You notice how on election night, someone on the losing side always tries the "This is the best thing that could have happened for us" spin? When the same people win, they somehow never say, "This is the worst thing that could have happened for us."
I don't have much to say about the outcome beyond the obvious. It is kind of amazing to me that some candidates manage to win, or at least come close to winning, who have things in their recent past like major financial scandals and being caught with hookers. Sharron Angle lost and she ought to really be embarrassed. Not being able to beat Harry Reid in Nevada is like not being able to pin Betty White in a Jell-o wrestling match. I'm not sure what the lesson of Ms. Angle's loss will be for most but I know what I hope it is. It's that if you can't hold public office if you can't talk to a reporter and answer a couple of simple questions. My new rule of thumb is that anyone who won't talk to the press is someone who's well aware that if they do, they'll probably say something very, very stupid.
There's also something nice about the lesson that even if you spend tens of millions of dollars of your own money, you can't buy your way into office. Unfortunately, you apparently can if the money comes from the Chamber of Commerce.
I'll bet you Christine O'Donnell has a rosier future for having lost her Senate race than if she'd won. She'll certainly have more opportunities to appear on television…and she'll be able to get paid for most of them.
And what was all that talk about how Barney Frank was in real trouble and might lose his seat in Congress? He won by like twelve points.
Well, I guess the Tea Party crowd is happy tonight, not because of how many candidates they helped elect but merely that they helped any. I hear a lot of pundits saying that if not for their knocking out more electable Republicans, the G.O.P. would have won control of the Senate. I don't know if that's true. It sounds a little like a variation on that "Best thing that could have happened for us" routine…but maybe so. I would imagine the Tea Partiers will be celebrating until John Boehner and Eric Cantor start talking about raising the debt ceiling.
The most telling/foreboding comment I heard all evening came when some reporter on MSNBC was interviewing one of the new Republican leaders in Congress. I didn't catch the representative's name but I think it was Mike Conaway from Texas. Whoever it was, he was asked if Republicans were prepared to compromise with President Obama on some issues. He said guardedly that they were, depending on the issue. Then he was asked to name the first compromise he would consider making. He said, "No tax hikes." That's been one of the main problems in Washington the last few years. We have leaders who think "compromise" means they get everything they want.
Ah, well. As my Uncle Nathan would say, it could have been worse.