We all knew it would be a tough night. It has been. There were some really close races, and some defeats that are hard to swallow -- Feingold being the worst one in my book, but it was obviously rough to see Sestak get so close without winning.
Also, there are some victories that we can't celebrate too much. While it's nice to see the senate majority in the right hands, raise your hand if you're excited about the new Democratic senator from West Virginia, Joe Manchin. I'm not.
Again, I come back to the fact that those of us who pay attention to polls, we knew that what we're currently witnessing is probably somewhat better than expected. Certainly, this is not even close to the worst case scenario. Keep in mind that this is after the biggest financial collapse since the great depression, and before most people have seen any real signs of recovery. From a macro-economic point of view, it doesn't make much sense to blame that on the Obama administration (the crash happened before he was elected, and his economic policies -- while controversial on both sides -- have likely prevented a deeper depression). However, most voters don't view it that way.
When people don't like the direction of the country -- and they usually measure that in terms of their own financial status -- then they vote to punish the people in charge. There's not much nuance in terms of who caused the problems (which, of course, is a long and complicated list). So without looking at candidates on either side in an election, in an economic climate like this, it's absolutely shocking that the Democrats are still going to control the senate. Add to that all the crazy campaign spending on the right.
So how bad could it have been? Imagine if the GOP "elite" (you know, the ones who are not real Americans) would've been able to pick their candidates. Reid would likely have gone down in Nevada. As crazy as chicken lady sounded on the issues, she could actually put together coherent sentences, which is way ahead of Sharron Angle. Delaware was a double-digit rout for Coons over O'Donnell (who is not a witch), but it could easily have been a cruise to victory for the GOP if Mike Castle had won the primary. The tea baggers have just handed us two senate seats that the GOP "should have" won in this political climate. Alaska is another article in its own right (plus the fact that the results are not yet in at the time of this writing).
So on a very bad night, I'm feeling rather optimistic about the political future. Sure, this is a setback in terms of getting good legislation passed. Gay rights will not be advanced much in the next couple of years. Energy reform or regulation will be extremely difficult. But this is a temporary setback. The tea baggers have shown that their extreme candidates are not viable in general elections, and that they don't care about that. They're willing to take the GOP so far to the right that the general population wants nothing to do with that party.
The pendulum has swung to the right, which any student of history should've guessed would happen after 2008. I'm not going to say that it has reached its end point on the right quite yet before swinging back, but it's very encouraging to see the mid point of it steadily moving left.
And on that note, I strongly support Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann in their bids to run the GOP. I can't think of a better way of marginalizing that party for a long time to come.