Republicans win control of US Senate
This wasn’t meant to happen…just as snow was a thing of the past the Republicans were meant to be on their last legs as the political landscape changed in the US along with the population profile.
Guess all those Hispanic and Black voters weren’t persuaded by the Guardian and the BBC.
They tried to moderate their voices on the Today programme this morning, but you could sense the grinding of teeth and suppressed rage. No mention had been made on the BBC, yet, of the election of the splendid Tim Scott, the first black American senator to be elected from The South since shortly after the Civil War. [btw, my only regret is that there was no election in Nevada, and therefore Harry Reid is still there].
A black Republican senator! That’s just beyond the pale (so to speak) for the Beeb.
Very noticeable that this was being completely downplayed on the BBC News Channel this morning, lots of fluffy sofa chat instead.
Oddly missing from the BBC “analysis” of the mid-terms was the info that IIRC, with the exception of the first 2 years of his presidency, Reagan had to deal with Democratic majorities in both Senate and House. I can’t recall the BBC being in mourning at the time in respect of that. On the contrary the demonisation of Reagan (and Mrs T) was (and remains) a staple of BBC output.
Moreover, Reagan, despite being a fairly relaxed operator was a past master at persuading his political opponents in Congress to go along with his policies. OTOH Obama demonstrates his lack of experience (except for the thugocratic practice of Chicago Democratic politics which appears not to work effectively at a national level) and general all-round laziness in his failures both nationally and internationally. Not that you’d have much of an inkling of Obama’s uselessness and mendacity if you restricted your news input to the BBC.
Who’s the “chickenshit” now?
I take it the champagne bottles remained corked at Broadcasting House last night?
None of the recent BBC reporting indicated the scale of the Republican tidal wave. Just a vague sense that Obama was in a bit of trouble.
Yesterday afternoon I checked out how things appeared to stand, and emailed a mate with my guess about the results – I have followed US elections for decades. I listed 13 States to focus on. In the event no other State was close except the surprise in Virginia. Louisiana will go to a 2-candidate run-off and the Dems will lose, Alaska has not declared yet, and the Dems hung on to New Hampshire .
Of the others, the Repubs held on to Kentucky by a country mile – and GAINED Senate seats in Montana, South Dakota, West Virginia, Arkasas, Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Iowa and North Carolina.
If an amateur like me can point to the likely outcome – why do we need a big US BBC staff and Jim Naughtie swanning around at our expense sneering at the red states ?
“None of the recent BBC reporting indicated the scale of the Republican tidal wave. Just a vague sense that Obama was in a bit of trouble.”
When all they would have had to do was to listen to their American pundit counterparts, all of whom had pretty well moved from the “Repubs may have irreparably tarnished their electoral brand for ’14!” in the immediate aftermath of the “government shutdown” standoff of Autumn ’13, to an NFL-style over/under handicapping of how many seats the Dems would lose owing to their having been tied inextricably to Mr. Obama’s cackhanded handling of one matter after another. Six seats would tip the balance, and seven seemed to be in the bag for the GOP, owing to the vagaries of which Senatorial seats were being contested (those in states he failed to carry in ’12); it was more a matter of, Do the GOP wrest control by more than the bare minimum (or possibly not at all), or do they do even better that the seven they appear to be shoo-ins for?
Of course, why depend on the natives for an assessment of their own political landscape? Hey, they’re too close to it and can’t see woods for trees. Better by far to have beard-stroking arm-waving blah from “dispassionate” observers who have no dog in the fight, isn’t that so? One conjures up the vision of the old Raj official on the verandah sipping a G&T and telling the office flunkie to send a cable to the Colonial Office, “Natives restless, but nothing we can’t handle.”
BBC Radio 4 Today @BBCr4today
‘The way we view presidents today is not how we view them with the benefit of hindsight’ – Robert Moran on judging Obama’s presidency.
If the ‘we’ is the BBC, and it uses its £4Bpa to tell it as often as it is prone to, the Obama legacy is… will be safe.
I dont think there’s a lot of Hispanic and Black voters in the US reading the Guardian.
heh heh – quite.
Something that was amusing yesterday was the Guardian’s spiritual cousin, The New York Times, demanding that the mid-term elections be abolished – permanently.
Great stuff.
That would depend on who was in the White House – Republican or Democrat.
What you don’t think duly noted.
In this case possibly accurate, especially after Operation Clarke County, an Ian Katz (now of the BBC) special.
The BBC news US election special which began last night at 12.00 was the worst piece of TV journalism ever.
Dumbing down beyond belief. Absolutely no voting stats what-so-ever beyond the fact that the new naughty republican majority leader had “scrapped” a win in Kentucky (he won 56.2%) and an amateurish effort to be light hearted.
Until about 10 years ago the BBC gave us the ABC feed where the journo’s at least knew what they were talking about, and assumed that their audience was watching because THEY knew a little bit about the US constitution.
Terrible, terrible TV AND biased!
‘Worst piece of TV journalism ever’. That’s what I say every Sunday after watching Sunday Morning Live and Sunday Politics, the beeb Journo’s seem to have a certain knack of being able to reach a little further into the gutter than any other lot.
…..And some idiot bboid in a bright blue suit confident in his belief that we are too stupid to notice his blatant bias in wearing blue when covering US elections.
You don’t think a red suit would be a little gay?
One result which escaped the BBC was mouthwateringly wonderful: Sandra Fluke – the Georgetown student who came to prominence when she demanded her university supply her with free birth control – LOST her run for the House of Representatives. She had unwritten her campaign to the tune of $100,000 yet remember she claimed she couldn’t afford birth control. I wonnder how many condoms $100,000 would have bought. With that sort of money she could have got the rubbers, satin sheets and Barry White CD and a pot of KY jelly.
The war on women fizzled out yesterday with a bunch of successful women candidates across the country including Mia Love (black) and Elise Stefanik (at 19 the youngest woman to be elected to Congress). It is also worth noting that both Tim Scott and Mia Love were tea party candidates – so much for the racism of the right. Scott won in the South and Love in Utah. These are all inconvenient truths for the BBC narrative. But here’s the kicker – no one cares about the BBC narrative. Cheers.
Sandra Fluke is her own birth control.
How can Hispanic and Black voters be persuaded by the Guardian and al-beeb — two organs rather scarce on the ground there? How lucky those voters are! Indeed, most Americans never even heard of the great state-funded one, or the leftie rag.
Alan, where’s David Preisser these days; I miss his reports from the USA?
Over on Is the BBC Biased with Sue and Craig. All sadly missed.
An amusing aside (amused me anyway). Claudia Milne, who used to be the editor of BBC North America online, is now head of live TV at Bloomberg. The Baltimore Sun was scathing about its election coverage last night:
John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, authors of “Game Change,” anchored Bloomberg’s election night effort. And while they write terrific election books, they delivered some of the sorriest and most ridiculously smug TV coverage I can remember seeing…
A lot of things made me angry with Tuesday night’s coverage, but running neck-and-neck with the operative-analysts was an effort by Heilemann and Halperin to go after Fox News shortly after 10 p.m. when it called the Colorado Senate race for Republican Cory Garnder over Democrat incumbent Mark Udall.
At that point, Fox was the only network to make that call, and Halperin and Heilemann disingenuously contextualized the move by Fox as TV recklessly interfering with the voting process — even though almost every other network was doing the same all night.
The two anchors went to five different reporters and analysts giving each the opportunity to question or condemn the call by Fox…
But 14 minutes later, guess what Halperin and Bloomberg did: called Colorado for Gardner. That call by Bloomberg came on the heels of the Associated Press joining Fox in saying the Republican would win Colorado.
It was a repudiation of Obama and his policies. The left is apoplectic about the loss and is blaming the stupidity of the voters who cannot see all the hard work Obama has done on their behalf. Also an almost total avoidance of mentioning the election in the main stream media over here.
TV News Blacks Out This Year’s Bad Election News for Democrats
It’s always our fault, the stupid, ordinary, decent, hard working taxpayers who are treated like shit by the liberals. we are simply an inconvenience to these morons, it’s our fault that we can’t accept their ‘progressive’, self righteous, superior ways…we just don’t know what’s good for us, do we!
That is a really good article – well researched, factual, damning. Good find.
I forgot to add this one for those in need of more laughs.
5 Hilariously Stupid Reactions By Liberals In The Media After Last Night’s GOP Tidal Wave
The Guardian also have a stupid reaction by the left – and the OP has been railroaded out of town by the comments BTL.
He’s still out asking dude’s where his country is.
Where’s Michael Moore hiding these days ?
My Brother lives in California, and in spite of being a branch chairman of the Young Conservatives when he lived in Surrey, he has been infected with Liberal disease whilst living in San Francisco.
He posted the most weird post on facebook when the Republicans won the Senate…
“I’m rather upbeat about the election results. Ultimately the Republican Party is doomed because their base is dying…literally. There’s just going to be some awful shit to endure until the old white guys are in their grave.”
Yet they won. Apparenly winning is bad for the winners, because it means that they cannot win again. or something like that.
And how did they win from a demographic that is “litterally dying?”
A lot of people from different racial backgrounds are SICK of the racism coming from the Democrats. the whole assumption that you should vote a certain way if your skin is not white? What else? Use different water fountains? Sit at the back on the bus?
It’s the democrats pushing the idea that the Republicans are a white only party and other races should not vote for them. How racist is that? Democrats.. racial segragationists.
Democrats.. BBC
i noticed president hussein obama has got off the hook here again,did you watch his responce last night on sky news to his disaster of a defeat in the senate,thats it, he looked lost and a broken man and waffled on like like a buffoon who seemed to be a bit embarrased to be the president of the united states,no doubt barack obama might be a nice man,but so is ed milliband,what connects both obama and milliband is that they are just not cut out to be leaders of there countrys.
Radio Five Live over the past two days has made little if any comment on the recent Congressional elections in the USA. This morning they even went so far as to slay a sacred cow by concentrating their discussion on a report highlighting waste in the NHS in a forlorn attempt to bury the “bad news” coming out of America!!
This is what thy dont want you to hear
I feel this is among the such a lot vital info for me. And
i am satisfied reading your article. However want to remark on some normal
issues, The website taste is perfect, the articles is
actually great : D. Good activity, cheers
“I feel this is among the such a lot vital info for me”
Vital, eh?
If the spam bots are EastEnders fans too, this will clearly be getting told enough.