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What do we do now?
The one thing I don’t mind being wrong about is the government. And yesterday’s mid-term election is one of those happy, if infrequent, occasions. Oh, I believed the polls that said the Republican majority in congress was going down like a leaky life raft, but the last six years have taught me to expect the unexpected when Karl Rove has a hand in the outcome.
Somehow democracy prevailed for the most part yesterday, and while no one has ever accused the Democrats of governing perfectly – or even well – some of the system’s essential checks and balances have been restored for the next couple years. With a reliable majority in the House, and a likely majority in the Senate (Virginia’s Sen. George Allen can’t seriously expect to overcome Jim Webb’s 7000 vote lead in a recount), much will be expected from those to whom much has been given. As Robert Redford said at the end of The Candidate, “So… what do we do now?”
Here in NH, Gov John Lynch (D-NH) beat his Republican opponent Jim Coburn by a better than 3-1 margin, 76% to 24%. Coburn had served only one term as a state representative, and reminded everyone of the cranky next-door neighbor in a 60s sitcom. He never had a chance – poor guy spent more than a million dollars of his own money to get roughly the same number of votes a rubber tree plant would, had it been the Republican standard bearer.
The balance of power in the state senate flipped from 16 Republicans and 8 Democrats, to 14 Democrats and 10 Republicans. NH has the smallest upper chamber in the country, and each senator wields significant power.
The House pickup was even more astonishing – from 253 Republicans and 147 Democrats to a Democratic majority of 213 seats with, as of 5PM Wednesday, 34 races still undecided. It's the first time Democrats have held the lower chamber since 1922.
The 5-member Executive Council, which approves all gubernatorial appointments and state contracts over $5K, went from 4 Republican seats and 1 Democrat, to 3 Democrats and 2 Republicans, giving Lynch a working majority to hire the agency heads he wants, and appoint judges who no longer have to pass Republican muster.
With the defeats of 6-termer Rep. Charlie Bass (R-NH) and 2-termer Rep. Jeb Bradley (R-NH) by Paul Hodes and Carol Shea-Porter respectively, it’s also the first time since 1922 that both House seats were held by Democrats.
So the rout was historical in scope. Whether the Democrats will manage one-party rule more responsibly than the Republicans have in the past remains to be seen. There’s a certain solemnity in being handed such sweeping power; it signals an urgent expectation from the voters that, if nothing else, they’ll fix the school funding mess the state has grappled with for three decades. 
~Jack McEnany
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