Yeah yeah, the papers are all talking about the deadly Republican Wave, the chilling rebuke to Obama and the Democratic agenda and progressivism and civil society as we know it. Oh no, the Republicans took the House, by huge margins! AAAAAH! But you know what, we DESTROYED expectations in the Senate. Why is this important? Join me under the fold.
Okay, so it looks like the Republicans are now sitting on something like a 50 vote House majority. Am I the only one here who thinks the size of this margin doesn't matter ONE IOTA? Look, the GOP is like the Borg. Where our beloved Democratic party is a healthy mix of real progressives, wishy washy milquetoasters and flat out corporate swine, that latter category is ALL THE GOP'S GOT. Remember how many Repubs dissented from the party line during the health care debate? I do: ZERO. So let 'em go crazy with their death-defying majority. Write all the laws you want, boys, and then send 'em to the Senate.
The Senate which, by the say, is not only staying Democratic but healthily so. So healthily that, were the survivors to develop some spine (a guy can dream, can't he?) they'd tell suddenly irrelevant Lieberman to go jump in a lake.
And think of who lost? The wicked witch of the Delmarva Peninsula took it on the chin by 17 POINTS. Sharron Angle, recipient of 50% of the Gross Domestic Product of Teabaggia, GONE. And by such a wide margin that it even happened before my east coast ass went to bed last night.
And there are others. Boxer? Beyond safe. Sorry Carly, you won't get a chance to do to the country what you did to Hewlett Packard. Blumenthal? Landslide! That one was called so early my two year old was still awake to see it. Sorry Linda, hope that $50 million you spent didn't leave too bad a mark. Bennett? Looks like you're hanging in there! Nice. Good to know that your opponent's strategic tactic of comparing gays with alcoholics and publicly denigrating rape victims didn't pay off.
These victories mean something. Whereas the GOP House gains are all subject to change in two short years, when presumably someone other than pissed off old white guys will be voting and a new crop of energized college students enter the mix, the Senate gains last until 2016. I'll be in my forties then. Yikes! But I digress.
As an added bonus, think of all the disillusionment going on in certain sectors of Teabagistan. When Bill Halter lost to the now-doomed Blanche Lincoln (good riddance!) I was pissed off, not least because I donated fifty hard earned bucks to the challenger's campaign. Extrapolate THAT over all these Senate races and you can see that some well-heeled teabaggers finally have GOOD REASON to be angry.
So yes, the night was a disappointment. The 'baggers came out in full force. But we kept the Senate, and we kept it by a comfortable margin. Now it's time to learn the right lessons from the night and fight to see another day. BRING IT!