And so this is fun, watching the Democrats blow a once in a lifetime opportunity to do something vaguely centre-leftish. Of course, since they're not technically a centre-left party, but an agglomeration of almost everyone in America who is not definably crazy, it means you have a party whose ideological range leans from mild social democracy to reactionary social conservatism. It's not exactly the optimum centre-left vehicle. And despite calls for sanity, that only seemed to get everyone excited because it was vaguely ironic, which worries the hell out of me.
Estimates that the Republicans are going to get about 50-60 seats, and about 8 or so seats in the Senate seem about right so far, although it had been argued that there was an extremely wide variance in possible outcomes. It seems like the mushy middle was the best place to go, although there are bright spots in the dark firmament. Not many, though.
More to come, as more votes come in.
Updates under the fold. An elitist fold, hiding the true hatred all left-wingers have for America from salt-of-the-earth billionaires!
UPDATE: In terms of that whole "bright spots" thing, I'm pretty much only talking about Sestak in Pennsylvania. That is pretty cool, so far, although it could easily go south. Giannoulias looks like a lost cause when rural Illinois starts coming in en masse.
UPDATE 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: What is horrifically nailbiting is KY-06; that could still go either way, though Chandler looks more likely to pull it off. Not much of a consolation when you consider their new Senator, Rand Paul, who never met a copy of Atlas Shrugged he didn't hump obscenely.
UPDATE 3: THE UPDATENING: Oklahoma has finally freed itself from the terrifying grasp of international and Sharia law! No longer will women be treated like second-class citizens in the Sooner State by the perfidious Muslims! All less than 1% of them! Now we can go forward and create a sex-positive, culturally progressive Oklahoma!
...what?
UPDATE 4: NOW WITH 25% LESS SELF-REFERENTIAL UPDATES: The Cheese Stands Alone. Fuck you, Wisconsin.
UPDATE 5: COOL HAND UPDATE: Woah what wait say what? Rob Miller is currently up against Joe "You Lie!" Wilson 50-47? I'm not getting my hopes up but that would be delicious. (UPDATE 5B: CALM DOWN, CLASS: As soon as I posted, Fate smote down my futile hopes and Miller's now leading 49-48. Sake.)
UPDATE 6: THE SPOILER EFFECT: In Colorado, crazy-ass nativist and scourge of brown people Tom Tancredo looks as if he won't make it over John Hickenlooper to become the Governor of that particular state. Tancredo ran as a candidate of one of those far-right parties that even the Republicans won't touch, but alas Tancredo had more legs than the actual Republican candidate, Dan Maes.
An amusing side effect of all this is that if Dan Maes gets under 10% of the vote in this election (a likely possibility), the Republicans will be classed as a "minor party" in Colorado for the next political cycle, with all the difficulties that that suggests in a legal environment that has been effectively gerrymandered by the two main parties to make third-party challenges even more of a thankless slog.
Ballot placement and access laws are a bitch, eh?
UPDATE 7: WES CRAVEN'S NEW UPDATE: I don't think Sestak's going to make it, poor bastard. That gap between him and Toomey is getting narrower and narrower all the time. I could be wrong. I hope I'm wrong.
That craven little shits like Toomey, Johnston and Paul are going to be (probably) in the Senate fills me with fucking dread. And they're treated like the goddamn ordinary Joes!
Newsflash, guys: they don't give a shit what you do. If you're not making millions of dollars, you're an inconsequential parasite to them, as opposed to a heroic wealth producer, who deserves as much help as possible because as we all know, venture capitalists are delicate little flowers who wilt at the merest thought of making a contribution to society and can't make any money at all if we tax any proportion of their income! God forbid!
Meanwhile the roads crumble, the trains rust, and government agents are out looking for fictional Welfare Queens. Jive turkeys voting for Christmas, that's what this is.
Question to anyone daft enough to be reading this: caffeine or booze? caffeine would be more likely to keep me awake, but booze is more likely to stop me killing myself.
UPDATE 8: PAUL THE PSYCHIC OCTOUPDATE: Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit. PA and IL are going south pretty quickly. Colorado might go the same way.
I chose caffeine, incidentally. I'm living on the edge. To the max.
UPDATE 9: SOMETHING ABOUT CLOUDS: Aw, man, I'd forgotten about Washington. That's looking pretty rough right now, although it's the more conservative eastern part of the state that seems to be reporting more at this time. Maybe it'll improve. Colorado still closing. Crap.
Where's the Super Sekrit Democrat plan to steal elections when you really need it, I ask you?
UPDATE 10: DOUBLE DIGIT UPDATE SHOWDOWN: Ben Chandler seems to have survived the overall curb-stomping that the Democrats are getting in Kentucky by 600 votes or so, although that's an eminently recountable number. (However, the Republicans would have to pay for it.) Similar general bad news for Democrats in PA and OH, which are pretty brutal.
I'm really looking for positives wherever possible, now.
UPDATE 11: TWO ONES ARE THE LONELIEST UPDATE: Well, it's looking pretty bad. More or less what was to be expected, but alas that glimmer of hope in IL and PA made things way, way too stomach-churningly painful.
So, I'm running a book. When do you think the first stupid, bullshit investigation into Obama will be, and what do you think it will be about?
Winner gets to see Obama's actual birth certificate, which I recently found in the insulation in my attic. Also there was the Michelle Obama "Whitey" tape and the gun the Clintons used to kill Vince Foster.
It's a treasure trove, I tell ya.
UPDATE 12: A SOBERING THOUGHT: According to kos, 22 Blue Dogs have bitten the Bullet. However, so far 45 Democratic seats have been lost in the House. This means a majority of the Democrats who have lost seats so far were not Blue Dogs.
Now, of course, that does not mean that all the non-Blue Dogs were necessarily progressive. But I think it's a mistake to see this election as somehow clearing out the chaff that is the more egregiously slimy Blue Dogs; good Democrats are being lost with just as much frequency. And who's to say when the Democrats regain the majority, there won't be new Blue Dogs?
It's going to take more than a bad election to minimise the Blue Dog element from the Democratic Party; it needs a hell of a lot of work.
UPDATE 13: TRISKAUPDATEPHOBIA
OH HELL NO WASHINGTON IF YOU LET THE LEFT COAST DOWN I WILL BE ON YOU TARTAN SHIRT WEARING COFFEE BREWING MISERYMONGERS LIKE FUCKING SCABIES
ahem
Your host apologises for any offense he may have caused inhabitants of Seattle. Nirvana weren't bad, even if the Pixies were better.
(Crossposted at Cynicism From Concentrate, with extra linky goodness)