Saturday, November 11, 2006

And some more Lieberman material..

Barry Casselman writing for Realclearpolitics.com:

He is now de facto the most powerful member of the Senate. That's because he will keep his promise to organize with the Democrats. But they will have to be very good to him. Whatever chairmanship he wants. Whatever he wants for Connecticut. If that does not happen, he can easily take a few steps in the Senate chamber and give control to the Republicans. No one will be able to complain. He would have kept his promise to vote for the Democrats, but it was his other promise that the voters of his state care most about, i.e., his promise to deliver for Connecticut. The senate Republicans would be glad to give him a chairmanship and whatever he wants for Connecticut. President Bush would be delighted to cooperate.


Friday, November 10, 2006

Nice

Krauthammer (no relation) agrees with my take on Lieberman in today's Washington Post:

To muddy even more the supposed ideological significance of this election, consider who is the biggest winner of the night: Joe Lieberman. Just a few months ago, he was scorned by his party and left for dead. Now he returns to the Senate as the Democrats' 51st seat -- and holder of the balance of power. From casualty to kingmaker in three months. Not bad. His Democratic olleagues who abandoned him this summer will now treat him very well.

Lieberman won with a platform that did not trim or hedge about seeking victory in Iraq. And he did it despite having a Republican in the race who siphoned off 10 percent of the
pro-war vote. All this in Connecticut, a very blue state.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Eyes on Lieberman, Kingmaker

Well, looks like I probably blew my modest political prediction that Republicans would retain control of the Senate. So what better time to make another?

Assuming the Democrats do hold on to an ostensible 51-49 Senate advantage, it is just a matter of time before Republicans come a-knocking to the door of re-elected incumbent Joe Lieberman. Lieberman, it bears recalling, was spurned by his own Democratic party in favor of shrill, faux-leftist zillionaire Ned Lamont - whom Lieberman soundly thumped running as an independent.

Lieberman has given every indication that he intends to be counted as a Democrat in the Senate balance, but as soon as the Republicans recover from their election-night shock, they'll wake up to the fact that Lieberman represents their best shot, however slim, at eking out control of the Senate.

Lieberman, in other words, has - in electoral terms - hit the jackpot. Republicans, soon to be followed by Democrats, will be falling all over themselves offering him whichever committee chairmanship strikes his fancy. Not bad for the man the Netroots thought they had defeated in early August.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Election

My prediction: GOP maintains control of Senate. I have no idea about the House; everyone thinks it goes Democratic, so I guess it probably will. Too many races for me to follow to make a real prediction.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

More grade-school grammar

Matching singular subjects with singular verbs and plural subjects with plural verbs need not be a difficult task. But there are a couple of situations that seem to give people - including NYT reporters - trouble:

(1) Certain collective but singular subjects (this is my terminology) are often wrongly treated as plural. An example of this phenomenon would be the following: "Everyone must check their [should be "his" rather than "their"] bags at the door."

(2) When a singular subject is followed by a prepositional phrase with a plural object, the object is often incorrectly treated as the subject of the sentence: "Each of the students are [should be "is" rather than "are"]going to the game."

Now, in this NYT article, the reporters face a double-whammy that they (quite understandably) were unable to navigate - both of the aforementioned complications in the very same sentence:

To date, none of the Republicans who have spoken out have [should be "has" rather than "have," since "none" is a singular subject] called for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, and some had expressed previous reservations about the war or opposed it initially.

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