Tonight there were elections in the United States - not Presidential elections, but mid-term elections for Congress (House and Senate) and for State Governors.

It seems to be a big win for the Republicans which have gained control of Congress - both the House and the Senate. Americans tend to balance out political power and on mid-term elections they generally vote for whatever party is not in the White House. The Democrats should have won the control of Congress to stop president Bush from having too much liberty in implementing his solutions to the main issues.

Yet, the Republicans won big time. Even with a "broken" economy, President Bush and the Republican party scored a big win today. The main reason: the war on Islamic terrorism and the pending removal of Saddam Hussein. The majority of Americans clearly support president Bush in our war against the Islamofreaks. Isn't Democracy great?

Here in California, in San Mateo county (12th Congressional District), we had an interesting race for the House of Congress. Out of the three possible candidates, two were linked to Israel and the Middle East.

Tom Lantos, Jewish, Holocaust Survivor Supports the war on Islamic Terrorism Big Winner!

On the one hand, we had Tom Lantos, a Holocaust survivor who has always been a friend of the State of Israel. Mr. Lantos is a Democrat, but he consistently supported president Bush in his war on Islamic terror and a future attack on Iraq. Mr. Lantos has been representing these smart Californians for the past 18 years.

Maad Abu Ghazalah, Palestinian Against the removal of Saddam Hussein Looser

On the other hand, Mr. Maad Abu-Ghazalah, a Palestinian who lived in Saudi Arabia and became a US citizen. Mr. Abu is against the war on Islamic terrorism and against the removal of the butcher of Baghdad. My sources also tell me he supports the Palestinian homicide/suicide bombers from the Islamic Jihad and Hamas that often deliberately murder Israeli women and children.

With 100% of the precints reporting, Mr. Lantos has 88,739 votes (68%), Mr. Moloney (the Republican candidate) has 32,653 votes (25%) and Mr. Abu has only 9,494 votes (7%).

Sounds like a strong message to those that do not support the war on Islamic terrorism: your opinions will get you nowhere. Congratulation to Tom Lantos, who went from a Nazi concentration camp to the US House of Congress and managed to stay there for almost 20 years.

Isn't Democracy great?

For more information on Tom Lantos, check out www.lantos.org - to congratulate him send a message to lantos4congress@lantos.org.

I copy below a great article by Andrew Sullivan on tonight's elections.

BUSH'S TRIUMPH
http://www.andrewsullivan.com/

I should have trusted my gut. We all should have believed the late polls. We don't have the full results yet, but it seems clear, as I write, that the Republicans will gain in the House and win back the Senate. For a first term president who didn't win a plurality to win in a mid-term election with a deeply troubled economy is, quite simply, an astonishing victory.

I guess I'd been too busy telling others not to under-estimate Bush that I under-estimated him myself. Yes, local issues mattered. But the swing is too uniform to be interpreted solely by particulars. This was a vote for Bush, for prosecuting the war on terror, for the tax cut.

More important, it was a vote against the hollow negativism, cowardice and mediocrity of the current Democratic Party. They have nothing to say; and that matters. Their predicament is deeper than this result suggests. Since Bush passed his tax cut and since September 11, the Democrats have been cornered.

A purely defensive strategy - taking both issues off the table - led them to this result. An offensive strategy - against war and for raising taxes - would have delivered an even worse one. Or they could have come up with a tough but different anti-terror plan and a positive economic message. But they didn't. So they lost.

One other factor is the blandness and decrepitude of their leaders. Daschle and Gephardt are pathetic. McAuliffe is a nightmare. When the Dems needed new blood, they found Mondale and Lautenberg. This is not a party with self-confidence or much of a short-term future. Bush, because of what he did and what the Democrats did not do, now has a remarkable mastery over the polity.

He has enormous leverage against Iraq; and this vote will deeply strengthen his position abroad. I hope he uses that mandate wisely and bravely. I also believe that that is part of the reason the Republicans did so well. People know we're at war. They trust the president. They wanted to show him support. Many factors contributed to tonight's historically rare event. But the president's conduct of the war was surely the central one, as it will be for the foreseeable future.

Posted by David Melle
 Link to this page |   Email this entry |   digg this