It's A Wrap: Webb Cements Democratic Majority In Senate

We here at the Curmudgeon are looking forward to blogging on something besides politics--especially the Virginia Senate race--in coming days.

For now, however, we're still riding high on Jim Webb's victory--once thought improbable--that put the Dems over the top in the Senate.

The Curmudgeon endorsed Webb early on, during the Democratic primary race, arguing that Webb was just the right candidate to take on George Allen. With quite a bit of help from Allen himself, it turned out we were right.

Working on Webb's Northern Virginia finance committee, we were energized by all the deeply committed volunteers we kept running into, as well as the extraordinarily positive response we got from friends and neighbors as we promoted Jim's campaign and solicited funds to make sure his message could be heard.

About three weeks before the election, we became convinced that Jim had sufficient momentum to carry him across the finish line in first--polls showed real movement and Allen's camp appeared increasingly desperate. It became clear that real enthusiasm existed out there as Webb's campaign rallies grew in energy and spontaneity.

Still, the last few days were agonizing. We're convinced that John Kerry's stupid remarks on the Iraq war stalled the momentum Webb had built up, as well as that of other campaigns. We felt Webb had peaked--the question was whether the peak was high enough.

As the returns came in election night, we moped around at a friend's election party while the rest of the Democrats in the room celebrated victory after victory. As we left the party around 11:00 pm, we felt like we had fallen just short of winning--with nearly 90% of the precincts reporting, Allen was still up by thousands of votes.

Yet, after getting home and carefully studying the Virginia Board of Elections website, we became convinced that some large batches of Webb votes were still outstanding (especially absentee ballots from Fairfax, Arlington and Richmond). Sure enough, the gap closed rapidly and by about midnight Webb had a small lead.

Readers of the Curmudgeon will know that we predicted Webb's lead would widen a bit as the final precincts reported, and that's exactly what happened. We also predicted that Webb's lead would hold up as Virginia began it's canvass of the votes and finalized the vote tally--again, we were correct. Indeed, Webb's lead of 7000 votes as of Wednesday morning gradually climbed to 9000 by late yesterday.

We thank George Allen for conceding when he did. It was the right thing to do, and allows Allen to go out on a high note. We've said some not so nice things about Senator Allen here, but in the end he went out in a Virginia tradition of honor and civility, and we appreciate that.

Yesterday, we took the kids to see Jim Webb's press conference/rally at Arlington's Courthouse Plaza. We stood not 20 feet away from Jim, along with his wife Hong Le, Tim Kaine and Chuck Schumer, surrounded by a happy, festive crowd of supporters--some of the large army of enthusiastic volunteers who won this race.

The kids were restless as we waited for everything to get started, but once it got going, they sensed the historical moment (which, of course, is why we dragged them over to the rally in the first place). Too often in recent years we've been on the opposite side, trying not to be too depressed as our candidate delivered a concession speech. So it was a fantastic feeling to stand there, in triumph, knowing that in such a close race, our work was critical, and realizing just how important the victory was.

To those readers who also helped out: THANKS!

We may have some other post-mortem thoughts, but for now we're going to take a bit of a break and then return to some non-political postings (before we take on the '08 Presidential campaign).