The last time Massachusetts elected a Republican to the Senate was in 1966, the Thermidorian Reaction against LBJ’s Great Society.  Forty-four years ago, that man was Edward Brooke, the first popularly elected African American Senator.  He was a liberal Republican, the first in the party to urge Nixon to resign, and he had sex with [...]

I don’t really think much matters from the elections today.  (I voted, in San Francisco, and at a little after twelve noon I was only the 14th person to cast a ballot at the polling station, which admittedly isn’t in a very residential area, but the collectively trilingual poll workers were actually napping).  Certainly very [...]

So Al Franken’s going to be seated.  Norm Coleman only managed to deprive Minnesota of a second senator for 1/12 of a senator’s term.  Of course, did anybody think to ask Harry Reid?  I mean, he just might decide to seat Coleman anyway.  Did anybody check to make sure that Harry Reid’s glands weren’t releasing [...]

I remember back in the bad old days of, oh, 2005, when the Democrats held 45 Senate seats and were reduced to waiting for hurricanes to accomplish what they themselves could not: convince America that Bush and his party were incompetent and dangerous for the country.
So beleaguered and pathetic were the Democratic senators that the [...]

Or so it would seem.  On the issue of Arlen Specter’s defection, he said
I would rather have 30 Republicans in the Senate who really believe in principles of limited government, free markets, free people, than to have 60 that don’t have a set of beliefs.
Assuming he believes that from that rump party of 30 a [...]

OK, so Arlen Specter has gone from the best-or-second-best Republican to being the worst-or-second-worst Democrat.  Since his switch was motivated by cold calculation re his dim 2010 prospects for re-election, and had absolutely nothing to do with his positions, it’s at best a mixed bag.
As a sidenote, it means that there are no longer any [...]

We might not be controlled by a Zionist conspiracy or Lord Zenu, but we sure aren’t governed by our peers. My initial guess as to how many current senators are descended from politicians or married to them was ten.  How hilariously wrong I was!
Here they are, annotated and color-coded by party for their nepotism [...]

The states that have had female senators, color-coded by party (NC being the only state to have elected women from both):

The states that have had female governors, again color-coded by party, although NC is turquoise for some curious reason known only to Wikipedia:

However, a lot of these women have been appointed, usually when their elected [...]

I’m going to come in my pants, Nate Silver!
It’s the congressional districts of the US, colored by which party holds them (duh; obv).  If you read the post, he even has a cute little bit about how he tried to make it pretty and accurate and shit.
Secondly, the 2010 Census reapportionment that once looked bleak [...]