The whole media flop and twist spasms about a grand Dem takeover reveals quite a bit, actually. As does the increasingly shrill war between the Dem establishment and Howard Dean's 50-State strategy. The way I parse this (analysis is my hobby) is:
1. The Dem establishment got together with the 'Pug establishment to divvy up some seats, so it would look like Dems came really close to taking the House, but not quite. The Senate was never on the table.
*This explains the "Heckuva job Rummy" charade, when Bush had actually already contracted Gates to take over upon the release of the Baker Group study. He was going to Stay the Course through the election, then say Dem gains in the House indicated people wanted a new direction, at which point Rummy's out and Gates was in. It was supposed to look like "statemanship," but all it really did was swing a lot more votes from angry citizens.
[Follow me below the fold for items 2 through 6...]
2. Dem establishment concentrated its contributions only to those races where they had either agreed to win or agreed to lose, ignoring Dean's 50-state strategy because poor Howard was intentionally kept as far away from the backroom dealmaking as possible.
*BTW, I think Kerry's "contribution" was part of this strategy - he was supposed to have cost some seats. No intelligent politician or political speech writer would have written or delivered that "joke" as written unless it was designed to be so ambiguous and insulting. We should consider Kerry done from now on, and laugh if he decides to run again. He should also face a serious Netroots challenge in his next primary. Let's Lamont him.
3. The Netroots (that's us and others) embraced the 50-state strategy, enlisted good candidates, volunteered for and financed them all the way down the line. While the establishment wasn't looking, and while they never once considered we had a chance. Thus they (and their 'Pug co-conspirators) never figured on the fact that the voters - that would be We the People - might vote as if voting has meaning. They at no time expected or believed Dems would take House and Senate.
4. Electronic voting machines were programmed to shift somewhere around 1% of the votes (or not count them) for Dems. More than that ~2% wiggle room would be way too obvious, but in actually 50-50 districts/states that would be enough. This has been part of the programming from the beginning. What happened is that voters so overwhelmingly voted Dem that it beat the machines at their own game - our margins were actually 1-2% higher than tallies showed.
*In Sarasota the shennanigans were too obvious. This will take electronic voting out for good, which SHOULD have been done after Diebold threw North Carolina's state races into such utter turmoil in 2004. They got decertified in NC, but the rest of the country just wasn't paying attention.
5. No one in the establishment (Dem, Rep and their wholly owned media) expected the people to take back the country. So their flailing is genuine - they simply have no idea what to think, say or do. It's all off-script at this point, and they are in BIG trouble. The people have spoken, loudly enough to defeat the fix that has long been in, and they all know it's a lot bigger than the tallies suggest.
6. Now all we have to do is keep the pressure on that establishment and on their wholly owned media to play OUR game (and Dean's). They lost. Tough titty.
We the People won this one. By a "landslide." This feels really, really good!