They’re counting the votes for the Senate Majority Leader …
MSNBC says Hoyer wins.
Update: The vote is 149 to 86, they are saying. Not close.
Update update: Chris Bowers provides perspective.
Update update update: Senator Kennedy is on MSNBC now demanding updated intelligence on Iraq. Exactly right.
Phew. Maybe now we won’t have to see that old Abscam footage over and over on the “news.”
I wish this would have come out differently, it seems to me as though the American people spoke and were undeniable as far as a democratic majority and Nancy P. as leader, but the lobbyist spoke too and we have Hoyer to deal with too. Because I do believe that Hoyer is the business as usual man.
I was excited because I believe that Nancy P. is a true reformer and she and Murtha would have been free of the K street polluters, or at least more free than Hoyer.
I guess the members needed to vote with the money though. I read that Hoyer gave tons of money to the campaigns – just have to wonder where he got it though.
But I am still happy because I think Nancy is awesome in her beauty and power, and I wish we could dump Bush and Cheney and make her president. That would settle all the Hillary, Obama triangulaters and save us torturous primary season. Not to mention she could whip the snot out of McCain. Does she look like a dark horse in her aqua-grey Armani pant suit?
Ditto to wishing it had come out differently; lets hope Murtha gets some key power position vis a vis this war.
It’ll be OK as long as Hoyer wised up on Iraq.
From my understanding Hoyer was a better choice than Murtha, simply based on the sheer number of skeletons in Murtha’s closet, but Hoyer is a “business as usual” Dem. This means meaningful reform just went out the window.
My question is why did it come down to a choice between these two very flawed candidates?
It seems to me that the Dems were sent a clear message from the voters that cleaning up the K Street swamp would be a good thing to tackle. With a guy like Hoyer in the job of Majority Leader, that probably won’t happen.
Senator Kennedy is right. No more locking democrats out of top-level meetings. No more late night legislation packages. No more BSing the democrats so they don’t have a handle on what is really going on. No more recess appointments.
At the end of the day, Senator Kennedy is a politician. The treatment that the repubs gave the dems for the last 12 years was payback for the treatment the dems gave the repubs for the previous years. I only hope that Pelosi will honor her declaration that the tit-for-tat is over. Escalation of the same old will only hurt the party, and the country. Also, the elation I felt last week ended with the sniping over the leadership elections. It’s sad to have to admit that the lesser of two evils won the top spot.