Election Thoughts

Whew! I'll leave the debate/dissection of the national election results to others. I'll just say that it was a fairly stinging rejection of Dubya and "Staying the Course," not just in Iraq but domestically as well. At least one of Dubya's cronies, Rumsfeld, has seen the writing on the wall and is resigning. Will others follow?

On a local level, things were much less interesting. However, there was one nugget from the night that just tickles me - Don Blankenship's "For the Sake of the Kids" (wherein "Kids" really means "Big Coal and the Chamber of Commerce" campaign failed miserably. Blankenship is the president of Massey Coal and made major waves in the 2004 state Supreme Court election by pouring tons of money into an effort that resulted in the defeat of a pro-plaintiff Justice by a pro-business one. In this election, Blankenship used his "For the Sake of the Kids" campaign to urge voters to go Republican and hard. Not only did most of the Democratic targets of Blankenship's spending retain their seats in the state legislature, the GOP actually lost ground in both houses!

Maybe Don can now retreat to the Resthome for Guys Who Couldn't Buy Elections along with Ross Perot and Michael Huffington. Please. I'll send you a fruit basket!