US 2008: Democrats also control Congress

Several hours have now passed since my last post. After staying up all night, analysing and commenting as events were unfolding, I allowed myself a few hours of rest.

Returning to the computer I noticed that my earlier prediction came through and the Democrats are now also in full control of both Houses of the United States Congress.

Meanwhile 427 of the 435 congressional districts that elect the members of the House of Representatives (where the majority is 218) have declared a result. 254 Democrats and 173 Republicans have been elected.
This means that so far - with another 8 districts to declare - the Democrats have increased their 2006 majority (of 233) by another 21 seats, while the Republicans have so far lost 29 seats compared with the 202 they held in the last Congress.

In the Senate 33 (of the 100) seats were up for election, and with four results - from the states of Alaska, Georgia, Minnesota and Oregon - still pending, the Democrats have extended their 2006 majority (of 51) by another five Senators to now 56, while the Republicans have just 40 confirmed Senators in the new Congress.
Going by the currently available numbers, it looks as if three of these four Senate seats (from Alaska, Georgia and Oregon) will go to the Republicans, while the result of the Senatorial election in Minnesota will be recounted.

In the first count the incumbent Republican Senator Norm Coleman (right) polled 1,211,632 votes, while his Democratic challenger Al Franken (below left) received 1,211,167 votes.
This gives Coleman a narrow lead of only 435 votes, while a third candidate - the independent Dean Barkley - polled a total of 437,377 votes.
According to political sources in Minnesota, it "could take until December" before the final result for this contest is verified.

As things stand, this means that the Democrats will have a comfortable majority in the Senate, as well as in the House, but will not reach the 60 Senators needed for an absolute control, which could overrule so-called 'filibuster' actions (where a single Senator from either side could block a decision by non-stop talking for hours and hours). This rarely used arcane practice, modelled on a similar tradition in the Senate of ancient Rome, still exists in the USA, whose political system is still the same as it was when the Republic was founded in 1776.

In the presidential election, which was well and clearly won by Senator Barack Obama shortly before 4 am GMT, three states - Indiana, Missouri and North Carolina - had not declared a result by the time I last reported on it here. All three are so-called 'battle-ground states' and were won by George W. Bush with clear majorities four years ago. But this time the results in all three are extremely narrow, which means recounts and clarifications before a final result can be published.

Meanwhile Indiana has declared, and its eleven votes in the Electoral College go to Barack Obama, who won the states with 1,367,264 (or 50%) of the votes, while John McCain received 1,341,101 (or 49%). This result shows how hard the campaign was fought, and how close to each other win and loss can be. In Indiana's case the winning margin was 26,163 votes.

While I write this, counting and re-counting is still going on in Missouri and North Carolina. Without these two last undeclared states, the balance in the Electoral College stands now at 349 for Barack Obama to 163 for John McCain.

According to the available numbers Barack Obama has a lead of 13,093 public votes over John McCain in North Carolina, while McCain has still a lead of 5,868 public votes over Obama in Missouri.
Republicans have carried North Carolina in nine of the last ten presidential elections, usually by comfortable margins. George W. Bush won the state by a 13-point margin in 2000 and by a 12-point margin in 2004.
Missouri is the USA's ultimate bellwether in presidential elections. It has voted for the winning candidate in all but one presidential election for the last 100 years. George W. Bush carried the state twice, most recently in 2004 by a comfortable 7-point margin.

Should there be no new developments, it looks as if North Carolina with 15 electoral votes will be won by Barack Obama, while Missouri with 11 electoral votes will go to John McCain. That would bring the balance in the Electoral College to a final result of 364 to 174.

Even though the President is elected by the members of the Electoral College, which represent the 50 states, the public vote is always a good indicator for the overall tendency of the electorate. Looking at the numbers of the public vote, they give the same message as the numbers for the Electoral College.
Barack Obama received 63,685,576 public votes (or 53%) nationwide, while 56,280,666 people (or 46%) voted for John McCain. This means that Ipsos is the only of the 12 main polling organisations that got the result exactly right, while several others came close.

Interesting also is the high turn-out for the elections, which was 64%, the highest percentage in an election since 1960, when the Democratic Senator John F. Kennedy was elected President in a similar public surge for change as we saw it yesterday.

The Emerald Islander

US 2008: It's a Landslide for the Democrats

The 2008 US elections are over. Senator John McCain has just given his concession speech in Arizona, and it was one of the best speeches he ever made. It was decent, honest, fair and without any trace of bad feelings. The old man who did his best to win the White House acknowledged freely that he was beaten by a far superior opponent, and he pledged his full support to "his new President".

This was a great finish to a rather mediocre campaign, and for the first time in six months I recognised the old John McCain we knew for many years, the Senator of sincerity and great bi-partisan attitude. It seemed to me that in the moment of defeat he was freed from the shackles of his right-wing campaign team, from the pressure of Steve Schmidt and the shadow of Karl Rove. In defeat John McCain returned to his roots, and I salute him for this as a fellow naval officer.

Meanwhile the results from numerous US states have been coming in, and it is now without any doubt that Senator Barack Obama is the President-elect and will become the 44th President of the USA on January 20th of next year.

As I write this, the balance in the all-important Electoral College stands at

333 for Barack Obama to 155 for John McCain.

This means that Barack Obama has not only won the required majority of 270 votes in the Electoral College, but that he has already bypassed it by 63 votes (with possibly more to come).

This is not just a win, it is a landslide, as some analysts had predicted it during the past three weeks. Barack Obama achieved this massive success by winning several of the crucial so-called 'battleground states', including seven states that fell to the Republicans four years ago: Ohio, Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada and - most crucially - Florida and Virginia.

We all remember with sadness and anger the electoral fraud the Republicans under Governor Jeb Bush - younger brother of George W. Bush - committed in Florida in the year 2000, thus depriving the true election winner Al Gore of his right to become President.
And in the case of Virginia history has truly been made tonight, as this state had not been won by a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964, when it went to President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Meanwhile the Democrats have extended their majority in the Senate by five, with now 56 Democrats to 40 Republicans (out of 100 Senators) declared elected to the upper house of the US Congress.

In the race for the 435 seats in the House of Representatives (where the majority is 218) so far 351 electoral districts have declared a result. Elected are by now 214 Democrats and 137 Republicans. This means that the Democrats are now only four seats away from a total majority in both houses of Congress. These four will come soon, and likely a good few more.

A truly massive landslide for the Democrats, indeed, and a night in which hope for a better and fairer future has been restored to the USA.

The Emerald Islander

US 2008: Barack Obama wins the White House!

With 15 more states closing their polls, a clearer picture emerges now. And even though it is still early in the night, I am confident enough to call this presidential election for the Democrats, which means that the 44th President of the USA will be Senator Barack Hussein Obama.

He will only be the second President from the state of Illinois, following in the footsteps of his great inspiration, the first Republican President Abraham Lincoln.

As I write this, the balance in the all-important Electoral College stands at

194 for Barack Obama to 69 for John McCain.

This means that Barack Obama needs only a further 76 votes in the Electoral College to become President. With the western seaboard still voting, this should be an easy task, as California alone has 55 delegates. And California has been called for Obama long before the election even began.

Meanwhile the Democrats have extended their majority in the US Senate by one, with now 52 Democrats to 35 Republicans (out of 100 Senators).

In the race for the 435 seats in the House of Representatives (where the majority is 218) so far 146 electoral districts have declared a result. Elected are by now 90 Democrats and 56 Republicans.

The Emerald Islander

US 2008: Huge Turn-Out for the US Elections

A huge turn-out for the US presidential election and various other elections (for the whole House of Representatives and a third of the Senate) is reported from all over the United States.
Everywhere the number of people voting is significantly higher than in previous elections, and this is - as most analysts predict - positive for Barack Obama, whose campaign has motivated and energised especially younger people to come out and vote.

State-wide voting in the US eastern time zone opened at 6 am (11am GMT), with Kentucky and Indiana the first polls to close, at 11 pm GMT.

Senator Barack Obama voted early in his adopted home city of Chicago, Illinois (photo left), while Senator John McCain cast his vote in his home state of Arizona, before going on another desperate last-minute tour to motivate yet undecided people to vote for him. If this tireless effort will help him to close the gap he has to Barack Obama in all of the opinion polls (see my earlier entry) is however doubtful.

The last area to close voting, at 6 am GMT tomorrow morning, will be the Aleutian Islands & St. Lawrence Island in Alaska.

However, if exit polls are reliable, it is likely the outcome of the presidential election will be known long before then, at the latest when California, the last major state, ends voting at 4 am GMT.

Following their tradition, the tiny New Hampshire towns of Dixville Notch (photo right) and Hart's Location voted already just after midnight local time (5 am GMT) and were the first two precincts in the USA to report a result. Senator Obama won a majority in both places.

The final Gallup daily tracking poll before the election day said that Barack Obama is leading the presidential race with 53% to 42% for John McCain.

There are eleven other official candidates for the presidency, the most prominent of whom is Ralph Nader, a consumer and green issues advocate, who is standing in a presidential election for the fourth time.

Eleven states will also vote to elect governors, and partial elections are being held for the US Congress.
Democrats held 236 of the 435 seats in the outgoing House of Representatives and 51 of the 100 Senate seats. 33 of the Senate seats are up for election or re-election this year.

Eleven states also vote on various referenda on State law, several of them concerning so-called 'gay marriages' and restrictions on abortion.

One of the first states to come under the lime light of the US and international media will be Virginia, which has in the past voted strongly Republican, but has been heavily targeted by the Democrats this year. As both candidates will need to win Virginia in order to secure a majority in the Electoral College, the result from George Washington's home state will be an early indicator how things are going.

I will be up all night, monitoring the incoming results, and analyse what is happening.
So if you are also staying up, you are welcome to look in here from time to time for comments and updates.

The Emerald Islander

Fire in Taoiseach's Washington Hotel

The Taoiseach's sleep was rudely interrupted earlier this morning when fire alarm bells rang out at about 4.30 a.m. local time in the very luxurious Mayflower Hotel in Washington, where Bertie Ahern and his party - including Senate leader Donie Cassidy - are staying at present, ahead of the Taoiseach's address to both Houses of Congress later today.

After the alarm sounded, members of the U. S. Secret Service escorted the Taoiseach from his suite on the tenth floor down to the street, where he joined about 600 other guests who gathered slightly puzzled and half asleep on Connecticut Avenue in front of the Mayflower, one of the most exclusive and luxurious hotels in Washington (with the cheapest room costing $ 400 a night).

Early speculations that the alarm was a hoax to interrupt Bertie Ahern's sleep were proven wrong, and Pat Kenny's suggestion that someone in the Irish party might have lit a cigarette in his room against the rules also turned out to be incorrect. Apparently an electric generator on the eleventh floor - one above the Taoiseach's suite - caught fire and caused minor damage.
Shortly after 5 a.m. local time the "all clear" was given and everyone was allowed back into their rooms. This gives Bertie about five more hours to rest and get ready, as he is due on Capitol Hill shortly after 10 a.m. local time.

The Emerald Islander

Bush prevents Ban of "Waterboarding"

The White House has announced that George W. Bush will veto proposed legislation that would have banned American intelligence agents from using "waterboarding" and other controversial interrogation methods.

"Waterboarding" (pictured right) is a torture technique originally developed by the Spanish Inquisition during the Middle Ages and later used occasionally by some totalitarian regimes, mostly in South America.
Since George W. Bush started his "War on Terror" in 2001, the method has been adopted for interrogations of suspects by the CIA and other US intelligence agencies. Suspects are subjected to simulated drowning, which is widely criticised by many members of the US Congress.
Human rights organisations such as Amnesty International, the United Nations and most countries in the world regard "waterboarding" as nothing but an invented word that camouflages brutal torture.

Last month, the US Congress sent Bush a broad intelligence authorisation bill that contained new limits on the CIA's interrogation techniques.

But the Bush administration has countered that the CIA should not be held to the US military's interrogation standards. As excuse the White House says that their "intelligence agents are dealing with terrorists who are not lawful combatants operating under traditional battlefield tactics".

For all those who still had some doubts, it is now more than clear that George W. Bush sanctions and encourages the use of torture openly and with his usual arrogance.

Sadly the majority of Americans seems to be quite ignorant of their leaders' crimes, war crimes and major human rights' abuses. And since the presidents and prime ministers of other countries have no courage to stand up and criticise the USA openly, Bush gets away with torture in the face of the whole world.

The Emerald Islander

Charlie Wilson's War

As the matter of Afghanistan has come up yesterday, this might be a good time to add a little film review related to the subject. (I hope you do not mind that I use this weblog also to review books, films or even computer games now and then.)

Like most films I watch, the one I want to talk about today reflects on real events. It is called Charlie Wilson's War and based on George Crile's book with the same title (first published in 2003).
Both book and film tell the most unbelievable - but entirely true - background story to one of the most secret and successful intelligence operations in modern times, Operation Cyclone. This was the code name for Americas covert operations in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan during the 1980s, a secret war against Communism the CIA directed through various channels, including Israeli defence industries, Egypt's Ministry of Defence, Pakistan's government, army and inter-service intelligence agency (ISI), the Saudi Royal Family, and various other individuals, organisations and groups. Many of these groups, at the time known under the collective name "Mujahideen" (Arabic for strugglers), have meanwhile disappeared into history, but some of the names on the CIA's "list of friends" are still of relevance. They are Hezbi Islami (lead by the fanatic Gulbuddin Hekmatyar), Al-Qaeda (lead by the scholar Abdullah Yusuf Azzam) and Maktab al-Khadamat - or "MAK", as the Americans called them - (lead by Osama bin Laden). *

But even though the film is about Afghanistan and shows plenty of it, some with original footage from reconnaissance and news reports of the time, its main focus is the title hero Charlie Wilson, a member of the US House of Representatives from East Texas. A Democrat with very liberal views and a gregarious personal lifestyle, Charles Nesbitt Wilson (left, and not to be confused with the now sitting Congressman Charlie Wilson, a Democrat representing Ohio) was not the kind of politician one would find centre-stage in the limelight of national politics. Quite the opposite, in fact. But Wilson, a former naval officer, had some unusual friends, among them the colourful Houston socialite Joanne King Herring, a woman endowed equally with great wealth and great beauty. Her special concern for the plight of Afghani refugees who fled to Pakistan in their millions after the Soviets had invaded and occupied their country led to Wilson becoming interested as well. And even though a rather small fish in the great pond of Washington D.C., the Texan Congressman sat on the right committees, among them the one that appropriates secret funding for the CIA and other US intelligence agencies. With a combination of persuasion, political horse trading and using every trick in the book Wilson (played by Tom Hanks, who also produced the film) manages to increase the CIA's covert operations budget for Afghanistan from an original $ 5 million per annum to more than $ 600 million each year!
Hanks, who is an amazingly authentic look-alike of the real Charlie Wilson, does not only create a well-deserved memory for all those who were involved, he also shows us how Congress really works and how easy it is in fact to manipulate massive amounts of money without the public ever having the slightest idea of it. Had there been ever any doubt about it, this film demonstrates how very similar the modern US Congress is to the Senate of ancient Rome.

Not surprisingly, this is a very American film, which means that messages are coming straight at you and miss the subtlety one might find in some European productions. But it is a very good and informative film, which I highly recommend to anyone interested in current affairs.

The only shortfall in this otherwise well-made film is the casting of Julia Roberts as the wealthy Texan socialite Joanne King Herring.
No disrespect to Ms. Roberts, who has appeared in many films and is certainly a very talented actress, but she did not bring across the personality and spirit of Joanne Herring, and most significantly not her exceptional beauty. The real Joanne (pictured here with Julia Roberts) is like a mixture of Marilyn Monroe and Margaret Thatcher all in one, and also not very tall (while the real Charlie Wilson is). As Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts are almost of the same height, the great physical difference and the element of Charlie towering over Joanne are entirely missed. And - again with no disrespect - Ms. Roberts' mouth and nose are just too large to be really beautiful, while Joanne Herring has a really classic porcelain doll's face.

As it happens, this is the second time that Julia Roberts was chosen to play a woman of historical significance which she neither resembles physically nor fits in any way. The other was Kitty Kiernan, the girlfriend of Ireland's revolution hero Michael Collins, played in the film of the same title by Liam Neeson.
It appears that certain Hollywood studios insist on particular "stars" appearing in their films, regardless if they fit the character or not. And being one of the highest paid actresses in the USA, I suppose that Julia Roberts just gets as many major roles as possible. Sadly, it does not always work. But nevertheless, she is a vivacious woman and fits at least the bill in this way, even though she looks not a bit like the real Joanne King Herring (who even now, as an elderly woman, has still one of the most beautiful faces in the western world...)

In contrast to Julia Roberts, the casting of Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the unconventional Greek-American CIA agent Gust Avrakotos makes the film not only more realistic, but also adds a lot of quite funny elements to it. Rough diamonds like the real Avrakotos are rare, but without them most intelligence services could not function.

Even though the director, Mike Nichols, has made a number of films before, the German-born son of Russian Jews is better known for his theatre work. With Charlie Wilson's War he does move into new artistic territory, and it seems he feels quite at home there already.

The Emerald Islander

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* After Azzam's death in 1989 Osama bin Laden merged MAK with Al-Qaeda and became its new leader.