Patriot Update - A Free Press for the Conservative Revolution

Balance of Power

          Democrat     Republican
Senate          51             46
House          191            244

Key House Races: Michele Bachmann won her race with her largest margin of victory ever. This is major since she is likely to seek a leadership post within the new House Republican majority. Speaking of leadership, Pelosi will be de-throned as Speaker! Rep. John Boehner is likely to take over. Allen West of FL comfortably defeated the incumbent Democrat. He will be the first black Republican congressman since the J.C. Watts retired in 2003. To Janeane Garofalo and any other racist mongers who have claimed that the popularity of the Tea Party is “about hating a black man in the White House”, Col. West won in Palm Beach, a wealthy white majority district where fewer than 5 percent of the voters are black.

Key Senate Races: Rand Paul in Kentucky and Pat Toomey in PA, who will take party-switcher Sen. Arlen Specter’s seat. In FL Marco Rubio trounced turncoat Gov. Charlie Crist and became the highest-ranking elected Hispanic as well as a clarion voice for conservatism. Also, John Boozman in AR trounced Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln, denying her a third term. Mark Kirk in IL – Obama’s old seat – if that isn’t a referendum on the President’s agenda, I don’t know what is. Another incumbent bit the dust, Russ Feingold of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance “reform” bill losing to Tea Party-backed businessman Ron Johnson.

Unfortunately, Reid (NV) and Boxer (CA) held on to their seats and the Democrats picked up 3 open Senate seats: WV vacated by Byrd, DW vacated by Biden and CT vacated by Dodd. We still also have work to do in the House, as Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, and 188 other Democrats survived to bedevil the country until 2012.

This is a major victory for Republicans, and especially for conservatives. As all spending bills originate in the House, our representatives will now have the power to de-fund any legislation which requires yearly refunding. Although Democrats still have the majority in the Senate, they no longer have the 60 seats needed to block a filibuster by the Republicans or to run roughshod over them. The Republican majority in the House can block bad bills that make it through the Senate. It can’t repeal everything passed in the last two years, but it can get the House Democrats on record as opposing Republican-initiated efforts to repeal the unconstitutional, immoral, unread laws forced through Congress by Pelosi and Reid. It can also pass readable, read-and-studied bills indicating what conservative Republicans want to do—regardless of whether the Senate will agree to pass these bills. This, too, gets Democrats on record as opposing good legislation and makes it harder for them to get away with lying about Republicans not having any legislative ideas. If everything passed in the last two years is challenged and no new legislation gets passed, it will be a major accomplishment and the best scenario possible going into 2012. Republicans must not compromise.

On a less-publicized but equally important front, the underreported story of the night is all the gains at the state level. 18 states will be subject to reapportionment and the Republicans will control a majority of those. Even more important, a minimum of seventeen state legislative houses have flipped to the Republican Party. The North Carolina and Alabama Legislatures are both Republican for the first time since the 1870s. New Hampshire and Wisconsin have also flipped to the GOP. The State Houses in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, Montana, and Colorado flipped to the GOP. The Maine and Minnesota Senates flipped to the GOP. In Texas and Tennessee, the Houses made large Republican gains as well. Republicans in Texas no longer need the Democrats to get state constitutional amendments out of the legislature.

These gains go all the way down to the municipal level across the nation. That did not happen even in 1994.

We have made great gains, but we must keep going. We cannot rest yet. Our work is just beginning. We must work with Tea Party patriots and independents to make sure all those newly elected into office deliver on their campaign promises of cutting spending, attacking the deficit, and returning to the Constitution. We must work to remove RINOs from both houses in the next primaries and to replace Democrats with sound conservative Republicans. We must start now on finding the best possible candidates to run in all the races we didn’t win this time—and educating the many misinformed or inattentive voters. 2012 is just around the corner. The Democrats have far more Senate seats at risk in 2012. If we want to really take the country back, we must use this election as the springboard.

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