Yes, here in the desert they managed to fail at selling ice cream (tl;dr for the link: franchises defaulted on SBA loans at more than double the rate of most other SBA loans).
We've also decided not to heed the warnings of history (hey, just because it's never succeeded in 200 years) and pass a nullification act. Prop 122 also created a ludicrously hair triggered nullification act. Nowhere in the bill do you have to say why you think a federal law is unconstitutional, you just have to say so (or rather, Attorney General, Legislature, or citizens by passing an initiative) and upon saying so state law prohibits any part of the government in AZ from spending money or time to, "enforce, administer or cooperate," with said law. Literally all the bill would require is for the legislature to pass a bill saying, "We think the endangered species act is stupid. Pursuant to article 2, section 3 of the state constitution we order everyone to stop enforcing it." and boom it kicks in. Now you get to have arguments over what constitutes cooperation. If the legislature passed a bill against the endangered species act as in the previous sentence, has a member of the game and fish department in violation if they send an email saying, "Hey, I happened to notice someone is trapping X's, aren't X's on the endangered list?"
The absolute best outcome would be everyone cheering that they passed it and thus have thumbed their nose at the Feds, and then promptly ignore it. Because anything beyond that is going to mean losing money in lawsuits and revoked funding.
As for the senate? Whatever, historically it's what you'd expect. Whatever party the president is for some time in the midterm of the second term their party will either lose the majority in congress or fail to gain the majority. I also predict no real change in congressional productivity.
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Will the transhumanist future have catgirls? Does Japan still exist? Well, there is your answer.

[Black Aeronaut]

LilFluff wrote:

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I also predict no real change in congressional productivity.

Because the Republicans have been just so wonderful at productivity lately.  Really, all they did was appeal to the nation that the lack of 'change' was the Democrats fault, when really, the kind of change people want takes decades.  Obviously not many people out there play SimCity - if they did, they'd understand a little better what goes to encouraging healthy growth, and how long it really takes.  "Wow, this place looks great now!  How long have I been at this?  150 years in game time!?  Seriously!?"