Some election thoughts, in no particular order.

1: We won’t know who controls the Senate until late December, probably. But are the Dems better off winning it or not? If the Democrats control both houses they’ll be exepcted to, you know, do something. For the last several years, though, they’ve seemingly been capable of little more than providing Karl Rove with something to laugh himself silly at. Might they be better served controlling the House only? That way they could raise mortal hell and spend two years keeping Bush on his heels – which would be a great victory for Americans everywhere in and of itself – without setting themselves up for too much failure. They could then use this period to build a base for a strong 2008 campaign and subsequent strong leadership. If they are perceived as failing – and there’s an army of clever GOP messaging hacks out there ready to help that perception along – then it might set the stage for a GOP romp in two years.

On the other hand, GOP control means two more years where moderate and progressive justices can’t afford to die.

Things to ponder, I suppose.

2: First order of business: safeguard the electoral process. Thanks to the fact that the Democrats did pretty well yesterday, we’re hearing less screaming about voter fraud than we might be. Still, there were problems, and plenty of them.

Then there was this, from Tom Yulsman, a former colleague from the University of Colorado. It’s old news now, but it still matters a great deal:

It’s chaos in Denver right now. The melt-down of the voting system there has made national news. Denver went from 300 voting precincts to 55 voting centers this year, and since morning the computers have been melting down. The problems are with the servers containing voter registration information. They are running much more slowly than expected. This means 25 percent of the actual voting machines are sitting idle at any one moment. Lines in many polling places have been over two hours long since the polls opened. Reports in the Post and Rocky indicate that many many people simply gave up and went home. They are now running out of provisional ballots. I don’t need to point out that the bulk of Democratic support in Colorado comes from Denver. Moments ago, a judge denied a Democratic Party request to keep the polls open an extra two hours. Her name is Sheila Rappaport. And the Republican Secretary of State is quoted as saying that polling is going smoothly across Colorado.

Here in Boulder County, there were no voting machines present at my voting precinct at 7 a.m. when the polls were supposed to open. A long line formed, and people started leaving to go to work. Finally, at 7:30 they allowed us to vote with paper ballots.
_________

FYI: The longest line, according to Colorado Public Radio, was 7 hours long. This is an outrage beyond my ability to articulate it. Here we are in the 21st Century and we can’t run a smooth election? It’s truly astounding. How many Democrats in Denver went home after waiting to vote for hours and the provisional ballots ran out? And did that affect any of the outcomes? I don’t know. I haven’t heard anyone ask these questions (although I haven’t yet read the Denver papers).

I want investigations into past “irregularities” and allegations. If there are people who were guilty of corrupting the voting process and suppressing the vote, I want them in prison; if not, I want the facts on the table so we can start trusting that our political opponents at least share our desire for the integrity of the ballot box. I want some standards erected around verifiable processes. I want some hellacious technical firewalls built around all electronic systems. And I want the entirety of the voting process scrubbed of even the slightest suspicion of partisan influence.

I’ve been on the wrong end of elections before, and that I can deal with. That’s what democracy is about, and the integrity of elections is not a partisan issue. But the process must absolutely, positively, without question or compromise be fair. If it isn’t, then it’s not a democracy.

I hope the new Speaker, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), makes this the first order of business.

3: Rummy is gone. But how many people died because of his arrogance and incompetence? Sorry, but I’m not backing away from this a bit. I’m tired of any and all suggestions that the morass in Iraq was something we couldn’t have predicted. I’m having none of any revisionism at all that paints the administration as victims of circumstance. There will be no horseshit about how Iraq was necessary to combat terror. There was maybe a case to be made for Pax Americana, in theory, but the case wasn’t made. In its place we were lied to and led into a magnificent debacle by men whose understanding of war derived mainly from watching John Wayne movies while sipping martinis in the Skull & Bones lounge.

Just for the record, spend a few minutes reviewing what appeared on Lullaby Pit way back in early 2003. I don’t want anybody accusing me of 20/20 hindsight.

• A Verdict, Finally: War Is a Bad Idea
• We’re Off to War, But Who Will Lead Us?
• How Many US Soldiers has Rumsfeld Killed?

The Rumsfeld Adventure will be remembered as one of the most spectacular displays of official incompetence in American history – and boy howdy, that’s saying something. And the remembering starts today. Iraq was all predicted, it went down exactly as it was expected to go down, and while I’m not above enjoying a good round of I-told-you-so, I’m mainly interested in the possibility that we hold some folks accountable and that we learn from our mistakes.

Accountability is a good thing, after all. Right?

:xpost: