Election '06 Post-Mortem

What a fantastic night! I went into the evening with expectations of modest Democratic gains and ended up riding a tidal wave that trickled down throughout the ballot to legislative and constitutional office races. Most astounding was the number of upsets (PA-04, KS-02), the number of endangered Republican moderates who survived the challenge (Chris Shays, Jim Gerlach, and probably Heather Wilson), and the razor-thin margins of dozens of races. It seems like most of the one and two-point races broke to the Republicans, saving the party from a loss of 45-50 seats in the House. There's a tremendous amount of information to evaluate here, so I'll go through some of the battleground races state by state and offer some color commentary that may or may not prove useful (considering how bad my predictions proved to be this year, I understand if you take them with a grain of salt).....

Arizona--Nothing could have prepared me for the sound defeat Democrat Harry Mitchell handed incumbent GOP firebrand J.D. Hayworth in AZ-05. I must confess I haven't followed the race very closely, mostly because I couldn't imagine a scenario where Mitchell was gonna win there. Attractive centrist Democrat Gabrielle Giffords' defeat of arch-conservative talk show host Randy Graf was less surprising in the open AZ-08 seat, but I was even skeptical we were gonna get that one back in August. My hopes for Arizona trending the Democrats' way were inflated in 2000 and 2002, suffered a temporary setback in 2004, but are once again on the uptick.

Arkansas--The solid double-digit victory of Democratic Attorney General Mike Beebe over former GOP Congressman Asa Hutchinson in the open gubernatorial race renewed my hopes for Arkansas bucking the regional trend and remaining a Democratic state despite its social conservatism. With a candidate like John Edwards or Wesley Clark on the ticket, I can Arkansas going blue in the 2008 Presidential election.

California--Sorry about Phil, Sara. It was no surprise that Arnold Schwarzenegger was gonna win big against lackluster challenger Phil Angelides in the nation's most populous state. I fear there will plenty of left-leaning Arnold voters who will be horrified to discover that the Arnold of 2007 will sound alot more than like the Arnold of 2005 than the Arnold of 2006. On the plus side, Democrat Jerry McNerney took out corrupt GOP incumbent Richard Pombo in a Republican-leaning central California district. Considering that the Dems all but conceded this race when McNerney beat their man Steve Filson in the primary, this victory was particularly surprising. Always nice to see Abramoff protege John Doolittle was rewarded with re-election near Lake Tahoe though.

Colorado--The rapid political transformation of formerly red-state Colorado continued last evening with a blistering 15-point victory for Democrat Bill Ritter in the open gubernatorial race in Colorado. The Dems also picked up the Dem-leaning 7th district in the U.S. House with another strong victory by candidate Ed Perlmutter. After the Ted Haggard scandal broke here, I had hopes that evangelical disillusionment in Haggard's backyard would influence the two competitive House races. As expected, however, strong Republican prominence helped Marilyn Musgrave eke out another term and helped polarizing newbie Doug Lamborn win in a landslide in the crimson red Colorado Springs district despite murmurs that the race could be competitive.

Connecticut--Here's a state that has surprised me all year long and continued to last night. First comes this awkward anti-war millionaire from out of nowhere and manages to defeat the Democratic Party's former Vice-Presidential candidate in the Democratic primary. Lieberman pressed onward and virtually everybody left him for dead, but Lamont's spectacular and largely self-imposed flameout gave Lieberman the ability to stage a comeback that culminated last night with a 10-point victory, made possible almost exclusively by Republican voters. I don't trust this guy any further than I can throw him and alarms went off in my head when I heard the announcement of Rumsfeld's resignation today, fearing the Bush would install Lieberman in the post and thus allow a Republican to be appointed to fill his seat in Congress. That didn't happen, but I get the feeling the Democrats will be screwed by Joe-mentum again in the very near future. Just as astounding were the results of the three battleground House races in Connecticut, which went exactly the opposite of what many expected as recently as two weeks ago. Long-time Republican incumbent Nancy Johnson was not considered particularly vulnerable in the affluent CT-05 until a couple of late polls showed Democratic challenger Chris Murphy running ahead. Murphy ended up trouncing Johnson and providing the Democrats their only sure victory in a state that was expected to be a GOP killing field. As it stands now, Democrat Joe Courtney appears to have beaten Republican incumbent Rob Simmons in the deep blue CT-02 in the eastern part of the state by the slimmest of margins. A recount is taking place as we speak and the margin so slim (less than 200 votes) that it could conceivably swing back to Simmons. Then there's moderate Republican Chris Shays, one of three top candidates for Republican Survivor of the Year. He was considered DOA months ago with his affluent, anti-war district seemingly poised to turn him out in favor of Democrat Diane Farrell, who shocked the world when she came within two points of beating the long-time incumbent Shays in 2004. Farrell only managed to trim the margin by one point this year, failing to unseat Shays, who will actually prove useful as an increasingly rare voice of moderation in a hard-right GOP House caucus. It's kind of nice that we managed to take back the House without purging all of the Republican moderates.

Florida--The gubernatorial race and Senate mismatch played out just as everyone projected, but three competitive House races were anything but predictable. All the polls indicated that Democrat Christine Jennings was poised to take over the GOP-leaning 13th district in the Sarasota area, vacated by Katherine Harris, but Jennings fell short by only a couple hundred votes. This would have been another great district to pick up on our way back to being a "coalition party", but it wasn't meant to be. Mark Foley's old seat seemed a shoo-in for Democrat Tim Mahoney to pick up a month ago, but the Republicans put forth a great deal of effort to sell voters in the Republican-leaning district on Joe Negron, the replacement candidate for Foley. It almost worked, but Mahoney eked out a one-point victory in the end. I also lacked faith in the ability of Democrat Ron Klein to unseat Republican Clay Shaw down in the West Palm Beach area, but Klein pulled off the upseat. Nice to go against the tide in Florida and actually pick up a couple of seats rather than constantly losing elections there.

Georgia--The only two competitive races in Georgia were seats held by Democrats forced into more Republican territory after a court-ordered mid-decade gerrymander.....and boy were they competitive. Democrat Jim Marshall in central Georgia is in the uglier district of the two, which is 70% white and 60% Republican, and faced a tough opponent in former Congressman Mac Collins. It took well into today before a winner was declared but Marshall pulled it off. It's abundantly clear that Marshall, as conservative as he is, will struggle like hell to keep this seat every two years, and is probably living on borrowed time. A much different scenario played out in eastern Georgia's 12th district, which continues to lean Democrat even after the gerrymander, but where one-term incumbent John Barrow lost his political base in the college town of Athens in the gerrymander and faced a more charismatic opponent in former Congressman Max Burns. As of last week, I considered Barrow the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent in the country, and the numbers seem to be bearing that out as this race remains undeclared. Barrow has a small lead of less than 1,000 votes, but with a handful of precincts not reporting yet. Considering that one of the precincts is in the GOP stronghold of Effingham County, there's some reason for concern that Barrow could be unseated. Assuming Barrow holds on, it seems likely that, unlike Marshall, he'd continue to prevail in future elections where he faces softer opposition. Barrow's district is 42% black, 52% Democratic, and voter turnout is likely to be higher in the black community in Presidential election years (there were no competitive races in Georgia this year, suppressing statewide turnout). The irony of these two districts is that Marshall was probably saved by low turnout in Georgia this year, while Barrow was hurt by it.

Idaho--I was skeptical of polls suggesting that Democrats had a chance of winning both the gubernatorial race and the open House race in ID-01. As predicted, the undecideds defaulted to the GOP, even for wingnut Bill Sali in the House race, who won by a comfortable five points despite the fact that it's nearly impossible to find any colleague, even from his own party, that has anything nice to say about him.

Illinois--Astoundingly, corrupt Democratic incumbent Rod Blagojevich pulled off a 10-point re-election victory against Judy Baar Topinka, who passes for the BEST candidate of her party to run statewide. The House races went as predicted with Chamber of Commerce Democrat Melissa Bean hanging on to win a second term by a modest seven-point margin while Iraq War vet and double amputee Tammy Duckworth narrowly lost in Henry Hyde's old district. For what it's worth, I would have gladly traded a Bean defeat for a Duckworth victory, but I'm hoping Duckworth's foray into Democratic politics has not ended with as much as she brings to the table for the party as an injured war veteran and Asian-American female. Ideally, she will return and emerge as a more polished candidate.

Indiana--One of the states least likely to produce a GOP bloodbath this year did just that, unseating three of their seven Republican Congressmen in the state. Joe Donnelly soundly defeated two-term GOP incumbent Chris Chocola in northern Indiana while heavily Republican-tilted districts in southern Indiana opted for conservative Democrat Brad Ellsworth over controversial and ill-prepared incumbent John Hostettler by more than 20 points, and for former Democratic Congressman Baron Hill over one-term incumbent Mike Sodrel, who narrowly defeated Hill in 2004. Hill's three-point victory ended up being the only close race of the three. Democrat Julia Carson, in urban Indianapolis, had a temporary scare with a poll last month showing her trailing, but she prevailed comfortably once again.

Iowa--My adopted home state came through for Democrats big-time last night, with Democrat Chet Culver defeating Jim Nussle by a solid 10-point margin, and handing Culver Democratic majorities in both Houses of the Legislature. Beyond that, Democrats picked up Nussle's old House seat with Bruce Braley easily beating Republican Mike Whalen in the heavily Democratic eastern Iowa district. And in one of the biggest upsets of the year, southeast Iowa's Jim Leach, one of the most liberal and genuinely decent Republicans in Congress, was defeated by political neophyte Dave Loebsack in a very heavily Democratic district in a very heavily Democratic year. Hats off to Leach for 30 years of quality Congressional service and an admirably independent voting record. Geriatric Democratic incumbent Leonard Boswell held on by a surprisingly soft six-point margin in central Iowa, meaning his noxious hard-right GOP challenger Jeff Lamberti will be well-positioned to pick up the seat if Boswell retires in two years.

Kansas--Another red state that had a blue year, serving up one of the biggest Congressional upsets of the year with Democrat Nancy Boyda scoring a victory against wingnut Republican incumbent Jim Ryun in a strongly Republican district in eastern Kansas. Beyond that, Democratic Governor Kathleen Sebelius was handily re-elected. I haven't heard yet whether right-wing thug Phill Kline was unseated from his Attorney General berth in the state, but polls looked optimistic going in, so I'm confident that Democratic challenger Morrison (first name?) drained that swamp.

Kentucky--Democrats thought they pulled off a recruiting coup when they yanked conservative Democrat Ken Lucas out of retirement to challenge one-term Republican Geoff Davis in this uber-Republican district in northeastern Kentucky. But with the hard-right southern suburbs of Cincinnati consuming a larger and larger share of this district's population compared to the Democratic rural mining towns to its east, this just wasn't meant to be for Lucas who lost by six points. On the good news front, perennial target Anne Northup of Louisville was finally taken out by the Democrats, albeit with one of their less impressive challengers in John Yarmouth. Expect a rematch in 2006.

Louisiana--In bayou country, any candidate who gets less than 50% of the vote on election day faces a runoff a month later. Wildly corrupt New Orleans Democrat William Jefferson pulled off only a third of the vote in a crowded field, and faces a runoff at the end of the month. It would terrific to cut out the cancer in our own caucus without handing a seat to Republicans, and Jefferson is right at the top of the list of Democratic scoundrels. Democratic incumbent Charlie Melancon easily won a second term in southeast Louisiana sugar cane and wetlands country with a 15-point victory margin.

Maryland--Crisis averted. My nightmare scenario of black Republican Michael Steele upsetting Democrat Ben Cardin for this open seat didn't come to fruition, and there was scant evidence that Steele performed significantly better among black voters than any other Republicans. Cardin won by a decisive 10-point margin. The partisan wave helped Democrat Martin O'Malley unseat Republican incumbent Governor Bob Ehrlich despite Ehrlich's relatively high approval ratings. No evidence of waning Democratic strength in indigo blue Maryland just yet.

Massachusetts--Charismatic Democrat Deval Patrick became only the second black Governor in our nation's history last night, soundly trouncing Republican challenger Kerry Healey and being the first Democratic Governor of our nation's most Democratic state since Michael Dukakis.

Michigan--Only two short months ago, photogenic Democratic incumbent Governor Jennifer Granholm was in deep trouble, but you wouldn't have known it last night as she defeated Republican challenger Dick DeVos by double digits. The Republicans did everything they could to convince people that Republican Senate candidate Michael Bouchard was nipping on the heels of Democratic incumbent Debbie Stabenow, but the bluster didn't materialize as Stabenow won by more than 15 points. A U.S. House race in suburban Detroit was surprisingly close, but Republican incumbent Joseph Knollenberg prevailed in the end.

Minnesota--It was almost a complete bloodbath of the Republican party in Minnesota last night, although Democrat gubernatorial candidate Mike Hatch's 11th hour implosion probably cost him the election as he lost to incumbent Republican Tim Pawlenty by about 20,000 votes, or less than one percentage point. After Democratic sweeps in both houses of the state Legislature last night, Pawlenty's lame duck status is nonetheless solidified. Beyond that, the Senate seat stayed in Democratic hands with Amy Klobuchar absolutely crushing Republican challenger Mark Kennedy by a 20-point margin. Southern Minnesota's first Congressional district, my old stomping grounds, saw the upset of six-term Republican incumbent Gil Gutknecht by Democratic challenger Tim Walz, an outstanding candidate who won by a decisive six-point margin in the Democrat-trending district. Radical right-wing nut Michelle Bachmann somehow managed to beat Democratic challenger Patty Wetterling by a solid eight points, giving her free reign to embarrass Minnesota regularly on the national stage. Still, a small sacrifice for the Democratic gains made everywhere else in the state.

Missouri--The marquee Senate race didn't end up being THE closest race in the country last night, but it was a roller coaster ride nonetheless, with the rural vote being counted first and giving Talent an artificial lead in the vote count before McCaskill surging past him with the final 20% of the vote when Kansas City and St. Louis County came in. Kind of ironic that the much-hyped stem cell initiative that was supposed to boost McCaskill's chances actually passed by the same slim majority that McCaskill won by. Not exactly a mandate. The result of this race was one of many that vindicated the exit poll numbers released yesterday afternoon. Nice to know they get it right once in awhile. And even though I don't agree with him politically, I have to salute Republican Jim Talent for running a relatively clean Senate campaign and giving McCaskill a very serious and intelligent challenge.

Montana--Another nail-biter that ended the right way. After two election cycles where we lost nearly every battleground race, it sure is nice to be on the winning side of close races. On the other hand, it's a pretty sad commentary on Montana that the truly despicable and irrefutably corrupt incumbent Republican Conrad Burns got only 3,000 fewer votes than populist Democratic victor Jon Tester.

Nebraska--I had really hoped that cowboy Democrat Scott Kleeb could pull off an upset in the outrageously Republican NE-03, which went 76% Bush in 2004. As I anticipated, however, Kleeb simply cannot win in this district and ended up losing by a convincing 10 points to lackluster Republican Adrian Smith. Democratic Senator Ben Nelson pulled off a much better than expected victory in his race, however.

Nevada--Seems like we always lose the close ones in Nevada. Neither the Senate or gubernatorial races were particularly close, but Democrat Tessa Hafen got within one point of taking down incumbent Republican Jon Porter in the NV-03, a suburban Las Vegas district trending Democratic. Maybe next time.

New Hampshire--The only remaining Republican stronghold of the northeast was toppled last night as both incumbent Republican Congressmen were turned out in New Hampshire. Democrat Paul Hodes has been getting some good buzz for months now, so his upset of Republican Charles Bass in Democrat-leaning NH-02 wasn't a huge surprise, but Democrat Carol Shea-Porter's upset of GOP incumbent Jeb Bradley in the more conservative district, NH-01, was one of the biggest surprises of the evening. Shea-Porter was not considered a strong candidate, but maybe that worked to our advantage as everybody underestimated her and didn't take her challenge seriously.

New Jersey--The polls broke hard for Democratic quasi-incumbent Bob Menendez late in the race, so Menendez's ultimate decisive victory came as no real surprise. Hopefully, the disappointing candidacy of Tom Kean, Jr. will deter Republicans from running him again in 2008, when Democrat Frank Lautenberg is likely to retire (for the second time). In the state's only competitive House race, Democratic challenger Linda Stender fell one point short of upsetting Republican incumbent Mike Ferguson in NJ-07.

New Mexico--Restoring her reputation as the ultimate political survivor, Albuquerque's Republican Congresswoman Heather Wilson appears to have eked out yet another victory against New Mexico Attorney General Patricia Madrid, her toughest challenge yet, despite Madrid leading in the polls for the last month. The tally has not been certified yet, but with just a couple of precincts hanging out there, it seems unlikely that Madrid can overcome Wilson's 1,000+ vote advantage. Again, moderates like Wilson have their place in the GOP caucus, so it's nice to see we got our majority without wiping them out entirely.

New York--Democrats were hopeful that the landslide victories imminent for gubernatorial candidate Elliot Spitzer and Senator Hillary Clinton would help shake out as many as six Republican held seats in upstate New York. How did it work? They got the job half done. Democrat John Hall upset Republican incumbent Sue Kelly in NY-19 (kind of ironic that a 70's rocker is now the Congressman in IBM country); in NY-20, attractive Democratic challenger Kristen Gillibrand handily wiped out Republican incumbent John Sweeney (congratulations to Sean on that one); and the open seat vacated by Sherwood Boehlert in central New York's 24th district went handily to Democrat Mike Arcuri (the idiotic phone sex ad had to have helped Arcuri there). The other three seats narrowly tipped Republican, with 51-49 GOP victories for moderate James Walsh of Syracuse in NY-25 and conservative Randy Kuhl held off a challenge by military Democrat Eric Massa in NY-29, the most conservative district in New York. But the stunner of New York for me was that Republican Tom Reynolds of suburban Buffalo held on, winning by five points, despite his prominent role in covering up Mark Foley's scandals. A strange set of results.

North Carolina--Yesterday morning on the SwingStateProject horse race blog, I picked NC-08 as my upset of the year. Democrat Larry Kissell has been running a fantastic stealth campaign against CAFTA flip-flopper GOP incumbent Robin Hayes, and fought him to within a few hundred votes. The race was so close that it hasn't been called yet, but it seems likely that Hayes will narrowly prevail. It's really a shame because we desperately need more populist Democrats in the South, and Kissell certainly fits the bill. On the good news front, conservative Democrat and former NFL quarterback Heath Shuler easily beat embattled Republican incumbent Charles Taylor.

Ohio--The expected Republican bloodbath in Ohio wasn't as severe as many predicted. Sure, Democrats Ted Strickland and Sherrod Brown took over the Governor's mansion and the GOP-held Senate seat by landslide margins, but only one Republican-held House seat was taken over, far fewer than the four or even five that many suspected. Steve Chabot held on easily in OH-01 ; Jean Schmidt in bright red OH-02 appears likely to get another term in Ohio, even though there hasn't officially been a call yet due to some outstanding absentee ballots; and Deborah Pryce of OH-15 has also apparently held on in a close race with Democratic challenger Mary Jo Kilroy. These results were kind of disappointing, particularly Pryce since she was a ranking member of the GOP leadership and was expected to lose. The only seat that went from red to blue was Bob Ney's old seat where Democrat Zack Space easily trounced Ney's hand-picked successor, Republican Joy Padgett.

Pennsylvania--Here's the state that ended up being what Ohio wasn't, purging four Republican incumbents in the House and smashing incumbent conservative Rick Santorum by an astounding 19-point margin in favor of a milquetoast Democratic challenger in Bob Casey, Jr. The Republican casualties included Melissa Hart of suburban Pittsburgh, whose defeat by Democratic challenger Jason Altmire was seen coming by nobody; one-term Republican Mike Fitzpatrick, who barely lost his district in the northern Philadelphia suburbs to Iraq war veteran Democrat Patrick Murphy, and just conceded this afternoon; and two scandal-plagued GOP incumbents, Don Sherwood and Curt Weldon, who were both trounced handily in their respective districts. The lone survivor: Jim "Mr. 51%" Gerlach, long considered the most vulnerable Republican incumbent in the country who won his THIRD election by a 51-49 margin in the western Philadelphia suburbs. He's the political equivalent of Harry Houdini, and at this point highly worthy of our respect.

Rhode Island--A moderate Republican who was not as lucky as Gerlach was Lincoln Chafee, popular in left-wing Rhode Island despite his being a Republican, who couldn't withstand the desire by RI voters to hand the Senate to the Democrats this year. Even though I was pulling for Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse this year, I salute Lincoln Chafee for his years of worthy representation and having the guts to stand up to his party's right flank. Best of luck, Linc.

South Dakota--Thankfully, the draconian abortion ban which would have forbidden SD abortions even in cases of rape or incest, failed, perhaps signaling that even the reddest of states are not as scary conservative as the Republican Party platform may indicate.

Tennessee--Harold Ford, Jr. staged an 11th hour rally after losing his momentum in the final two weeks of the campaign and falling way behind multi-millionaire gadfly and indictment-in-waiting Bob Corker. Unfortunately, Ford fell short by three percentage points, discovering as Al Gore did in the "new Tennessee" that a Democrat running in ideal circumstances can get up to 48%, but probably not to the 50% he/she needs. Outstanding effort on Ford's part though and I hope we see more of this guy in Tennessee politics in the near future. Thankfully, Ford's brother Jake, running as an independent in Harold's old Memphis district, pulled in only 18%, allowing progressive Democrat Steve Cohen to pull off a safe majority, despite being a white man in majority-black Memphis.

Texas--As expected, noxious Republican Governor Rick Perry was elected to another term with a 39% plurality. Democrat Chris Bell overperformed expectations at 30%, but lost too many votes to third and fourth-party candidates Kinky Friedman and Carole Strayhorn. In the House races, Democrat Chet Edwards hung on for another two years, while Democrat Nick Lampson beat write-in candidate Shelley Sekula-Gibbs by 10 points in Tom DeLay's old district. Good news for now, but this is gonna be a brutally difficult district to hang onto in 2008. The other complicated race is in TX-23 where a summer court ruling forced a redistricting, leaving Hispanic Republican Henry Bonilla to run in a less Republican district along the Mexican border. A crowded field of Democrats held Bonilla to less than 50%, forcing a runoff between Bonilla and former Democratic Congressman Ciro Rodriguez. I'm not optimistic about Rodriguez's chances, but am looking forward to the prospect of picking off another Republican nonetheless.

Vermont--Republicans were bullish about moderate military Republican Martha Rainville's chances to pick off an open seat for the GOP in deep-blue Vermont, but it wasn't meant to be. She got trounced by Democrat Peter Welch. In the Senate race, Socialist Bernie Sanders was the winner. He will caucus with Democrats.

Virginia--Clearly, the marquee race here was the Jim Webb-George Allen Senate race. The early returns looked very favorable for Webb as he was performing comparably to Democrat Tim Kaine in last year's Virginia gubernatorial race, but it became clear that Webb was not getting the numbers he needed to in Tidewater and southwestern Virginia. I had all but given up on Webb until I started noticing that exurban Prince William and Loudoun Counties in northern Virginia were leaning Webb, and at the very end of the count, some urban precincts came in to push Webb over the top. What an exciting race....and a fitting finale for George Allen's career (Allen is clearly the biggest loser of the 2006 election cycle). Unfortunately, Republican Thelma Drake held off a strong challenge by Democrat Phil Kellam in her Virginia Beach-area Congressional district.

Washington--Democratic incumbent Senator Maria Cantwell predictably crushed Republican challenger Mike McGavick. The House races went as expected save for WA-08 in the eastern suburbs of Seattle where there is yet to be a call in the Burner-Reichert race and may not be for a couple of days since Washington has a vote-by-mail option and not all ballots have arrived yet. Right now, Reichert leads 51-49, which doesn't seem insurmountable for Burner.

West Virginia--Robert Byrd gets re-elected for the ninth time in the U.S. Senate, which embattled (and likely corrupt) Democratic incumbent Alan Mollohan easily holds on for another term.

Wisconsin--Democratic Governor Jim Doyle won by a second term by a surprisingly strong eight-point victory, paving the way for Democrat Steve Kagen to win an open seat held by a Republican in the GOP-leaning Green Bay area.

Wyoming--The coattails of popular re-elected Democratic Governor Dave Freudenthal couldn't save Congressional candidate Gary Trauner from narrowly losing (by less than one percentage point) to unspeakably awful Republican incumbent Barbara Cubin. It's always much better to talk about actual victories than "moral victories", but to come within a few hundred votes of picking off a Republican incumbent in 70% pro-GOP Wyoming certainly does qualify as a "moral victory".


Again, it was an outstanding night for the Democratic party, and I'll be savoring the victories for weeks until the process of actual governance makes the whole process alot less fun. As I eluded to before, it's nice to have gotten the majority while not completely decimating the ranks of moderate Republicans in the Congressional GOP. With Chris Shays and Heather Wilson still in the fold, it'll be a little easier for the Democratic majority to reach out to the other side than if their caucus was made up exclusively of Southern theocratic bomb throwers. With all this said, the Democrats have challenging times ahead and I'll be very interested to see how or if they can make this work, particularly with a more "coalition party" made up of more conservative candidates like Jim Webb in the Senate, and Heath Shuler and Brad Ellsworth in the House. I'm hoping they don't destroy themselves by pressing forward with the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill. If they do, they'll undo their majority as fast as it was created. But that's in the future. Today, let's just enjoy that rare taste of victory.