Rep. Richard “Dick” Pombo is gone, at long last

... is a Rep. no more.

We bring you a special Grist tribute to the man who dreamt at night of shoving oil drills down the throats of endangered species.

[Tune to "The Way We Were" rises in background ...]

Ah, Dick. Remember when you tried to sell off drilling rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to fund transportation pork? That was insane funny. You always did have a sense of humor.

Who could forget your Ahabian quest to gut the Endangered Species Act? You were like the bad guy from a cheap horror movie, springing to life again and again. Points for persistence!

Wins

CNN has called it: McCaskill wins in a squeaker. Meanwhile, Tester's still barely ahead with 72% reporting. Also meanwhile, Jim Webb has declared victory in Missouri, seizing the momentum a la Bush 2000. Bold.

McNerney up on Pombo

In CA 11, with 34% of precincts reporting, McNerney is up on Pombo by about 2,000 votes, 51% to 49%. Be still my heart.

It’s tight!

So, it looks like Ford has lost to Corker in Tenn. That means there are three contested Senate seats left -- Virginia, Montana, and Missouri -- and Dems will have to win them all to take control of the Senate. Tester has an eight point lead in Montana, with about half precincts reporting. McCaskill has a narrow one-point lead over Talent in Missouri, with 81% of precincts reporting. Assuming those two squeak it out, it's all going to come down to Virginia, which looks destined to go to a recount -- right now Webb has an insanely narrow lead over Allen, around 1,500 votes.

It's going to be quite a nail-biter.

Update [2006-11-7 23:14:46 by David Roberts]: Via WM: The last contested statewide vote and recount in Virginia wasn't resolved until Christmas. Oy.

Republicans win Senate race

Republican John Ensign handily beat Democrat (and Jimmy's son) John Carter in the Nevada Senate race.

Arnie wins

OK, not shocking at all. Schwarzenegger wins.

Some expected and key wins for Dems and enviros

Four governors' races with notable environmental angles have gone to the greener-leaning Dems, as expected.  

New York: Eliot Spitzer (D) pummeled John Faso (R)
Pennsylvania: Ed Rendell (D) trounced Lynn Swann (R)
Ohio: Ted Strickland (D) whipped Ken Blackwell (R)
Massachusetts: Deval Patrick (D) beat Kerry Healey (R)

Background on enviro angles here and here. Race results here.

Enviros turn eco ear to House races

There are few key House races we here at Gristmill will be keeping an eye on tonight, races where the environment has been a big issue in the run up to today's elections. We're looking for feedback from you on others where environmental issues will be a factor in tonight's results.

College field program shows there’s more to citizenship than going to the polls.

Take a break from freaking out about the election and listen to this NPR audio clip about Whitman College's Semester in the West program. It's a biennial, semester-long environmental studies field course, with a heavy emphasis on public lands issues. If you have any passion about environmental issues, traveling, and/or camping, I guarantee this will make you want to go back to school.

(Grist featured Phil Brick, the professor in the story, as an InterActivist back in October 2005.)

I myself am an alumni of the program, and I'd say the audio clip is quite well done. It provides a good snapshot of what life is like during the semester and the kind of intellectual challenges students confront. As the narrator explains, students are "put face to face with people on all sides of complex issues. Students ask their own questions, and draw their own conclusions."