So the lost the house, ironically largely because of the actions of the Senate and a former Senator (Obama). Lots of good things made it through the House only to die in the Senate with an assist from the complete apathy of the White House.
If the Dems retake the House in 2012, and Obama is reelected, the lesson here is that taking the initiative without movement from the White House and the Senate, you will get gigged again, and again.
It looks like Murkowski won in Alaska, as “Write Ins” got a plurality, only they haven’t started counting the write-ins yet. That only happens after a full tally, and if the total number of write ins are enough to win under Alaska law.
As to the bad news:
- Alan Grayson lost his bid for reelection. It’s a pity, we need Democrats with guts.
- Rand Paul will be battling Tom Coburn for craziest muthaf%$#er in the Senate.
- Heath Shuler won. Normally, I wouldn’t root for the other guy, even if they are the rankest of Blue Dogs, which Shuler is, but as a Washington Redskins fan, I have a bit of residual hostility about his expensive washout in the NFL.
- It appears that Republicans are will not be relegated a minor party status in Colorado for the next 4 years, because Dan Maes barely cleared the 10% hurdle.
The good news:
- The Blue Dogs and New Dems appeared to take the brunt of the losses.
- This is more than simple churlishness on my part. While the economy is clearly the proximate cause of this debacle, the perception that both parties are in the thrall of the banks, a perception which is entirely true for the Blue Dogs/New Dems who worked tirelessly to castrate financial reform and foreclosure relief. It is appropriate that those Democrats who sold the party, and the country, down the road for fat-cat campaign donations bear the brunt of voter wrath.
- Harry Reid defeats Sharron Angle. Now that he’s won, could we please elect someone else as Democratic leader? He is hapless and hopeless, and he is the luckiest person tonite for having to run against nut-job Angle, or perhaps 2nd luckiest after Chris Coons, who ran against Christine O’Donnell.
- The Senate margin is large enough that Joe Lieberman won’t be able viably threaten the Democrats with crossing the aisle.
A random thought on the loss of Alexi Giannoulias: Choosing someone as the nominee, even though they spent years running a bank that was then on the edge of failure, (It has since failed) just because they are basketball buddies with Barack Obama, is a really stupid thing.
As a final note, that whole idea of using Google searches to estimate final votes? It does not appear to be validated by the results.
For a quick view of the races, I would suggest going to the Talking Points Memo Election Center.
I still have not gotten results on the Tapeworm Initiative.