Political Significance
The success of Democrats in Virginia, notably Kaine's election as Governor, provided a success story for national Democrats to begin 2006, which was to be a year of a Congressional midterm election. The success of Kaine and Warner in rebuilding the Democratic Party in the Republican-leaning state was rewarded with Kaine's response to President Bush, which highlighted the competence of Virginia's Democratic administration with the perceived incompetence of the Bush Administration in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The political success and strength of Virginia Democrats would be heightened the following January, when newly-elected Virginia Senator Jim Webb would be chosen to deliver the Democratic response to the 2007 State of the Union address. In continuing the tradition of a Democrat from a red state delivering the Democratic response, Kansas Governor Kathleen Selibius gave the response to the 2008 State of the Union address. Webb's election over incumbent Senator George Allen in the 2006 Virginia Senate election tipped control of the United States Senate to the Democratic Party for the first time in four years and, with the election of a Democratic majority in the US House of Representatives, resulted in the first Democratic-controlled Congress in twelve years.
Read more about this topic: Democratic Response To 2006 State Of The Union Address
Famous quotes containing the words political and/or significance:
“The man possessed of a dollar, feels himself to be not merely one hundred cents richer, but also one hundred cents better, than the man who is penniless; so on through all the gradations of earthly possessions—the estimate of our own moral and political importance swelling always in a ratio exactly proportionate to the growth of our purse.”
—Frances Wright (1795–1852)
“I am not afraid that I shall exaggerate the value and significance of life, but that I shall not be up to the occasion which it is.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)