The FOX website numbers seem to started rolling again. They stopped for a while and I was about to drop them, but it looks like they’ve come back to life.
House
FOX R 77 – 31 D
CBS R 147 – 96 D
ABC R 142 – 111 D
NBC R 59 – 28 D
Senate
FOX R 32 – 42 D
CBS R 37 – 47 D
ABC R 37 – 47 D
NBC R 37 – 47 D
Drudge:
REPUBLICANS WIN SENATE SEATS: AL, AR, FL, GA, IN, OH, OK, KY, KS, MO, ND, NH, SC, SD…
DEMS WIN: CT, DE, MD, NY, WV…
TOO CLOSE TO CALL: PA, IL, WI…
And more proof that Obamacare is killing the Democrats. This just in from FOX:
Sen. Blanche Lincoln, one of the most vulnerable of the incumbent Democrats, loses her Senate seat to Republican John Boozman, who repeatedly hammered her health care vote.
House
FOX R 31 – 6 D
CBS R 96 – 60 D
ABC R 85 – 67 D
NBC R 51 – 23 D
Senate
FOX R 32 – 45 D
CBS R 34 – 45 D
ABC R 30 – 43 D
NBC R 34 – 45 D
Drudge is reporting it as follows:
REPUBLICANS WIN SENATE SEATS: AL, AR, FL, GA, IN, OH, OK, KY, MO, NH, SC…
DEMS WIN: CT, DE, MD, WV…
TOO CLOSE TO CALL: PA, IL…
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected numerous polls predicting a Republican landslide among House candidates and defiantly predicted tonight that Democrats will retain control of the House of Representatives.
“The early returns and overwhelming number of Democrats who are coming out – we’re on pace to maintain a majority in the House of Representatives,” Pelosi told reporters during a photo op in Washington.
But after polls closed in 24 states, early returns appeared to favor Republicans in competitive districts, signalling Democrats could be in for a bruising night.
Perhaps she’ll set up a giant conference room in her own house. Then she can continue to be speaker of the House…because there’s no chance of her staying in as Speaker of the real House.
Sorry for the gap. I had to fix a few small issues with keeping the Mark Levin stream running at this end. It’s all good now.
FOX now showing results as:
House R-31 — D-6
Senate R-32 — D-42
The entire House is up for election, but only a third of the Senate. Going in to this the Republicans held 23 Senate seats and the Democrats held 40. That means that, at present, of the seats up for grabs the Republicans have won 9 Senate seats to 2 for the Democrats. Note that this isn’t the same as a gain, which is where the seat changes from one party to another.
A whole heap of races closed about 20 minutes ago, so we’ll start to see some really useful figures this hour, and by the end of the hour we should be in a much better position to see if the Republicans can take the Senate. I still doubt it, but we should know enough by the end of the hour to make an informed prediction.
Greenville, SC — Today, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina), chairman of the Senate Conservatives Fund, made the following statement regarding the election of Marco Rubio to the U.S. Senate in Florida.
“I want to thank the voters in Florida for electing a true champion for freedom today. Marco knows that America is exceptional and he’s passionate about the principles of freedom that are the backbone of our nation. I was honored to support Marco’s campaign in the primary when the Washington establishment opposed him and even laughed at his chances. Now the people of Florida get to have the last laugh as they send an outstanding leader to represent them in Washington.”
SCF invested $589,507 in this race and Senator DeMint transferred $250,000 from his re-election campaign to the Florida GOP Victory committee.
The House numbers are extremely encouraging. FOX currently has the Republicans leading 14 to 1.
Some good news from Florida: Marco Rubio appears to have won a Senate seat. Unfortunately it looks like Delaware is going to Chris Coons and not Christine O’Donnell, which is a shame but not unexpected.
Drudge Report’s analysis of the exit polls (which are usually as reliable as employing a goat as a receptionist) has the Republicans gaining at least 50 seats in the House and at least 7 in the Senate. Enough to take the House, not enough to take the Senate.
Republicans have scored their first victories of the midterm election, with Tea Party-backed Rand Paul in Kentucky and former Sen. Dan Coats in Indiana declared winners in their respective Senate races shortly after polls closed.
[..]
Elsewhere, Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy easily won his reelection race, as did South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint, who faced off against Democrat Alvin Greene, an unemployed unknown who won his party’s primary without campaigning. The race for governor in South Carolina is too close to call, with Republican Nikki Haley competing against Democrat Vincent Sheheen.
It’s still way too early to work out what the end result will be, but the results seem to be mirroring the polls for the House. I really can’t work out anything for the Senate just yet.
A handful of polling places have now closed. It’s too early to really say much, so I’ll use this post to set up a few formatics for the day.
First up, at the top of the page we now have a live feed of the overall results courtesy of FOX News. That will update every few minutes. (I write that and it breaks. Great. Hopefully it’ll be back soon)
For my update posts the titles will carry three timezones. Canberra, US Eastern Daylight Time and Western Daylight Time. The majority of readers of this blog are based in Australia, but it helps to keep the current time in the place where the results are coming from in mind.
Now it looks like a couple of the obvious races have useful results rolling in, so I’ll check those out and get back to you in a few minutes.
Updated 8:23am with details of the races I forgot about
Well here we are again, another election is upon us. It doesn’t seem like two years since the last major US election, but it has been two years and, more importantly, this election looks like it will have a much better outcome than the last one.
By the looks of the polls, the Republicans will take back the House of Representatives in a landslide, while the Senate will be a much closer affair. The Real Clear Politics average of the major polls is predicting that the House will go to the Republicans by a margin of 224 to 167, with another 44 seats in doubt, while the Senate is narrowly favouring the Democrats 48-45, with a further 7 seats in doubt.
It’s pretty clear then that the Republicans will take control of the House, which is probably the more important of the two houses to gain control of, as this will allow them to reign in the spending bills. The Senate is less clear, but as long as Sharron Angle of Nevada can defeat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, I think the point will have been made. Nevada is one of the closer races, but Sharron Angle is 2.7% ahead of Harry Reid on the polling average, so there is a decent chance of a god outcome here.
My belief is that Republicans will take over the House, and narrowly miss out on control of the Senate. In many ways I think this is preferable to a complete take over as it lowers the expectations of voters. Rather than expecting everything to be fixed by elected representatives in two years, this type of outcome is more of a “trial period” with voters being able to watch both sides of politics battle it out, and then give a side a clearer mandate at the next election.
That said, if the swing is as large as the polls are predicting, then it’s about as clear as it can be that voters are rejecting Obama’s flavour of socialism, especially if neither House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are returned to their post.
Rasmussen Reports, the most accurate of the polling companies at the 2008 election, published their latest “Generic Congressional Ballot” yesterday, with the result in favour of the Republicans 51%-39%. The Republicans have led this poll since June last year, but this is the first time in that period that they’ve been above 50%. Rasmussen Reports crunched the numbers and came to the conclusion that:
If these results hold, it could lead to the election of more Republicans to Congress than at any time since the 1920s.
Figures like that indicate a clear mandate, even in an environment with different parties controlling each house. In fact, if the numbers do occur that way, then the only reason why the Republicans won’t have taken the Senate is that only a third of it is up for election. I still do prefer the idea of the split victory though for the psychological reasons I outlined above.
So, what are the key issues for voters? Scott Rasmussen of Rasmussen Reports explains:
Voters trust Republicans more than Democrats on eight out of 10 important issues regularly tracked by Rasmussen Reports including the economy and health care.
[..]
Currently, 58% of Likely Voters favor repeal of the health care law passed earlier this year.
The issues which Republicans were favoured on are issues which can be broadly put in to three categories, things which Democrats want to tax-and-spend on, things which Democrats want to socialise (some can be put in to both of those categories), and things which affect national security.
Republicans favoured on: Social security, health care, economy, national security, taxes, Iraq, Afghanistan, Immigration.
Democrats favoured on: Government ethics (not sure why, given the number of tax cheats Obama tried to appoint) and education.
When you look at the history of the Generic Ballot, the disillusionment in Obama’s “hope and change” nonsense becomes even clearer.
The Generic Ballot results were much different during the last two election cycles when Democrats regularly had large leads heading into the 2006 and 2008 elections. The two parties were very close through the spring of 2009, but in June, around the time Democrats began their campaign for health care reform, Republicans pulled ahead for good.
[..]
While the margin has varied somewhat from week-to-week, Republicans have been consistently ahead on the Generic Ballot since June of last year, and their lead has run as high as 12 points and as low as three points. When Barack Obama first took office as president, the Democrats enjoyed a seven-point lead on the Generic Ballot.
So with that in mind, the important thing in this election isn’t just that Republicans win, but that conservatives win. To that end, there are a few key races to which I’ll be paying some extra attention as the day goes on.
Here’s my list of the races which I’ll be following closely, and the people I support. I may have missed a few.
Senate races Nevada Senate: I’m proud to say that I endorse Sharron Angle. Sharron is a great conservative candidate, and we need to defeat Harry Reid, one of the chief architects of the Obama agenda. Florida Senate: Marco Rubio is another vital person. He has a 17 point lead, so it’s fairly safe to say that he’ll be a great addition to the Senate once he is sworn in. Kentucky Senate: Rand Paul Alaska Senate: Joe Miller. If we can rid the Senate of Lisa Murkowski, that would be lovely. The fact that this vile woman lost the Republican Primary and was so insistent that the state must have been mistaken that she is running as a write-in candidate says about all that needs to be said. Delaware: Christine O’Donnell. A lovely lady who, in much the same way as Sarah Palin, has endured every smear imaginable through her campaign. The mainstream media even tried to claim that separation of church and state is in the Constitution in an effort to smear her. Colorado Senate: Ken Buck. Utah Senate: Mike Lee.
Updated! South Carolina: Jim DeMint. I knew I forgot something…and it was Jim, oh how could I have forgotten about Jim. The stalwart of the Senate looks to be safe. Rasmussen have him holding a 58%-21% lead. Here’s a man who would make a great President, but for now will continue to be a great Senator.
House races Minnesota: Michele Bachmann. Quite possibly the most impressive conservative candidate I’ve heard in the lead-up to the election. Michele is a long way ahead in the polls so she should be safe. Michele receives my House endorsement. Florida: Allen West
I know that there’s another one, but I can’t for the life of me remember which race it is.
Governor races
There are two in particular which are important to me. The most important of all though is: Arizona: Jan Brewer. Jan is the Governor behind Arizona’s anti-illegal immigrant laws. It’s sad that various courts have produced dodgy rulings in a blatant effort to allow illegal immigrants to flood in to the US. The good news is that Jan leads by about ten points in the polls. One wonders if we may see her run for higher office one day. I do hope so. Jan is another candidate whom I am proud to say that I endorse. Florida: Rick Scott. Another absolutely awesome candidate.
Updated! California: Meg Whitman. OK, make that three. Meg has also endured many smears, including an incomprehensible lawsuit-which-isn’t-a-lawsuit from deranged lawyer Gloria Allred who is probably in the employ of Meg’s opponent Jerry Brown. Meg is behind by four points according to Rasmussen. The one thing which you can be sure of in this race is that, with the Governator now out of the picture, this will be the focus of international media attention, especially if Democrat Jerry Brown wins it.
Updated! Nevada: Brian Sandoval. This one really only interests me as Harry Reid’s son Rory is Brian opponent, and the Reid dynasty does not need to continue. Brian has an extremely comfortable lead here.
I’d love to endorse each and every candidate that I’ve highlighted here, but to ensure that my endorsement really means something, I am saving it for my absolute favourite candidate in each type of race. I do support each an every one of the candidates that I have highlighted though.
As for election coverage, well I’ll be doing my best between other things during the day to keep myself up-to-date and to post updates here, but there are a few places I recommend.
First up Casey Hendrickson and Heather Kydd will be on (running??) KDOX‘s coverage from 9pm US West Coast time (3pm Canberra time). They’ll be on the air for at least three hours. FOX News is probably the best place for continuous election coverage. I’ll be checking their website constantly. Mark Levin will be on the air from 6pm-9pm US East Coast time as results start to roll in (9am-12pm Canberra time). My plan is to listen to him until the end of his show and then switch to Rusty Humphries followed by Casey and Heather on KDOX for the rest of the day.
And I can’t go past Drudge Report for ongoing highlighting of all the important stories and some which will be overlooked by most others until they get a mention here. Drudge will be refreshing in my browser all day.
I know that the majority of the readership of this blog is Australian, but to all of my American readers, if you have not voted yet, you only have a handful of hours left. GO AND VOTE! There are many tight races in which your vote could be the one which gets a great candidate over the line, and many not-so-close races where we still need people to vote as we can’t assume that candidates will win simply because the polls tell us that they will.
It’s going to be an interesting day…and I really do think that by the end of it I’m going to be able to say that Obama and his horrifying socialist agenda is the best thing to happen to the conservative movement in years.
With the US midterm elections coming up in less than a week (and yes, I have much that I want and perhaps need to say on this subject), it’s a good time for a serious laugh on the matter. So let’s play a quick round of “Real Or Fake?”. Good luck!
It’s funny how some days thing just seem to fall in to place. Yesterday was one of those days where everything just seemed to work the way it should. On that note, it is no surprise then that I stumbled across this blog post by lawyer Brendan Scott which perfectly describes The Sydney Morning Herald.
Every week I read it and think “well that had no information in it/that has no impact on my life, why did I waste my time reading that?” (the reason is because it is there at the table.)
[..]
Moreover, they have recently shifted the format of their additional sections to be wholly tabloid. Maybe I’m just being an old fogey, but I hate it, particularly the overbusy colourful design and the oft-times content free infographics. This is on top of the typos that now dot the paper following their decision to get rid of copy editors.
With the exception of some of their media stories and their Monday TV guide (yes, my household still likes the printed weekly TV guide), I wholeheartedly agree with Brendan. The paper is a joke. It’s no wonder, considering its close ties with The Age and The Guardian.
If you’re wondering which paper is my paper of choice, it is The Australian. A paper which is more interested in the truth than most of the rest of them combined. Sure, they all have their good and bad moments, but when you weigh it all up, The Australian is the indisputable king of the Aussie newspapers.
Now, I should really compare The Weekend Australian’s TV guide with that of the Monday SMH…if I can rid this household of a regular SMH purchase, that would be beneficial.
Before I move on to the subject of this blog post, I want to (again) apologise for my (latest) absence. I hope you have all been well while I have not been here. I see that there are some comments to which I should respond; I will do so shortly.
On my way home from work today I tuned in to Parliament on the radio and happened to tune in to Senate proceedings while they were engaged in the ongoing debate about the war in Afghanistan. I tuned in a tad after the start of one of the speeches, and I must say that what I heard was simply astounding. It was incredibly heartening and refreshing to hear an impassioned speech outlining clearly the reasons why we are in Afghanistan; why we absolutely must stay the course; and why the people who want us to withdraw from the conflict, no matter how good their intentions may be or seem, are ultimately encouraging an evil far worse than any casualties which we may sustain in the course of defending what is right.
NewsRadio did not mention the Senator’s name during or after the 95% of the speech that I heard, so I am incredibly glad that Parliamentary Hansard has timestamps on it, as this speech needs to be heard by a wider audience than the handful of people who happened to be listening to Parliament at about 12:30pm…and you can bet your bottom dollar that the mainstream media will not report on this important and enlightening speech.
I was not surprised in the slightest to find out, upon reading Hansard, that this speech was delivered by Queensland’s Senator Brett Mason, a man of much clarity, of whom I have had the pleasure of hearing on previous occasions, including one time when he vehemently opposed the Rudd government’s stimulus fiasco which, as we now know, led to many deaths and an inordinate amount of wasted money.
I give you Senator Mason.
Senator MASON (Queensland) (12.29 pm)
I have listened with great interest to this parliamentary debate. I have listened with great interest to this debate for the past nine years, since 7 October 2001, when Operation Enduring Freedom was launched by the United States and its allies, including Australia, so that freedom so bravely won by the people of Afghanistan from communist oppression — the freedom so cruelly lost over the following decade to civil war and then Taliban misrule — may indeed return and perhaps this time endure.
I have listened to this debate and heard arguments that we should abandon our mission in Afghanistan. Some of these arguments are passionate, others are cold and rational; some seem sincere while others, callous. All of them are wrong: wrong in principle and wrong in practice; wrong in general and wrong in particular; wrong politically and wrong morally.
Some say that force never solves anything. Tell that to the liberated slaves throughout the 19th century. Some say that there is nothing worse than war. Tell that to the ghosts of the Holocaust and other victims of Nazi tyranny. Some say that all we need is more dialogue and greater understanding. Tell that to the tens of millions who perished over the seven decades of the loathsome communist experiment, and to the tens of millions of those liberated from under its shadow 20 years ago. Others, more pragmatic, will tell you, ‘We cannot solve all the world’s problems and so why bother with Afghanistan?’ but not Darfur or the Congo or North Korea. To that I say this: just because you cannot do everything it does not mean that you should do nothing.
Think of wars on poverty, disease or, indeed, carbon dioxide emissions. Is it not strange how no-one is arguing that because we cannot completely solve these problems we should do nothing? It is funny how this tendentious reasoning only seems to be applied to wars on tyranny and terror. The same pragmatists will say that we should not meddle in other people’s internal conflicts. They say that, and will then go on to paraphrase Otto von Bismarck, that the whole of Afghanistan is not worth the bones of a single Australian SAS soldier. To that I say this: at the dawn of the new century, and amidst our smaller and interconnected world, there is no conflict so isolated that it will not sooner or later come knocking at your door.
One would have thought that we learned that lesson on 11 September 2001. One would have thought that we had learned the lessons about appeasement, isolationism and sticking our heads in the sand much earlier than that — perhaps even as early as 1 September 1939.
We value the courage of our armed men and women. We are eternally in debt to them for their sacrifice and their service. We grieve with them and their loved ones for every loss that they suffer. We also know and understand that they are fighting the good fight today in the time of our choosing and on our terms so that we do not all have to fight a bigger fight of the enemy’s choosing and on the enemy’s terms tomorrow. We bring war to them today so that they cannot bring it to us tomorrow — and, just as importantly, so that they cannot bring it once again to the long-suffering people of Afghanistan.
There is hardly a cause more just than trying to prevent the return of the Taliban regime. A cause more just I cannot think of. This was the regime that treated half of its population, Afghan women, like useless trash — uneducated, unemployed, isolated, battered, hopeless and helpless; the regime that stoned to death apostates, adulterers and homosexuals, and which denied all basic human and political rights to its people; the regime that imposed theocracy and mediaeval poverty on its 28 million subjects; the regime that lived off the proceeds of the heroin trade and gave sanctuary to al-Qaeda; and the regime so obsessively repressive that it mandated beards for all men, banned music, kite flying and sport, and turned stadiums from centres of entertainment into venues of public execution.
And yet, despite that, some are saying that we should give up and leave the people of Afghanistan to their own devices and let them sort out their own affairs whichever way the cards may fall. This view astonishes me. Afghanistan should be the cause celebre of the Left: protecting women and minority rights, fighting oppression and ethnic cleansing, battling an oppressive theocracy, promoting democracy and human rights. It should be the cause celebre of the Left, and yet, according to the twisted moral compass of the Left, all these noble causes and moral considerations are trumped by one thing and one thing only: reflexive anti-Americanism and anti-Westernism.
The reasoning seems to work something like this:
(a) pick a conflict—any conflict; (b) see if one of the participants is the United States or Israel; and, (c) if the answer to question (b) is yes then take the other side.
It has been thus in every conflict around the world from the Russian Revolution to the armed struggles of today. There has never been a leader or a movement so odious as to be beyond the pale for the Left as long as it was deemed sufficiently anti-American and anti-Western, because that is what counts to the Left. Whole generations idolised Lenin, Stalin and the Soviet Union, then Mao, Castro, Che Guevara and Ho Chi Minh. Noam Chomsky supported the Khmer Rouge and Michel Foucault is intoxicated by the Ayatollah Khomeini and the Iranian revolution. Now western pilgrims travel and pay homage to Hugo Chavez. Some even support our enemies openly. Others are strongly offended at any suggestion that they support the enemy; it is just that they simply cannot bring themselves to support our side. It hurts too much.
While these two positions may differ in the degree of moral culpability that they attract, their practical consequences are all but the same. It is 70 years since George Orwell famously said “Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, ‘he that is not with me is against me’.”
It matters not in this context if we speak of the Second World War or the conflict in Afghanistan. No matter what your excuses, no matter what your rationales, no matter how noble and pure your views, no matter whether you call yourself a pacifist or a humanitarian and no matter whether you do not believe in violence or in meddling in other people’s affairs — by calling for the end of military involvement in Afghanistan you are
aiding and abetting one of the more monstrous political and religious movements in entire human history.
Mark Steyn wrote just a few years ago:
“Everyone’s for a free Tibet, but no one’s for freeing Tibet. So Tibet will stay unfree — as unfree now as it was when the very first Free Tibet campaigner slapped the very first ‘FREE TIBET’ sticker onto the back of his car.
If Rumsfeld were to say ‘Free Tibet? … what a swell idea! The Third Infantry Division goes in on Thursday,’ the bumper-sticker crowd would be aghast. They’d have to bend down and peel off the ‘FREE TIBET’ stickers and replace them with ‘WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER’.”
And so it is here.
I say this to all of those pining for the withdrawal from Afghanistan, while cloaking their stance in a lofty humanitarian rhetoric of peace, love and human rights:
you are only for freedom if it does not involve getting off your armchair. You are only against oppression if it does not involve any real sacrifice. You are only for women’s rights — or gay rights, or minority rights, or human rights or democracy — as long as it does not interfere with your political agenda of opposing what you see as America’s political hegemony. Being concerned — or pretending to be concerned — is not a substitute for action. Just as no ‘Free Tibet’ sticker has ever freed one Tibetan, no amount of candle-lit vigils has managed to save one Darfurian life from genocide — not one. And no amount of posturing that you really care about the fate of Afghan women, men and children will do one tiniest bit to ensure that the 28 million people in that country continue to lead better lives and enjoy hope for the future, if at the same time you are trying to force the withdrawal of NATO and allied armed forces.
The day always comes when you have to make a choice: are you for freedom or are you against it? Are you against tyranny and oppression or for it, whether it be out of spite, misguided idealism or merely indifference?
Think carefully about your answer before you say it, and when you do say it, do not say it to me. Have the courage to go and say it to the hidden face of a woman who will be imprisoned at home, to a man who will be slaughtered because he worships the wrong god or belongs to a wrong tribe, or to a child who you are condemning to a life with no future and no hope.
History will judge you, and she is a very harsh judge.
Senator Mason, of course, is right. We are in Afghanistan for the simple reason that it is necessary for us to be in Afghanistan. Leaving there now would be a grave error, and would merely result in us having to go back in after about ten years, and thousands if not millions of innocent deaths.
It’s important to note that, despite popular belief and the bleatings of much of the media, we are winning in Afghanistan. How could we, as a nation, hold our heads high if we were to inconceivably concede defeat by leaving now, and effectively handing Afghanistan back to tyrants and murderers?
Well it’s time to call it a night, and I think Tony Abbott reflected the outcome of the election nicely. It’s quite clear that Tony Abbott is almost certain to be our next Prime Minister, and he recognises that. His speech was almost what you would expect to hear in a victory speech.
It would have been nicer if the margin had been bigger, or if the Liberals had managed to pick up another Canberra seat, be it House of Reps or Senate…but they’ll hold on to Gary Humphries’ seat, and the Greens won’t get a Canberra seat, so in the end I can’t really complain about that one.
Ultimately, we have managed to kick out an incompetent, wasteful government, and this is a great result. How the country will cope under a minority government is yet to be seen, however if the three independents follow their conservative roots, then the country should run quite well.
I’m happy with the result. I was expecting a close result, and as the recent days passed I became more confident of a narrow Coalition victory, so it’s great to see that it happened.
There was also a swing against Labor of about 5% to 6% in Canberra…admittedly much of it went to The Greens, but any reduction in the Labor primary vote in Canberra is a very welcome thing as this helps to make the seat more marginal and more relevant in the national discussion.
My most hearty congratulations to Tony and all of his team, including all of the tireless volunteers across the country who gave up their time to help get the party over the line.
There is still a little bit of a way to go before we will know the full makeup of our new parliament, but at this stage, it looks like the Australian public have made the right choice, and have thumbed their nose at all of those people who claimed that Tony Abbott was “unelectable” because he was “too conservative” or some such nonsense. That was always clearly an attempt at a smear campaign from people who were scared of some decent opposition…all of us who are conservatives can be proud that we have collectively managed to overcome such deranged smears, peddled (if not initiated) by the mainstream media and have managed to win back the hearts and minds of many Australians.
The task ahead now is for a sane and sensible government to return some stability to Australia, and for that government to remind the Australian public of just how much better life is when conservatives are in power. They already know how awful it is with Labor in power…we just have to prove to them on an ongoing basis that we can maintain the stability that they desire.
For now though, a great result, and one which we can cherish for a little while, but come the morning, it’s down to the business of negotiating with the independents.
On that note, I quite happily say to you “Happy Tony Abbott Victory Day”!!
Tony saved the best for last, declaring that he will negotiate with the independents to secure a Coalition government. That has to be the best news of the night.
Tony Abbott rightfully claims that the Coalition should be proud of their result, but notes that it’s too early to declare victory. The room is much more pleased than Tony appears to be…that said, Tony looks like he’s just playing down how pleased he is.
It’s a big task ahead according to Tony…and he made one little reference to the responsibility ahead of him, which tells me that he is confident of being our next Prime Minister, but just doesn’t want to say it yet until he can secure the support.