entirely safe and fun

It looks like the scandal of incumbency, while still going strong, did take a stiff punch to the gut with today’s elections. To pick out three Senatorial elections that made me especially happy:

The people of Pennsylvania are double winners today, turning Beltway embarrassment Rick Santorum out onto the cold streets of the Capitol District in favor of the un-re-electable Bob Casey Jr. The second win for Mr Casey’s new constituents will come in six years, when they get another freshman. Kudos to the residents of the Keystone State! I can’t bring myself to congratulate Casey, as literally any warm body could have defeated Santorum this year. I do not think it a great exaggeration to say that even if the Pennsylvania Democratic party had exhumed the worm-gnawed corpse of the late, great (and wealthy beyond corruption) John Heinz and run it around the state, Weekend at Bernie’s-style, Santorum could not have beaten it.

The Senate is just like high school in many ways. For instance, frequently absent former Senator Mike DeWine, the Republican from Ohio, has incurred expulsion for his repeated offenses. Congratulations to the newly-promoted Congressman Sherrod Brown, apparently so diligent in DC that he hasn’t had time to get his website re-designed since about 1994.

My favorite story so far: Missourians have done themselves proud by booting Jim Talent after just four years! Most electorates are content to wait six or more, but the people of the Show Me State exhibited real industry in electing Democrat Claire McCaskill. McCaskill succeeds to a seat that Missourians wanted, just four short years ago, to see occupied by Zombie Mel Carnahan. Well played, Ms McCaskill!

The American people would gladly have paid to see Senatorial proceedings involving Zombie Mel Carnahan and the corpse of the late, great John Heinz, by the way. Could be one way to fund Social Security for a few more years, just sayin’.

As for me, well, I’ve blogged before about my feeling of disenfranchisement at not having a viable alternative candidate to the strongly statist senior Senator Dianne Feinstein. As expected, she’ll be heading back to Washington — looking a little better in my eyes for not being her opponent, the alternately risible and terrifying Dick Mountjoy — along with the… mostly unobjectionable… Anna Eshoo, Silicon Valley’s Congresswoman. My only objection to Eshoo, besides antics like enlarging the power of the executive, is her decade and a half of incumbency. For a variety of reasons, I think that objection is fatal, but things could be worse. She could be entrenched and objectionable, right?

Update 8 Nov 2006: Freshman Mania is spreading! It’s not just for elected politicians anymore - Donald Rumsfeld is being turned out too. Way to serve your country, Mr Rumsfeld! I can finally salute you.