The nail in the coffin on Bush's legacy
If Bush wants to leave a postive legacy he's going to have to develop leadership skills in these last 2 years. After creating a quaqmire in 6 years with the house and senate (well 4 and change, his policies drove one senator to become an independent and the Dems controlled the senate for a while), I can't see him effecting any major change now.
Now with the Dems with the House at least, and with Dem leads in the last 2 senate seats that would give them a majority and Bush being a lame duck with no clear successor (Dick Cheney shot them all on hunting trips but covered it up better), it will be interesting to see how it plays out.
The Republicans may be able to wrestle control from the GOP... It will be interesting to see if McCain makes a run...
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As a final thought... Why the hell do people not use vote-by-mail across the nation? Polling stations are terrible. Gah!
Vote by Mail
Oh I understand all of that, I'm saying as someone who has gone through both processes, not going to a vote-by-mail system seems illogical.
But then again, out on the West Coast they're not as tied to political machines as out here on the east coast. Good ideas aren't squelched (as often).
Oh I see...
Yeah... I agree with you... the vote by mail is very nice.
And after hearing all the horror stories about the Diebold electronic voting machines... I think I'm rather glad we have paper ballots here.
Bah!
I totally suck. Here in CA you can either go to the polls or have an absentee ballot, which you have to get 2 weeks beforehand. And I was sent to OR on the 7th. So I didn't vote.
Ready to be excommunicated now...
But yes, voting by mail would have been nice.
Still waiting to see...
This election has been very hopeful in the sense we won't see one party dominate any longer. I'm very interested to see how things run as well. While I'm glad this election turned out the way it did... I'm still hesitant to say anything REAL positive will come of it. We don't know really whether they will focus on real issues or whether it will be "revenge" time and tie up the government in impeachments, etc. While I'd be all for Bush and his cronies being held accountable... the reality is I believe it will just tie up Congress and in the end they would get no worse than a slap on the wrist.
As for why do people not use vote-by-mail... there are two reasons that come to mind. One, not every state has the same laws regarding vote-by-mail. Some states it's counted as an absentee ballot. Two, I believe some people just don't trust something as important as their vote going through the mail. They would rather go in person.