Lest anyone forget that what occurred on November 2nd, 2010 was a fluke, and isolated in a few regions of the nation, and not the redefining revolution of the American Electorate’s voice heard overwhelmingly throughout the land, then I would recommend everyone examine the statistics below for themselves. The organs of the mass media who are sold out to the Democrat Party and the Republican Establishment would like US to believe that the nation has forgotten 2010, and that we want compromise from our elected officials, that to hold to our principles and not “work with the other side” on giving them what they want – what Obama wants and needs to be reelected – that this is extremism, that it is impeding true progress, and that it is the sign of a broken government, a dysfunctional government; don’t you believe them.
This is the way our government is supposed to work, not the way it conducted itself in the previous congress when decision were made by closed door committees, and one party made congress nothing more than a rubber stamp for this president’s every desire and whims. Our Founding Fathers created a balance of power within our federal government that these radicals within the Democratic Party and the Republican Establishment would US to forget.
This is precisely how government is supposed to work when the nation is faced with the most overt soft tyranny in its history attempting to cram down the throats of the American people the most radical agenda our nation has come to know. It’s supposed to stop it dead in its tracks, and it is to be commended that the principled TEA Party freshmen in the House did not give in to the pressure of the media, the White House, the Democrats, RINOs in their own party, and yes, their own leadership who are not on their side nor on the side of the American Electorate, who have betrayed their wishes, and will do so as long as they continue to be reelected to office. It is good that this happened though, because now we know who is who.
The Trojan Horse within the Republican Party has unmasked itself. We know who they are by the way they conducted themselves, by their public statements, and especially by the way they voted and treated the TEA Party freshmen. The wheat and the tares may look alike, but when the harvest comes, only the wheat will remain. The harvest has come to America.
The 2010 elections were the greatest manifestation of discontent by an American Electorate ever visited upon a single political party and a sitting president’s policy ever expressed in the history of this republic. When broken down to its components, it illustrates in vivid detail just how far and how deep this discontent has come. It stands as an unequivocal repudiation of Barack Hussein Obama and his policies.
Florida’s Junior Senator, Marco Rubio said this about the 2010 elections results. If the Republican Party leadership wishes to defeat Obama’s radical transformation of America; the over spending, the over-reach of federal power, the growth of the federal government, the confiscation of legally registered fire arms, and its misuse, illegal gunrunning by the ATF on behalf of the Justice Department into Mexico in an openly partisan political ploy to influence public opinion with regards to the Second Amendment gun rights, and restrictive gun laws and illegal confiscation of firearms, wars of intrigue such as in Libya without congressional approval, which are replacing friendly but corrupt governments with unfriendly and unstable corrupt ones; it is best we heed the warning of the junior senator from the state of Florida which he gave earlier this year:
As he did the night he won his Senate race, Rubio warned that “Republicans would be mistaken if we misread these results as simply an embrace of the Republican Party.”
“This Election is a second chance,” he said. “A second chance for Republicans to be what we said we were going to be.”
But it was clear that Rubio – and the party leaders who chose him to carry their message – were waving no olive branch in the direction of the Obama administration.
“The past two years provided a frightening glimpse at what could become of our great nation if we continue down the current path: wasteful spending, a growing debt and a government reaching ever further into our lives, even into our health care decisions,” he said. “It is nothing short of a path to ruin …”
And, he said, “This means preventing a massive tax increase scheduled to hit every American taxpayer at the end of the year. It means repealing and replacing the disastrous health care bill. It means simplifying our tax code, and tackling a debt that is pushing us to the brink of our own Greece-like day of reckoning.”
Rubio’s warning – and threat to the White House – sounds almost apocalyptic, as if the election campaign continues. Which, in a way, it does.
From http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/The-Vote/2010/1106/President-Obama-Marco-Rubio-face-off-on-tax-cuts
On Wednesday’s Mark Levin show: Mark gives a "history lesson" referring back to the 2010 midterm elections in which the tea partiers elected the freshman Republicans and John Boehner became Speaker. Boehner is trying to bully the freshman Republicans to get behind a plan that is a disaster. Looking back at American history, Mark references General Washington and the battle of Trenton. If Bill Kristol of the weekly standard was writing back then he would have suggested that Washington surrender. Finally, Ohio State Treasurer Josh Mandel calls in and talks about his run for Senate against Sherrod Brown.
Twenty reasons the 2010 election made history
Rand and Ron Paul will become the first “son-father” team ever to serve in the Senate and House at the same time.
Quite a night! Republicans may still be partying, from South Beach to Waikiki Beach. Democrats are wearing their San Francisco Giants fake beards and dark glasses. But here at New York on the Potomac, we’re picking up the pieces from a history-making night.
Here are 20 ways the 2010 election made history:
☛ It was the biggest gain for one party since voters repudiated the “Do-Nothing Republican Congress” in 1948 by giving Democrats a 75-seat pickup.
☛ It was the biggest setback for a president in a midterm election since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Democrats lost 72 seats in 1938.
☛ President Obama lost more seats in his first midterm election than any president since Warren G. Harding’s Republicans suffered a 77-seat setback in 1922.
☛ The Democrats’ four years in control of the House of Representatives was the shortest tenure for one party atop that chamber since the Republicans were voted out in 1954 after just two years in charge.
☛ House Democrats will have their smallest number of members since they had 188 after the 1946 election.
☛ There will be more Republican women in Congress than any other time in American history.
☛ Rand Paul of Kentucky, Mario Rubio of Florida, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Mike Lee of Utah became the first Tea Party loyalists elected to the U.S. Senate.
☛ Rand Paul of Kentucky will become the first person to serve in the Senate at the same time his father (Rep. Ron Paul of Texas) serves in the House. (There have been father-son combinations in the past — most recently Ted and Patrick Kennedy — but the father had always been the senator.)
☛ Susana Martinez of New Mexico is the first Latina ever elected a governor in American history.
☛ Martinez became the first woman elected governor in New Mexico history.
☛ Sen. Lisa Murkowski will be the first candidate in Alaska history to win a statewide race as a write-in candidate — if her election night lead holds up through the counting (and recounting) process.
☛ Murkowski would become the first person since Strom Thurmond in 1954 to be elected to the U.S. Senate as a write-in candidate.
☛ Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman spent more of her own money in a campaign for public office than any other person in American history (an estimated $150-plus million) — and lost.
☛ Congresswoman Mary Fallin became the first woman ever elected governor of Oklahoma. (She earlier made history as the state’s first female lieutenant governor.)
☛ Nikki Haley became the first Indian-American woman elected governor in U.S. history.
☛ Haley is the first minority politician ever elected governor of South Carolina.
☛ Maine and New Hampshire will become the first neighboring states to be represented by four women in the Senate (Maine Republicans Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, New Hampshire Democrat Jeanne Shaheen and Republican Kelly Ayotte).
☛ It was the first midterm election in history where the House changed hands without the Senate changing hands, too.
☛ Jerry Brown becomes the first American elected governor of the same state four decades apart (the ’70s and the ’10s).
☛ Rick Perry became the first governor in Texas history to win three four-year terms.
GOP Makes Historic State Legislative Gains in 2010
A Commentary By Tim Storey
Friday, December 10, 2010
http://www.marklevinshow.com/goout.asp?u=http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_tim_storey/gop_makes_historic_state_legislative_gains_in_2010
Late last week, a state judge on Long Island in New York certified that Mineola mayor Jack Martins, a Republican, had won the race for state Senate District 7 by a mere 451 votes out of the more than 85,000 cast. With that win, the GOP took control of the New York Senate by a 32-30 majority making it the last state legislative domino to fall in the 2010 election cycle. The New York state Senate was the 20th legislative chamber picked up by Republicans in the 2010 elections. In addition to gaining new majorities in 20 chambers, Republicans won enough seats in Oregon to tie the House at 30-30. Adding insult to injury, they also took a numerical majority in the Louisiana House when a Democratic representative switched parties, leaving that chamber with 51 Republicans and 50 Democrats along with four independents. Twenty-two state legislative chambers changed majority control in the 2010 election cycle—all in the direction of the GOP.
By this point, the overused weather clichés have all been trotted out. Whether you call it a hurricane, a tsunami or a seismic shift, it was an historic election at the state level for the GOP. By adding over 720 legislative seats to their column in the past two years, Republicans easily cleared the 1994 expectations bar. In 1994, the last big wave election, they netted over 500 seats and the majority in 20 legislative bodies. There are now more Republican state legislators (3,941) than at any point since they held 4,001 seats after the 1928 election.
With bulked up numbers at the state level, Republicans are now in their best position for the looming redistricting process since the modern era of redistricting began following the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Baker v. Carr in 1962.
No Surprise
Democratic legislative candidates knew that 2010 would be a challenging year, and in a few states such as Nevada and Delaware where chambers could have flipped to the GOP given the tide, the Dems even managed to hold majorities or even gain a few seats. As Crystal Ball readers know, midterms are typically tough sledding for the party in the White House up and down the ballot. Nowhere is that trend more pronounced than at the state legislative level. Since 1902, the president’s party has now lost seats in all but two of the 28 midterm election cycles giving up an average of 416 seats.
Further complicating things for Democrats was that they were on an impressive winning streak, having added legislators to their ranks in the past three consecutive elections. As a result of the streak, they controlled just under 56 percent of all legislative seats heading into the election, a high water mark since losing 514 seats in 1994. It has been over 70 years, however, since either party gained legislative seats in four consecutive elections. In addition to the historic trends pointing to trouble for Democrats, it was a very difficult year for state budgets, leading most legislatures to make unpopular fiscal cuts, always a tough platform to run on.
In addition, there definitely seemed to be a significant “enthusiasm gap” for Democrats at the state level. About 11,000 candidates ran for the 6,115 state legislative seats that were up in 2010. About 10,000 were either Democratic or Republican. The number of candidates fielded by each party was about even, but what was striking about the candidate numbers was that there were about 50 fewer Democrats running this year than in 2008 while Republicans increased their candidate field by roughly 820 candidates over 2008. Republicans challenged more districts, knowing that they would have the wind at their backs.
By the Numbers
Including gains in odd-year elections in four states, special election wins, and over a dozen Democratic state legislators who have switched their party affiliation in the past several weeks, Republicans netted 721 seats in the 2010 election cycle (since January of 2009). Republicans now control almost exactly 54 percent of the nation’s 7382 legislative seats that are partisan, excluding Nebraska’s nonpartisan, unicameral legislature.
What really matters, though, is getting enough seats to claim the majority in a particular legislative body. In the nation’s 98 partisan state legislative chambers, Republicans almost completely reversed their standing. Headed into the election, Democrats had a 60-36 advantage with two chambers, the Alaska Senate and Montana House, tied. When most legislatures convene new sessions in early January, Republicans will control 57 chambers, Democrats 39, and again, two will be tied, the Alaska Senate and the Oregon House.
Republicans now control the entire legislature in 25 states, 11 more than they had going in to the 2010 elections. For their part, Democrats control both houses of 16 legislatures, with eight states facing divided control of the legislature. The last time Republicans controlled this many legislatures was after the 1952 election, when they had 26.
Gains in Every Region
Republicans gained legislative seats in every region of the country in 2010, led by the Northeast where they picked-up 229 seats. The numbers in the East are somewhat skewed by the New Hampshire House which has 400 members, allowing Republicans to gain 132 seats in the Granite State alone. What was probably most striking at the regional level was the symbolic tipping point that Republicans achieved in the South. For the first time since 1870, there are now more GOP legislators in the South than Democrats, punctuating a decline of Democrats in the region that has been steadily taking place since the late 1950s. Prior to 1994, only 16 years ago, there was not a single legislative chamber in the South with a majority of Republican members. Now, 19 chambers in the South belong to the GOP, including five which switched this year: the House and Senate in Alabama, the Louisiana House, and the House and Senate in North Carolina.
In addition to those five chambers, 17 other chambers saw a party control change, including the Oregon House, which went from a 36-24 Democratic advantage to a 30-30 tie. On average, 13 state legislative chambers change hands in every two-year election cycle. In this cycle, the following 21 chambers all moved to the Republican column:
Alabama House & Senate Montana House
Colorado House New Hampshire House & Senate
Indiana House New York Senate
Iowa House North Carolina House & Senate
Louisiana House Ohio House
Maine House & Senate Pennsylvania House
Michigan House Wisconsin Assembly & Senate
Minnesota House & Senate
Other chambers where Republicans made notable gains but fell short of winning the majority included the Arkansas House, where they added 17 seats, and the Connecticut House, where they added 15. In the Texas House, Democrats had actually hoped to win enough seats to take control, but wound up losing 24 seats in the body and now hold only 51 of the 150 total Texas House seats. The most Republican legislature is now Wyoming at 84% GOP, jumping over Utah and Idaho. Hawaii leapfrogged Rhode Island to become the most Democratic legislature and is now 87% Democrats.
Many New Faces
In every major November regular election, legislative turnover averages about 18 percent on Election Day, mostly due to voluntary retirements. In this election, overall turnover spiked up to about 24 percent of all legislative seats. There will be a startling 1,765 new legislators in January. That level of turnover is not uncommon in the election following redistricting, but it is striking to see that high turnover in the election right before redistricting. In addition, the nation will have the most new governors in its history—28. When you combine either a new legislative majority or a new governor, there will be new leadership in either the governor’s mansion or in one of the legislative bodies in a whopping 32 states.
Redistricting
One of the first tasks facing all of those new leaders will be the highly political exercise of drawing new district boundaries using the 2010 Census data that will be sent to states early next year. The legal framework that regulates redistricting is extraordinarily complex and there are many wild cards in the proverbial deck when it comes to drawing new lines. The role that redistricting plays in future elections is often overstated, but the partisan make-up of districts is undoubtedly a significant factor, often giving one party’s candidate a head start before the campaign even begins. It is safe to say that Republicans have the advantage heading into the 2011 plan-drawing extravaganza.
In 43 states, legislatures have the first authority for drawing new U.S. House districts if the state is populous enough to have more than one district. In the other seven states, a board or commission handles the task, including in California where voters reassigned the job to a new 14 member commission in this past election. In 37 states, legislatures are also responsible for drawing their own new districts. Governors also play a role in redistricting in most states through their traditional veto power. Of the 435 U.S. House districts, 195 are in states where the legislature and governor will draw the lines and both of them are controlled by the GOP. Democrats hold both branches of government in states that will draw 49 congressional districts. States with divided control will draw 92 districts, and 92 more are in states where a commission will draft the plans or in Iowa, which has a unique, depoliticized process for adopting maps. Finally, it is expected that seven states will only have one seat in the House and thus congressional redistricting will not take place.
Redistricting will only be part of the story in 2011, however. State revenues are only beginning to show any sign of a turnaround and with the phase-out of the federal stimulus money that kept many states afloat last year, budgeting once again looks to be a dismal exercise. Let us hope that the many new legislators heading to state capitols next year bring with them some innovative approaches to state policymaking.
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