Election Night 2014: Not Sure How Long I'll Blog Tonight

It’s my tradition to blog on election as we follow the races. I may not follow them as far into the night as I usually do for a few reasons. The first is that I’m generally disappointed with how the candidates are running the election.

The Republicans are running this as a referendum on a President with two years left on his political life. The Democrats are running like President Obama doesn’t exist. I’m proud of my votes for him, I think he’s done an excellent job given what he faced in January of 2009, and I’m angry that my party is trying to pretend he’s not there.

The other reason is a more simple one: I don’t think there is as much at stake tonight. Nobody believes the leadership of the House of Representatives will change, the Presidency will certainly not change, and while the majority may shift in the Senate we likely won’t know tonight. There are close Senate races in North Carolina and Louisiana but they likely won’t be decided now. Both races have more than 2 candidates and require 50% plus one to win. In other words it’s a fair bet that both races will require runoffs.

7:00PM Pacific Time, 10:00PM Eastern Time, 3:00 AM Greenwich Mean Time: The polls don’t close for another hour here in California so I have nothing to report. I’m disappointed but not surprised to see that Mitch McConnell survived a strong challenge. He had to fight for the Republican nomination from Matt Bevin, a member of the Tea Party. He won the nomination and I had hoped he would be so wounded that the Democrats would unite against him. Alas, Mitch won, and if the Republicans win the Senate he will be the majority leader.

I’m also disappointed by the 7th Congressional district of Virginia. In a stunning upset in June, Dave Brat defeated Eric Cantor. Dave is an economics professor at Randolf Macon College, and this placed him against the Democratic nominee, Jack Trammell, who ironically enough, is also a faculty member at Randolf Macon. Jack was supposed to be the guy Eric Cantor would destroy in the election. When Brat won, I hoped the Democrats would unite and defeat Brat, but it didn’t happen. The 7th Virginia Congressional district is still pretty Republican and I’m guessing that moderate Republicans who liked Eric held their noses and voted for Brat.

On the other hand I’m pleased with New Hampshire. Senator Jean Shaheen was challenged by Scott Brown. Scott was born in Maine, but moved to Massachusetts as an infant. In 2010 he won a special election to fill the seat vacated by Ted Kennedy who died of cancer. Scott expected that this would lead to him holding that seat for a long time, but he lost to Elizabeth Warren in the general election in 2012.

Scott then moved to New Hampshire and challenged Jean. Tonight’s projections show that he will lose to Jean. I find this good news because it shows Scott as an opportunist. He doesn’t care who he represents, he just wants to be a Senator. This makes the charge that he is a carpetbagger who will go anywhere and say anything to gain power.

8:00 PM Pacific Team, 11:00 PM Eastern Time, 4:00 AM Greenwich Mean Time: The polls have closed in California but almost nothing is certain where I live. My congressional race pits the incumbent Scott Peters (Democrat) against Carl Demaio (Republican) and almost certainly won’t be settled tonight. In fairness, two years ago Scott’s victory wasn’t announced until 3 days after the election. It may happen again. While my district is trending Democrat, it may be a few more years to turn it blue.

We voted on several ballot measures, but the measure that I cared the most about was Propsition 46. As most of you know I’m married to a doctor. If you’ve been harmed by a doctor on a medical procedure you can sue the doctor. If it’s found that it was malpractice you can sue on a few grounds. If the doctor’s malpractice prevents you from ever working again you can sue the doctor for the wages you would have earned for the rest of your career and there is no ceiling on what you can sue for. If the doctor’s malpractice causes you to need medical care for the rest of your life you can sue for the care you need for the rest of your life.

So what is left? Well if you sue somebody you can claim the money you need to care for the injured person and to replace his (or her) wages but you can also sue for “pain and suffering.”

“Pain and suffering” is the money you get for saying that the plaintiff was irresponsible. It’s meant as a scare tactic against large companies who feel that settling lawsuits is a good financial decision. Right now in California there is a cap of $250,000; that is, no matter what happens a plaintiff can’t collect more than $250,000 for pain and suffering. Proposition 46 would raise that immediately to $1,100,000 and index yearly increases to inflation. To be fair the $250,000 cap has not moved since 1975. But Prop 46 would have had a catastrophic effect on malpractice insurance and the ability of doctors to practice medicine in the state. There may be room for an intelligent discussion on pain and suffering caps, but this was nothing more than a money grab for lawyers.

OK, I’m getting sufficiently depressed that I need to stop blogging and get a night’s sleep.

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