They stole the White House in 2000 so this would be child's play for them

Control of the senate could hinge on what happens with Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD), who suffered bleeding on his brain yesterday and had to be rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery.

It's not yet clear if he can recover enough to return to the Senate. If he's not able to, the state's governor, who is a Republican, gets to appoint his replacement. He would likely appoint a Republican, or even himself to the position.

As the Democrats were about to take control of the Senate by just two seats (51-49) after the November elections, the split would then be 50-50, and Vice President Dick Cheney would get to break any tie vote, and the GOP would get majority control again (committee chairmanships, investigative powers, etc.)

This is pretty outrageous. The people of South Dakota wanted a Democrat in that seat. And the nation spoke pretty clearly in November that it wanted the GOP out of power and Democrats running things to have some checks and balances on Boy George. Now, because of this tragedy, the Republicans could end up circumventing it all.

A decent political party would put the will of the people above partisan gain. But, then again, we're talking about the GOP, so decency isn't really much of a factor.