Between nerves and a nasty cold (my 3-year-old just started preschool and he brings home a new bug every day), I haven't slept much the past week. Or last night. And as you guys have noticed, my mistakes have gotten worse and worse. I need to recharge, and will take the rest of this afternoon off. I'll be back in full force tomorrow, and I've got a TON to write about. I just need to be more coherent about what I write.
But one last thought about this race.
We won, and won big. Not only did we take the Senate, take the House, and destroyed Republicans at the state legislative level, but we didn't lose a single senate seat, we didn't lose any House seats, we didn't lose any governorships, we didn't lose any state legislatures. It was a rout of epic proportions.
And yet I'm still sad.
Over the last year, I became emotionally vested in so many great candidates -- Lamont, Fawcett, Kleeb, Grant, and so many others -- that I've taken their losses fairly hard. These were all long-shot races, and they all moved mountains to make their races competitive in tough districts, so I didn't expect any different results. And we won so many of those so-called hopeless races that I should be in cloud nine.
Perhaps it's because I'm so emotionally worn out, but I'm dwelling on those who couldn't pull off the big shocker upset victories.
And while I should be celebrating our victories, instead I'm obsessing over how we can put these guys over the hump in 2008. We made those Red districts a little less Red. How do we continue to move them in our direction?
How do we build a movement that can support so many of these great people without worrying about whether the establishment will step in? How do we get more regular people in the House and Senate? How can we better hold incumbents accountable for their lack of performance?
We made great strides, but I'm not satisfied. If I'm looking for the perfect results, perhaps I shouldn't be in politics. But we have far to go. And I won't be satisfied until our best candidates have a serious, fighting chance, in every district around the country.
Perhaps I'll be in a better mood once I get some sleep. But for now, I never would've imagined I'd be a little depressed despite the massive victory we just helped deliver.