I was only 15 years old in 1994, when the so-called Republican Revolution swept Republicans into firm control of the House of Representatives, but even as a teenager too young to vote, I felt I had a pretty good idea of what was going on. While my Republican father was hailing the end of Clinton and all other things liberal, and I sat secretly wondering if I wasn't perchance the milkman's baby, Newt Gingrich was on television hailing the end of an era of corruption and arrogance in government. Within the next 2 years, he had in fact laid the groundwork for the MOST corrupt and arrogant era in government in decades.

It took 30 years in the House for the Democratic Party to become stale and corrupt - it took the Republicans arguably far fewer than the 12 years they held power to do the same. This week, Americans overwhelmingly rejected the modern conservative movement, but we would be remiss if we didn't also recognize that what Americans rejected on Tuesday, above all else, was corrupt, unaccountable, out-of-touch leadership.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is what the permanent Republican majority looks like.

Resounding defeat in the House, and the nearly impossible task of taking the Senate looking ever more possible by the minute.

Tonight, we need to celebrate the House.

Over at MyDD, Lucas O'Connor has put together an excellent run-down of the progress being made on Chris Bower's Google Bomb campaign thus far. Please go over and take a look at his diary, and give him some love while you're at it - that was a lot of work.

As you can see, we're making progress, but we still have a long way to go on a number of races. After you take a look at that diary, please, if you haven't already done so, add one of the Google Bomb links from his diary to your DailyKos signature line, and please use the full name of candidate in the hyperlink.

On the recommended diary list and throughout every comment thread on DailyKos, and all over the liberal blogoshpere today, the toll taken by this nation's giant steps down the road to tyranny is palpable to all of us. I'll be the last person in the world to tell people that any of their wide range of feelings - from anguish, to shock, to raging angst and vitriol - is in any way misplaced. Fact is, our Congress as a whole acted like a bunch of pathetic Banana Republicans who quiver under the thumb of a heavy-handed authoritarian leader, and that's pitiful at best, despicable at worst. I understand why so many people are down today, I really do.

But the thing is, no matter how much I think about what happened yesterday, I just can't bring myself to feel any sort of despair. This nation has faced many dark hours in its past. Some, we have collectively faced with great bravery and determination to uphold the very best that America can be. In far too many others, we have succumbed to the very worst of our human nature. Yesterday was one of those days, but it certainly wasn't the first in the last 2 centuries.

This morning, as I read the New York Times article about the Democratic Northeast Strategy to once and for all rid us of those pesky pseudo-moderate Northeast Republicans, it struck me that when it comes to strategy, I've only been hearing one of the two potentially stinging talking points used with any frequency by our Democratic challengers.

Or, "How to Defame the Name of a Great Patriot in 30 Years or Less."

If you're anything like me, you've found yourself a slave to CBS Sports television for the last week or so. As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing quite as magical in the entire American sports world as NCAA March Madness. College basketball is alive with a level of team-based competition in a way professional basketball never can be - where the real payoff of a championship victory is best served at the pinnacle of teamwork, as opposed to the standard self-serving quest for the ever-increasing salary payouts that accompany star status; an issue which plagues all but the luckiest NBA teams (and a political party or two, come to think of it).

Operation Migration is in serious need of our help. I'll give quick background first, but please continue to read below: most of you are probably familiar with Operation Migration, whether or not you know them by name. They're an excellent organization, founded in 1994, to tackle the challenge of imprinting migration behavior into captive-raised birds by leading them in ultralite aircraft, with the hopes of one day reestablishing the critically endangered Whooping Crane to its historical eastern migration route. Starting with captive raised Canada Geese, the organization embarked on a process that was made famous in numerous NPR stories and the Academy-Award nominated documentary film Fly Away Home.

(more below)

[also e-mailed to the campaign]

Dear Chuck,

It never ceases to amaze me how these things just keep getting earlier and earlier, but since this 2006 race is already getting fired up, I wanted to write to you in the hopes of getting a sense of where you see yourself taking this run against Santorum.

Just a quick background - I was born in New Castle, and lived a number of years in Johnstown. I came back to attend Allegheny College in Meadville after four years in Ohio, and I very much consider PA my home, and one which I hope to return as soon as I can. I care more about PA than any other state, and more about this race than any other that will happen in 2006.

When I was a student at Allegheny, I had the privilege of being actively involved in the political scene, and was part of countless debates and question sessions in relation to Phil English's and Rick Santorum's 2000 re-election bids. I've met Rick Santorum, as well as the people he's beaten, and perhaps surprisingly, I can honestly see why moderate Pennsylvanians re-elect him every time - even as extremist as he is.

There've been a number of good diaries recently dealing with the future prospects for Democratic wins in the South - especially this one - which have motivated me to write this diary.

Over the past couple days, I've been doing some research into recent voting patterns in eastern Kentucky and there are some interesting trends worth noting, and there's some ostensible good and bad news for the party. Here's a map I put together of how the region voted in the last two Presidential elections:  

First, it should be noted that the big red cluster of counties in the bottom left is a long-time Republican stronghold, so I haven't looked much at them.

Here's an article from the AP covering the Pew Research Centers findings on the real role of "moral values" in voting choice. Turns out, when open source polling was done, and people had to come up with their own answer, very few people said "values."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041112/ap_on_el_pr/voters_moral_values

As if we needed another reason to be skeptical of polls - this would indicate to me that we need to worry much more about building a strong, concise national message with vision and optimism for what Democrats stand for than pandering to the center-right.

This is a great editorial written by New Republic senior editor Jonathan Chait - looking at how the social conservative movement got duped in this election. I think it's well worth the read, and I can guarantee you this'll find its way onto my Bush-voting parent's coffee table at Thanksgiving.

Editorial and poll below the fold.

Got this story from my buddy John:

Dick Cheney delivered a speech at Westminster College yesterday (the site of Winston Churchill's famous 'iron curtain' speech), and embarrassed himself by sandbagging the University President who accepted Cheney's request to speak at the college.

Here's a portion of an email that University President Fletcher M. Lamkin sent to faculty, students and staff this afternoon:

"I would like to thank each and every one of you who were so courteous and respectful to Mr. Cheney during his visit and speech. Frankly, I must admit that I was surprised that Mr. Cheney chose to step off the high ground and resort to Kerry-bashing for a large portion of his speech to a group comprised mainly of college students. The content and tone of his speech was not provided to us prior to the event -- we had only been told the speech would be about foreign policy, including issues in Iraq. I was very disappointed that Mr. Cheney instead used the majority of his speech to engage in ad hominem attacks. Nevertheless, I was extremely proud of the students, staff, and faculty who represented the College so well during the organization of the visit and during the speech itself -- inside and outside of the gym."

Surprising behavior coming from a man of such an honorable past...

Everyone who was annoyed (at the very least) by the non-critical, pro-Bush stance taken by Bob Woodward in his last book, should be pleased to see that early speculation about his new book being much tougher, and in fact potentially detrimental to the Bush administration, was likely correct. From the AP

WASHINGTON - President Bush secretly ordered a war plan drawn up against Iraq  less than two months after U.S. forces attacked Afghanistan and was so worried the decision would cause a furor he did not tell everyone on his national security team, says a new book on his Iraq policy.

Bush feared that if news got out about the Iraq plan as U.S. forces were fighting another conflict, people would think he was too eager for war, journalist Bob Woodward writes in "Plan of Attack," a behind-the-scenes account of the 16 months leading to the Iraq invasion.

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the book, which will be available in book stores next week.

"I knew what would happen if people thought we were developing a potential war plan for Iraq," Bush is quoted as telling Woodward. "It was such a high-stakes moment and ... it would look like that I was anxious to go to war. And I'm not anxious to go to war."

I, for one, think it's about time Woodward made up for his past transgressions.

The full story is available at: http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ_WOODWARD_BOOK?SITE=APWEB&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLA TE=DEFAULT