I agree with Stilly too. It's "strange bedfellows" time, and they don't come much stranger than Clinton nd Gore! But if the Republican stranglehold on the US is to be weakened, the parties in opposition to the Republican agenda are going to have to band together, at least for the time being.

Hey, Kendall, we here in Pennsylvania just got a Democratic governor, too! Ed Rendell, the first governor from Philadelphia in some 90 years! I'm not at all surprised, though: (a) Pennsylvania tends to ping-pong back and forth between the two parties for their governors every 8 years or so; (b) Mark Schweiker, Tom Ridge's second-in-command and replacement when Bush named him Homeland Security Chief, did not choose to run for the office this time (if Schweiker had, I think he would have been a shoo-in after his appearances at the PA mine disaster last summer); (c) Bob Casey Jr. lost the Republican nomination to Mike Fisher, who was simply not as electable as Casey, the son of a very popular former governor (now deceased), would have been. For all of Rendell's faults, I think he'll do great things for PA, and he's not the sort to take any guff from Bush. I rather wish that Rendell would run for President in '04 (but I'd hate to lose him as PA's governor)!

Another blow to the Republicans came in southeastern Pennsylvania, where they had done a very underhanded bit of redistricting to combine a section of Philadelphia with part of suburban Montgomery County to create a district which they'd hoped would weaken the Democratic vote in the area. No such luck! Joe Hoeffel still won the election for the 13th PA Congressional District over Republican Melissa Brown. Ha!