Greenpeace

Hallelujah! 

Well I’m no partisan and I run an organization that is crankily independent to its core.  So why am I so happy?  Because civil society was restored last night.  However these last few yet to be decided races turn out, this experiment is over.  Neoconservativism, an experiment in pre-emptive use of military might, of rolling one’s allies as well as opponents combined with the trifecta of lying, cheating and handing environmental protection over to ExxonMobil.

Of course even if the Democrats win the Senate as well as the House and the perhaps the White House in 2008, this party can’t deliver the Greenpeace agenda of a green and peaceful world.  But at least we will have politicians, a mixture of good, bad and ugly, Republicans and Democrats, who LISTEN (it's working already, Rumsfeld just resigned) to voters, not just campaign contributors.  Not just right-wing messianics who dreamt of running their own Taliban like state in the name of a harsh and spiteful god.    Good riddance. 

With Democratics in the majority we’ll still need bi-partisan efforts in a deeply divided country to stop global warming, protect ancient forests and defend the oceans.  Remember the bulk of the environmental laws still on the books in this country come from the Nixon era.  With this in mind, Greenpeace ran an experiment these past three months to see what would happen if we went into six very different congressional districts across the country and pushed global warming as the threat to be stopped, in a completely non partisan way.  No red, no blue.  Some of our colleagues were a bit shocked but the results were outstanding.  Thousands of people volunteered in the field to make this possible.  We’ll be building up to pushing global warming in 50 districts by 2008. 

And on a personal note, seeing Senator George Allen behind in Virginia according to the results so far feels wonderful in this amazing adopted home state of mine.  Wonderful because Allen went from Republican presidential hopeful and shoe-in senate candidate to grand LOSER partly because he had a fine challenger, but also because the real Virginia repudiated the racism he was caught engaging in during the election.     According to a post on Talking Points Memo:

The Republicans have backed themselves into a corner in Virginia. If you're going to go to the mat with dirty tricks and voter suppression, your counting on staying under the radar and that once the election is over, folks will move on. If Allen contests the results of the election it changes the election from a single day event into a 3 or 4 week event, plenty of time to chase down those caller id numbers and phone bank contractors. Virginia isn't Ohio. It doesn't have Ken Blackwell to cover up the GOP shenanigans, and the state has already requested the FBI to look into them. The Allen campaign is going to have to make the choice of whether contesting the results is worth the chance of exposing criminal activity. Let's hope they choose to contest. It's our best hope of fully exposing the shenanigans of the GOP to the light of day and getting the mechanisms in place to prevent their use in the next election cycle.

It’s a beautiful morning.

And here’s an email blast just out from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee:

Both Jon Tester and Jim Webb have won their races in Montana and Virginia but want to make sure that every vote is counted.  We expect to have official results soon but can happily declare today that Democrats have taken the majority in the U.S. Senate.

 Montana Vote Situation: Jon Tester leads Conrad Burns by approximately 1,700 votes (as of 11am EDT) and counting.  In Silver Bow County (Butte), a Democratic stronghold, votes are still being counted but Tester is winning there with 66% of the vote.  We expect to gain the majority of these uncounted votes and to add to Tester’s margin.

 Montana Process: When the counting phase is completed, a canvass will verify the vote tallies.  That process could take as long as 48 hours, and must begin within three days and end within seven.  Unless the canvass shows the margin to be within ¼ of 1%, there is no recount.  As the loser, Burns would have to request the recount.  When the votes are all counted, we expect to be outside that recount margin.

 Virginia Vote Situation: Jim Webb is up by approximately 8,000 votes and once the provisional ballots are counted, we expect Webb’s margin to increase.  (Please note that VA absentees were included in the tallies from last night.)

 Virginia Process: A canvass is underway to verify the results and we expect that process to finish within a day or so.  To be in recount, the margin needs to be less than 1% and Allen (as the loser) would have to request it.  Because of Virginia voting laws, the margin would have to be much tighter than it currently is to see any change in the outcome.  Given the current margins, that is highly, highly unlikely.