As national co-chair, Sen McCaskill couldn’t even deliver her home state to Obama. Why should she be rewarded? Sen. Jeff Smith isn’t the only Dem backing the judicious use of vouchers in FAILING disricts…ever hear of President-Elect Barack Obama? Wow, I love the sound of that. Can’t wait to drop the “Elect” portion.

I think she would be great as the DNC Chair. It would certainly show an interest on the parties half to be bipartisan and non-devisive. I haven’t seen as dislikeable a political figure as Dean other than Karl Rove. Dean helped drive any interest I had in that Party away.

And as a note the economic breakdown is the only reason Obama carried this election, not the idea of making this a 50 state race. After 8 years of secluded leadership from one side the tide was already turning toward Democrats, but Obama didn’t take the thing in hand until the crisis cropped up. It solidified the middle of the country to put the other party in the White House, despite the fact that both Obama and McCain had little to do with the economic downfall and didn’t do anything on the surface to try and reverse the situation. Without the economic crisis (which was a fault a both parties) I think McCain squeaks this thing out.

“Pretty Good,” too bad your numbers aren’t “pretty good” either. The margin in that race is now 114 votes, so maybe you should do your homework before you chastise someone’s argument for trivial reasons. I think what Mark was saying was that the race was close, whether it was 92 of 119, it’s not a whole heckuva lot of votes.

In 2004, Harry Kennedy beat Bob Yeckel by 490 votes, so don’t make it sound as if the 1st District is this dark blue district. It’s an overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly middle-class and conservative district. They’ve elected Todd Akin five times for crying out loud!

And in Graham’s district, in 2004 he beat a guy who’s first name was “Ditmore” 52.5% to 47.5%! Again, not overwhelming Democratic majorities like you suggested. In 2008 Graham lost 48.5% to 46.8%. These races were not gimmes that the Democrats “blew”. They were close elections that were decided by a few hundred votes. They say all politics is local, and these races prove it.

Do you really think that people in the 1st and 9th district voted Republican because of what Jeff Smith did or didn’t do, or because they are conservative districts that the Dems got lucky in in 2004?

how does she get to be chair? She didnt deliever Missouri for him… and she is being rewarded?

Claire can go full time to the DNC for all I care–remember both she and Bond voted FOR the multi-billion dollar bailout (that you and I will have to pay for)—personally, I would like to see a Senator that chooses fiscal responsibility and the needs/desires of hard-working people over playing politics–yep, let her go play politics with the DNC and maybe her replacement will be someone who actually makes businesses be responsible for their own bad business decisions and individuals who take out loans actually have to repay them!

It’s a consolation prize for not being worthy of a cabinet position. Mostly ceremonial. She is still a full time Senator. But she won’t be in Obama’s cabinet, even though she was spotlighted numerous times with Obama during his campaign, specifically when she was seated next to his wife during the final presidential debate. Her use to him was to deliver rural Missouri so he could take the State. She couldn’t do it. He already had the metro areas of St Louis and KC in his pocket because they are traditionally democratic and more so because he is black and those areas are heavily infested with blacks.

Ian -

the numbers I was working from were the numbers posted by the political fix at 12:57 p.m. today. I guess both I and the political fix were wrong on that or the numbers have changed. Either way, my point was that the margin has been widened.

my other point is that resources could have been better used to keep those seats in democratic hands, especially since democrats had those seats going into the election.

here is the deal. the senate should not have lost any seat in this election year. it is a shame that the dems had jeff smith, the so called political genious, to mess this year up for them. i believe that the dems were able to pick up seats when claire was at the top of the ticket and the margin in that race was thin. here you have jay nixon performing outstanding across the state and dems lose seats. i’m sorry but i think jeff smith should be asked why this happened and what dems will do in the senate now that there are less of them around.

I like your question Tim, the one about anyone having experience. How many people do you know on any level that could start almost from scratch and organize something that would lead to more than $100,000,000 in donations in one month and result in the election of someone to the highest office in the political world? McCain didn’t do it. Palin was a tag along. Hillary couldn’t do it. Let’s see, I guess that leaves Obama.
It takes a tremendous amount of experience and knowledge to run a successful political campaign. Mabe that was McCain’s problem, not enough knowledge.
Now that he has done it (Obama), why don’t you whinners, not winners, focus on something else.

Will she vote for herself twice to get the position? haha.

Yes, lets make a person who tried dividing our own state party by running against Gov. Bob Holden in the primary and who was partly responsible for costing us the general election as the chair of the DNC. Wow.