Both Fired Up! Missouri and AMERICAblog are citing GOP sources as saying Rumsfeld will resign.  This seems more than appropriate.  Americans have overwhelmingly cited the Iraq war as a reason for voting against incumbent Republicans.  Both President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld can be held directly responsible for Republicans losses.

Jon Tester has been declared the winner in Montana, which brings the Senate to a 50-50 split between Democrats and Republicans.  It all rests on Virginia where Jim Webb has a small lead over incumbent George Allen.  If he prevails the Dems will have done what no one expected them to ever be able to do again (thanks in no small part to Republican efforts to re-district them out of office):  they will take control of both houses of Congress.  Granted, if they win in Virginia, and right now it seems to be holding, it will be by one vote, but a majority is a majority.  The real problem here is the fractious nature of the Democratic Party; unlike Republicans, Dems in the Senate don’t always vote as a cohesive group.  Time will tell how this works.

So, here it is nearly three in the morning and I wake out of a dead sleep to find that Claire McCaskill has been elected Senator of Missouri!  I was wrong:  she did hit the 50% mark!  Oh, and there’s more!  The stem cell initiative has won  with 51% of he vote AND if Dems maintain their leads in Montana and Virginia they will have the majority in BOTH houses of Congress!  Who knew something this great could possibly happen!  Somebody should  check on John McCain since he threatened suicide if the Dems won back the Senate.

THIS IS A GREAT DAY FOR MISSOURI!

I guess if Republicans are looking for a silver lining in this not so great election season they can look to one of their pet projects:  gay marriage.  In nearly every state with a ban on same-sex marriage, some of them also banning civil unions, the anti-same-sex marriage crowd is winning by solid margins.

According to Missouri’s election website, Claire McCaskill has pulled into a slight lead over Jim Talent, 48.7% to 48% and 15,000 votes separating them.  The Stem Cell research initiative is also making a comeback.  Right now, as of 12:15 CST, the yes votes are 10,000 ahead of the no votes.  With remaining votes most likely coming from KC and St. Louis, Amendment 2 may just pass, if by a small margin.

If McCaskill can pull off a win, it would be nice to see it be by 50%, but with the other parties pulling in 3
% of the vote that probably won’t happen.  Oh, well, a win is a win.  Talent himself didn’t win by a 50% margin when he defeated Jean Carnahan four years ago.