Democrats now have control of United States Congress

[Ares]

It's official. Democrats now have control over the United States Senate. (http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/11/09/va.senate/index.html)


They've already had control over the House, so now this means the whole US Congress has a Democratic Majority.

Thoughts on this?

Personally I believe this could either go good or bad, the best us Americans can wish for I think is for the Democrats to start cleaning up the mess the almost radical previous Senate made, and giving US politics a spin back to a more moderate position.

On the other hand, they could just spend the next 2 years pointing fingers at Bush and using the Senate and House as large grandstanding posts for blaming the Republicans for every bad development that's happened over the past few years. And, while all this is happening, nothing would be done to improve the situation at hand.

I'd think we're going to see a combination of these two, at first a period of blaming and name-calling, but after that the Democrats will start to de-conservitize the US's policies.

[CatzEyes93]

You mean there hasnt been a blame game and name calling going on up till this point?

[DarkFlood]

Well, it shows that Americans are finally getting smart and voting for the right reasons rather than straight ticket.

[Ares]

Well, what I mean is that it could get even worse at this point, now that positions of power are held.

Hopefully Congress won't go in that direction though.

[Astroman]

I was thinking of making this thread, but words are too annoying to type.

I'm happy that Democrats now have a majority in congress, though with the senate two senators are Independent parties, who say they'll go with the Democrats on issues, so they've just been counted as democrats. One of them is Joe Lieberman from Connecticut, the other from Vermont. I wasn't a big fan of Lieberman (I'm from connecticut), as he lost the Democratic primaries to Ned Lamont, but he decided to try anyways and run as an independent party (Connecticut for Lieberman, <-- I think it should have been Lieberman for Connecticut), and ended up winning (The republican in CT only got 10% of the votes, most republicans in CT put their votes in Lieberman, as he's the "Republican Democrat".)

I'm not sure why I typed that wall of text, just thought it was fun and pertained to the topic.

[cowfish13]

Big words. Ahhhhhhh!

Well the democrats would support my family, but then again I'm a sypathetic person. The situation however is doing too bad with the Republicans being republicans so there was no thought in choosing between the two parties.

The governator isn't doing so well here. We let a movie star run the most powerful and most populated state or any state? He is no Ronald Regan.

[mike016256]

One word:

Finally.

[Ares]

Actually, what's nice is that in the Senate the difference is 51-49, so to get anything past we're going to really have to compromise. It'll take more time, but it'll definately make the country a better place because of it.

[JeebusMcChrist]

And, as with all politics, the ****s are being ****s and what party they belong to is irrelevant.

[El]

I think we are doomed. Well, not really, but let's get ready for a couple of years with more Bush-jabbings.

I personally think Bush is a great man.

[amd2800barton]

i have to respect gridlock. it forces compromises. too much of anything (good or bad) is bad. in america, change is always good (though seldom welcome)

i think it should be good to have some mistakes that have been made fixed, however, i suspect that the Dems will get to overzealous with this, and try to start fixing many things that frankly aren't broke.

what i really fear is that once they're done undoing a lot of republican policies, etc, they're going to start forcing a bunch of social and fiscal EXTREME liberalism down our throats. i suspect that they'll try and use a lot of this "anti-bush" capital they now have to try and enlarge welfare and hurt the economy because prosperity is bad to the leftists

[malfuncti0n]

Democrats in control...Boooooooo:P
Chances are none of the major political issues will change however, changes will be made both good and bad, but the real big ones more than likely wont go away, and im sure everyone knows what those are. :rolleyes:

[Mercer]

Yah, well a split gov is good so one party can't keep ramming their ideologies down everyone's throats with law making a such

[lubbe]

(@TorMagnus) WOO HOUSE AND SENATE

That pretty much sums up how I feel about the issue. I don't trust Lieberman however, and I'm not so sure the democrats will get a of proper legislation done. I'm fairly certain the republicans won't either though.

Funny choise of scapegoat though. Poor Rummy.

[Raminator]

(@TorMagnus) WOO HOUSE AND SENATEo i c wut u did thar... TOR

[redgrassbridge]

Well, I am very happy about all this, and I choose to remain optimistic for changes 'round here.

[natedgreat3]

Well, I'm not surprised that the Republicans lost control, what with the polls and all. I personally voted for only one Democrat this election, but the outcome didn't surprise me at all.

All I can say is: I hope with the Democrats in control something actually gets DONE. All that happened with the Republicans in control was the Democrats whined, complained, stalled and filibustered (and blamed Bush for everything).

Nothing important really got passed because of this, not even a law restricting filibustering so they could freakin START getting things moving!!

I don't think the Republicans will stoop so low as to filibuster, so hopefully SOMETHING will start churning forward on key situations. Even on something that may not be the best solution, as long as it gets done, its better then the current status.

[tigger]

does america only have two parties? that's always confused me; there must be demand for different parties.

[Kester]

Generally you have 2 main parties. In the UK we have 3 big ones but only 2 really matter.

[natedgreat3]

@tigger: there are like 18 parties or something haha.. but on the Democrats and the Republicans are the big ones. Finishing in a distant 3rd place is the Libertarian party, with only like 2 people in office.

[amd2800barton]

technically theres several hundred parties. if you count ones that reguarly make it on the ballot and get more than 1% of the vote its in the single digits. fortunately we aren't like france, and have ~10% (thats what it was 2 years ago when i studied ap comparative gov't) of our legislative body comprised of a group whose purpose is basically in line with nazis and skin heads ( im talking about the FN or NF)

[Atomic Waffle]

Ugh.. I hate hearing about the U.S's politics all the time. Too bad Canada was not farther out in the pacific or something. So we could like, chill with Russia or like, maybe even Australia.

[amd2800barton]

bah. we need somebody to blame when our children start bad mouthing! give us terrance and philip!