Word: voting
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...both sides is dubious. Many Dems' insistence that the maneuver would help them gain political cover in the 2010 election season doesn't make much sense; it's not as if Republicans won't hammer House Democrats over health reform anyway, even if the Dems didn't technically vote for the more controversial bill. For their part, Republicans have previously used the simple-majority reconciliation process many times to pass legislation, even as they vilify Senate Democrats for trying to use the same procedure to make changes to the health bill they passed late last year with a filibuster-proof...
...Republicans are also hammering Democrats for making deals in exchange for the votes of individual members. This criticism too is hard to sell on Election Day. Democrats kicked up a similar ruckus during the 2005 passage of the Medicare Prescription Drug Program, when majority leader Tom DeLay threatened to derail the congressional candidacy of one member's son and threatened to withhold funds for then Representative Jim DeMint's Senate race if he didn't vote for the bill. On final passage of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) later that year, to gain Representative Robin Hayes' vote...
...Allawi currently leads Maliki by about 9,000 votes. While either candidate could yet pull out in front, the result has not only denied any one bloc the ability to form a government on its own, but may also have failed to give any of the contenders a clear mandate to take the lead in post-election coalition negotiations. Meanwhile, the slow vote counting is doing little to inspire confidence, with each announcement of partial results sparking another round of posturing, jockeying, and rumors, one of which held that Maliki had been shot in the leg. All the major coalitions...
...that without clear winners and losers, the elections could produce months of bitter infighting, heightening the sectarian and ethnic tensions behind the civil war that broke out after the 2005 election. And 10 days after the polls closed, with partial results tricking in and about 80% of the vote counted, Iraq appears destined for more trouble...
...results currently are so close - with current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki neck-and-neck with former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, and the movement of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr emerging with what may be a kingmaker's share of the vote - that Iraq could see months of deadlock that will do little to boost the country's faith in its politicians. Moreover, the election results have broken down along depressingly familiar sectarian and the ethnic fault lines - although with the authority of the traditional ethnic and sectarian parties weakening in a manner that will further complicate efforts...