58 And Counting

November 18, 2008 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Congress, Democratic Party, Election 2008, Obama administration, Republican Party 

From Alaska tonight comes word that with all but a handful of ballots counted Mark Begich appears to have defeated Sen. Ted Stevens by less than a percentage point.  Thus ends Stevens’ 40 years in the Senate, the longest period served by a Republican, which saw him usually re-elected by large majorities but concluded with his felony conviction and the threat of expulsion from the chamber (now a moot point, it would seem).

And so the Democrats, counting independent Sens. Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman (who was today reprimanded, after a fashion, for campaigning with Sen. John McCain, but kept his committee chairmanship), have 58 votes.  Two remain to achieve a filibuster-proof majority and bring about the rebirth of the Great Society, the New Deal redux, or at least a second wind for the New Frontier.  (And if the Dems come up one short, is anyone up for the return of the New Foundation? For an explanation Google “Jimmy Carter,” “1979,” and “State Of The Union.”)

In Minnesota, the minions of Al Franken, somewhere between St. Cloud and Hibbing, perhaps carefully cradle the box numbered 13, which contains several hundred ballots cast by Mia L. Frankin,  M. E. Alfranken,  etc, as well as the dreaded deleted scenes from Stuart Saves His Family. In Georgia, during the next few weeks until Saxbe Chambliss faces a runoff vote, we’ll see an avalanche of ads and a lot of crossed fingers as Democratic bigwigs from Macon to Athens, and up in Washington, hope that GOP voters are just too exhausted and dispirited to show up at the polls.

And, meanwhile, the question lingers: will Sen. Hillary Clinton go to Foggy Bottom or stay put? Today came some vague reports that the junior senator from New York might decline the chance.  I’m inclined to think she’ll remain where she is.  William Jennings Bryan comes to mind.  It was unlikely that the “Boy Orator of the Platte” would be renominated after he lost his third presidential run in 1908, but when Woodrow Wilson made him Secretary of State in 1913, it was a signal that at the age of 53 he had risen to the status of Statesman and left the cares and travails of electoral politics behind.  I doubt Hillary wants to run a similar risk.

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