It has been a bad night, in some way very much expected but a lot worse than I had hoped. . . I’ll write more later after I’ve collected my thoughts.

I do find this statement from Mike Pence encouraging. Pence is chairman of the House’s conservatives caucus:

We Did Not Just Lose Our Majority, We Lost Our Way
by Rep. Mike Pence

Election Day 2006 will be remembered as a turning point in American political history. Twenty-five years after the Reagan Administration came to Washington with a conservative agenda of limited government, the American people chose a different course.

It is the duty of the losing party in a free election to humbly accept defeat and to acknowledge that the people are sovereign in the People’s House.

As we examine the results of this election, it is imperative that we listen to the American people and learn the right lessons.

Some will argue that we lost our majority because of scandals at home and challenges abroad. I say, we did not just lose our majority, we lost our way.

While the scandals of the 109th Congress harmed our cause, the greatest scandal in Washington, D.C. is runaway federal spending.

After 1994, we were a majority committed to balanced federal budgets, entitlement reform and advancing the principles of limited government. In recent years, our majority voted to expand the federal government’s role in education, entitlements and pursued spending policies that created record deficits and national debt.

This was not in the Contract with America and Republican voters said, “enough is enough.”

Our opponents will say that the American people rejected our Republican vision. I say the American people didn’t quit on the Contract with America, we did. And in so doing, we severed the bonds of trust between our party and millions of our most ardent supporters.

As the 110th Congress convenes next year, Republicans must cordially accept defeat and dedicate ourselves to advancing our cause as the loyal opposition knowing that the only way to retake our natural, governing majority, is to renew our commitment to limited government, national defense, traditional values and reform.

I’ll track the results coming in for the NY-24 race below:

Update(10:38): Foxnews calls it for Arcuri. My vote hasn’t been counted yet, but oh well.

9:48PM — 13% precincts reporting
Arcuri 9,262 56%
Meier 7,211 43%
Sylvia 113 1%

CNN has the fastest coverage here.

This is still to early to say anything, but of course it would be nice to be ahead. Tompkins county hasn’t been counted yet.

In the middle of his busy campaign schedule Ray Meier has made time to once again come on Eric Kuhn’s radio show. There were some recording troubles, so it’s shorter than the last one. Head on over and check it out.

If you want a real good and in depth look at how Meier thinks and what kind of congressman he would be you should really listen to the earlier (and longer interview) here.

Ray Meier is out with a new ad this evening:

From the majority ruling in Lewis vs. Harris:

Only rights that are deeply rooted in the traditions, history, and conscience of the people are deemed to be fundamental. Although we cannot find that a fundamental right to same-sex marriage exists in this State, the unequal dispensation of rights and benefits to committed same-sex partners can no longer be tolerated under our State Constitution. With this State’s legislative and judicial commitment to eradicating sexual orientation discrimination as our backdrop, we now hold that denying rights and benefits to committed same-sex couples that are statutorily given to their heterosexual counterparts violates the equal protection guarantee of Article I, Paragraph 1. To comply with this constitutional mandate, the Legislature must either amend the marriage statutes to include same-sex couples or create a parallel statutory structure, which will provide for, on equal terms, the rights and benefits enjoyed and burdens and obligations borne by married couples. We will not presume that a separate statutory scheme, which uses a title other than marriage, contravenes equal protection principles, so long as the rights and benefits of civil marriage are made equally available to same-sex couples. The name to be given to the statutory scheme that provides full rights and benefits to same-sex couples, whether marriage or some other term, is a matter left to the democratic process.

The NRCC has hit the 24th district with another flier, accusing Arcuri of incompetence at his job as a district attorney. In an ominously colored ad Arcur is accused of wrongfully convicting a bunch of people, and letting a rapist go free.(Click for the larger picture)

Ben Smith over at The Daily Politics says that the Republican’s accusations may be working:

. . . an operative for an independent group active in the district tells me that the campaign seems to be working with the voters the group is contacting:

“More and more people are citing this specific commercial in why they’re not voting at all, or have possibly changed their minds in voting for Meier, but more common is the first.”

(Courtesy of Biggus Dickus @ CNY Underground)

It looks like the NY-24 district is a high priority of the NRCC. They’ve spent $1.40 million since September 1.

The book sale in Ithaca is one of the three largest ones in the nation. It’s held two times a year, with about 300,000 titles for sale this fall and and 100,000 last spring. Collectors and ebay sellers come in hordes to rummage through shelves and shelves of books in the warehouse by the railroad tracks downtown.

It’s a paradise for book lovers, and so it was quite a treat for some friends to pick me up and take me over there late yesterday morning. Even if I’m not interested in buying anything (which I was) I find it exciting to see thousands and thousands of books and to smell the damp page leaves of a Dickens or Chaucer.

The book sale runs for about a month, with the prices decreasing every week, and the books being continually restocked. This weekend most books were $3, and trade paperbacks $1.50. However, over the next couple weeks the price will go down till 25 cents. . . and then comes the highlight of the book sale. On the final day, all books go at a dollar a grocery bag.

Most Cornell students seem to miss it, even though only a short walk away and on the bus line or.

Wasn’t it Erasmus who said, “When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes”? If that describes you, you may be less hungry after visiting the Ithaca Book sale.

Chris over at The Fix, has been recalling the best political ads of this and previous election cycles. I would add to his list George Allen’s recent ad attacking Webb’s views on women.

For the 2002 cycle, an important ad was the one that eventually toppled Max Cleland for not doing enough to protect homeland security.

And of course we can’t forget the Swiftboat ads, which punctured a hole in Kerry’s chances.

Joe Carter over at Evangelical Outpost is no Republican hack, but he’s nevertheless optimistic about the Republicans chances to hold onto the Senate and the House.

Why? Because of the Democrats unqualified support of abortion. I hope he’s right.

Check here to read the whole thing.

Human Events got wind of some rather questionable expenses Arcuri incurred during his eight years as the District Attorney for Oneida County, including it seems a phone call to a strip club in Nevada while at an expensive conference with three staffers.

Human Events writes:

Arcuri, running in New York’s 24th District against Republican Ray Meier, has spent the past 12 years as Oneida County’s district attorney. During that period, his annual expense reimbursements have skyrocketed. From 1998 to 2005, they increased nearly 7,000%.

I have a couple questions for Human Events. What source is this that gave them this material? How are they sure that the records are genuine? Has this source been reliable in the past?

I have to study for an exam tomorrow, so for now I’ll just link to what other bloggers that have written about these recent developments.

The Daily Politics
Wizbang: New York Democrat Billed Taxpayers For Phone Sex Call
The Right Angle
BuffaloPundit: Poo not getting any shallower

Unfortunately this fits into the picture we’ve been slowly been able to piece together from what we know of Michael Arcuri. You can see this from some of our earlier posts, Is Arcuri talking out of both sides of his mouth? and Mike’s job plan or Philip Klinkner’s job plan?

This is interesting. . . .now congressional staff salaries are available for anyone to look up at the click of the mouse.

HT: Not Larry Sabato

Chuck Colson’s Break Point from Prison Fellowship has started a new blog that sounds very exciting from it’s description and the posts already up: According to Colson, the bloggers The Point:

represent many different ages, denominations, backgrounds, and walks of life. But they’re all committed to the vision that all of life come under the Lordship of Christ.

That means that whether they are discussing the president’s speech to the UN or the new Macy’s commercial, they’re thinking about how to apply Christian truth in every situation and how to speak those truths in a winsome manner that draws both believers and nonbelievers back for more.

Lately they’ve had several posts on the fear of being fooled.

Check it out!

Just a quick note. Since Coyote hasn’t blogged recently, I’ve decided (with his kind permission) to take his name. So I’m now Coyote II, or just Coyote.

P.S. Oops, I made the change to the backend too quickly, which made this post confusing. I’m originally blogged as the Gerbil (or the Grey Gerbil), but now have taken the name Coyote II.

Many members of the conservative blogosphere have followed the debacle at the Washington Post’s new conservative blog, Red America; and yesterday’s resignation amid charges of plagarism. Ben has an apology at Red State today.

I want to apologize to National Review Online, my friends and colleagues here at RedState, and to any others that have been affected over the past few days. I also want to apologize to my previous editors and writers whose work I used inappropriately and without attribution. There is no excuse for this - nor is there an excuse for any obfuscation in my earlier statement.

I hope that nothing I’ve done as a teenager or in my professional life will reflect badly on the movement and principles I believe in.

I’m deeply grateful for the love and encouragment of all those around me. And although I may not deserve such support, it makes it that much more humbling at a time like this. I’m a young man, and I hope that in time that I can earn a measure of the respect that you have given me.

Regards,

Ben

There’s a fun bunch of tests over at Harvard, called Project Implicit trying to discover hidden bias, or what they call in our politically correct world, automatic preference. This project has been around for a while, but I finally at the request of a friend I took a couple. You can either do the demonstration tests where you can find out your automatic preferences between Judaism and other religions, between Arab Muslims and other people, or between George W. Bush and a random president. You can also register and do test they give you at random — where they’ll test you on anything from political attitudes to your preference between meat and vegetables.

All the tests I’ve done involve some sort of sorting that has to be done quickly. For example they’ll have you sort meat and vegetables. Then you have to sort adjectives into good and bad and then adjectives and food into the categories meat and good or vegetables and bad. Finally they’ll switch the categories around so you’ll to sort the food into meat and bad or vegetables and good.

After they’ve switched the categories, you’re thoroughly confused. But you also have given the algorithm and the psychologists behind the algorithm the crucial information needed to determine your automatic preferences.

Curious? Try it out. Each test only takes ten minutes or so.

Ben Domenech, co-founder of Redstate, has started a new blog — Red America, hosted by the Washington Post.

In his second post, Ben gives a clear trumpet call to the media and to Republican leaders who have forgotten conservative Americans:

The reason there are political openings for these neo-triangulation strategies [of the smart Democrats], however, is almost entirely the fault of Republican leadership. On issue after issue, Republicans have given in to the wisdom of the MSM and the beltway talking heads instead of listening to their constituents and the conservative political base. On the size of government, on immigration and on issues of federal power, Republicans have adopted the same Washington strategies that doomed the Democrats in the 1994 cycle, as this article yesterday illustrates. They’ve grown fat and happy on pork contracts, and forgotten why they were sent to this town in the first place.

Even President Bush is guilty of this - would a White House that put principle before patronization, listened to its base, and remained focused on election season ever make the gargantuan mistake of nominating Harriet Miers? Of course not . . .

Already there is a storm of protest from the liberals.

Hat tip: Suitably Flip and Michelle Malkin.

At Redstate.com,� Blanton points to a gloating remark from Arlen Specter in CongressDailyAM:

“The Republican Party is now principally moderate, if not liberal!” exulted Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), after the Senate — including a majority of Republicans — approved his budget-busting amendment to spend an extra $7 billion on domestic programs.

An unpleasant thought–is he, for once, right?

Americans for a Better Justice started airing ads today calling for the withdrawal of Harriet Miers.

Not a day goes by without a prominent conservative or well known group coming out against Harriet Miers. Today, Concerned Women of America, the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization, is calling for Harriet Miers withdrawal. As their press release states:

We believe that far better qualified candidates were overlooked and that Miss Miers’ record fails to answer our questions about her qualifications and constitutional philosophy,” said Jan LaRue, CWA’s chief counsel. “In fact, we find several aspects troubling, particularly her views on abortion and a woman’s ’self-determination,’ quotas, feminism and the role of judges as social activists. We do not believe that our concerns will be satisfied during her hearing.”

Hopefully Feddie is right and this nightmare will soon end.

By now you have probably all heard Democratic senator Durbin’s infamous comments comparing American servicemen and women to Nazis. David Gelerneter has a great article in the LA Times in response. In it he argues eloquently that we have lost our ability to think and reason when we have only learned an ideologically correct version of history. His last couple paragraphs certainly bear repeating:

You can read the whole thing here.

A well designed new conservative blog has sprouted in the liberal soil of New York city and it certainly bears checking out. Suitably Flip has already posted several good insights — including some intriguing comments on the recent flag burning:

Ah, what did the FDNY write back? Is it hard to guess?

Focus on the Family’s Citizen Link (a daily e-zine on pro-family issues) has an interesting story a recent boycott of Ford:

Bench Memos is reporting that Bush is planning to send a bunch more candidates to the lower courts.

A funny story from Write Wing Blog I hadn’t heard before:

Jim Geraghty from TKS makes an observation along the lines of what I’ve been thinking myself.