I don't think it's entirely accurate to characterize state restrictions on use of eminent domain as a rebuke of Kelo. Kelo never stood for the proposition that states couldn't limit themselves on the use of eminent domain. Rather, it stood for the proposition that the federal Constitution did not, itself, impose such a limitation on the states.

Rather, I think the state restrictions are better seen as a rebuke to eminent domain policy in the respective states.

Probably I'm nitpicking.

One can point to several factors as to why the evangelical vote was down and slightly more blue this year

For reasons that the vote was slightly more blue, I'd add that the Democratic candidates were more conservative this year. For instance, in Pennsylvania our new Democratic junior senator (Bob Casey, Jr.) is arguably more conservative than our Republican senior senator (Arlen Specter).

To piggy back off of Eric, Indiana's 8th CD is now represented by a Democrat who is more conservative than 90% of Democrats in Washington, and also more conservative than a sizable number of Repubs.

I'm beginning to see a theme emerging here at ITA: "running to the left still isn't the way for Dems to win."

Tell that to Jon Tester, Claire McCaskill and Sherrod Brown. And to those voters who defended abortion rights in South Dakota, endorsed stem cell research in Missouri, and rejected a same-sex marriage ban in Arizona.

Democrats can win certain individual states and Congressional districts by running to the left, but running to the left won't win a majority of those seats.

If running to the left could win a majority of house seats, it could also win a majority of electoral votes. In the past 25 years, every Dem presidential candidate who ran as a liberal lost.

I'm hearing conflicting things about the evangelical vote -- see, e.g., this very good little post by Kevin Drum:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_11/010211.php
-- but juxtapose this post with the 'libertarian spoiler' one earlier, and we can see why there's no easy rules for either party about "running to the left" or "running to the right". Which _kind_ of left? Which _kind_ of right? Everyone sorta tends to forget the fundamentally coalitional nature of modern American major political parties. If the GOP tacks off in a direction that would make more libertarians happy, it is likely to drive down turnout by the religious right; and, what we perhaps saw in this past election, vice-versa. You generally have to find the candidate that fits the best part of your coalition that you can make appealing to the particular district or state they're in. In some places, this meant the Democrats won by finding candidates who are conservative _on some issues_, where the entire community in question is conservative on those issues, but is otherwise a pretty paradigm contemporary Democrat; Tester and Webb are both good examples of this. I'd estimate that the closest to a general rule for the Democrats here has been, for this cycle: have everyone run against the war; have everyone support at least somewhat more economically liberal policies than we currently have (it's going to be trivially easy to pass a minimum wage increase in the new Congress, for example); but have each candidate fit the particular cultural background of their area. In the west or south, this meant somewhat more conservative candidates. But then you look at Sheldon Whitehouse, or the people who won in New Hampshire, and there's no way you can call that "running to the right". (And it's going to be a very long time before the GOP has a chance at those latter seats again -- the northeast has gone deep blue for the forseeable future.)

If one were just to listen to Republican campaign ads in Oklahoma, you'd be a bit mixed up about ideology. While the campaigns are going on, all the Democrats are "to the left of Ted Kennedy." Then, when those Democrats get elected, Republicans claim it is only because they are conservative. Going from liberal to conservative in one day! Now that's a quick turnaround.

Casey arguably more conservative than Specter? Possibly, but consider that Specter's ACU average rating for 2004 2005 was 69, his 2005 ADA rating was 45, and his 2003 NCEC rating was 15. With Casey favoring increased minimum wage, civil unions and gay adoption, supporting the morning after pill, opposing school vouchers, favoring affirmative action, opposing privatization of social security, etc., it would seem that he is liberal in quite a few ways. I doubt, however, that he will ever have an average ACU score as high as 69 or ADA and NCEC scores as low as 45 and 15 respectively. I do grant the arguability of it Caey being as conservative as Specter, though, because different people and organizations rate the priority of various issues differntly in either assessing or rating people on the conservative-liberal scale. If issues other than what the ADA, ACU or NCEC pick matter to someone, they could assign the person a different place on the politcal spectrum than I would choose.

A lot of stories are written about the "more moderate Evan Bayh", but his 2005 ADA score was 95, his 2003 NCEC score was 80 and his lifetime ACU score is 21. By my own thinking, Bayh would be a "moderate" Democrat if his ADA score was 65 -80, his ACU score 25-35 and his NCEC score 55-70.

As an example of the difficulty of using voting records to decide how conservative or liberal someone is, consider this:

If both Eric Seymour and Josh Claybourn were serving in the U.S. House at the same time, Josh would likely have higher ADA ratings and lower ACU ratings than Eric, even though their life outlook, values and religious beliefs are similarly conservative (by my estimation). The difference? The "L" factor. Josh seems to have more of a libertarian streak than Eric. I haven't yet digested enough of other ITA writers' posts to make a similar comparison for them.

Rep. Ron Paul of Texas is known to be extremely conservative on a wide variety of issues, particularly economic ones. But he has achieved ADA ratings as high as 60 because his libertarian ideology is very pronounced. With respect to most Republicans, a 60 ADA rating would place them in either the moderate or liberal Republican wing. Such can't be done with Paul, however.

It's hard to see how "Private property rights were a big winner." in Indiana where Governor "One failed initiative after another" is now pushing for yet another 1940s-era beltway around Indianapolis.

That retrograde beltway, timed almost perfectly to come online with a nation facing petrocollapse, would take thousands upon thousands of acres of private property for the concession rights of foreign corporations.

Again, how does that translate to "private property rights were a big winner?"

I thought New London was allow about stopping the transfer of private property to strip mall corporations.

greg

Private liquid assets certainly weren't a winner. We should expect the next Congress to attempt lots of eminent domain on our wallets.