Well I'm not a fan of conspiracy theories that we lost now to win in 08... IE let them have it, people will see how much the screw up and hand it back to us...
That tact has been tried before and backfired in american politics.
When you look at the numbers most of the races went just barely to the Dems... with perhaps the exception of Santorum which was a blowout... and frankly, I think there was some fraud in that one... I can see him losing but by around 17 points?? Have a hard time with that one.
Most of the candidates that beat republicans were fairly conservative dems that did win... IE, no Nacy Pelosis unseated any republicans.
These were race by race losses.. the idea it was a national referrendum on the war I think is folly. The only candidate who ran nearly exclusively on the war was Lamont and he got pasted.
Ohio was almost guaranteed a lost cause due to the corruption there.
PA sadly, this states conservatives are great at cutting off their noses to spite their faces.... so that cost us a Senate seat.... Now Casey (calling this guy a stuffed shirt is an insult to stuffed shirts everywhere), but hey we taught that Santorum fellow... how dare he endorce the party candidate last election cycle..... 1 step forward 2 steps back... the way it is in PA sadly.. I thought this state was finally getting past such things... unfortunately I was dead wrong.
I think the slimmest of margins cost most of these seat changes, and with those slim of margins you can say disenfranchisement of the conservatives by actions within washington could indeed have cost at least some of these races.
Now the Dems have won, and now they must governmen.. like Hamas... their rhetoric is great when they aren't in power... after all everything is everyone elses fault.. but now they have the helm, and already they are crashing into the reefs. Reserecting bafoons like McGovern and trying to make one of the most unethical guys in Washington one of their leaders.. etc etc etc...
Now they must govern, and they must govern against a President in war, who whether Congress likes it or not IS THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF, PERIOD. Who doesn't have to face re-election... etc etc etc..
The notion that Bush is done I think is comical. They don't have override numbers, Bush can veto all day and they can't do a thing about it, and when it comes to the execution of the War... The President calls the shots, period.
So, what will happen? I suspect the dems will be infighting a LOT, and it will look like romper room up there on the hill.
Excellent analysis, HJ. Excellent. I also don't subscribe to the theory that the national republicans purposely decided to "lose small now in order to win big later". What I have been thinking about lately isn't so much that as more like they just didn't try that hard and one of the reasons was that they really want the immigration policy that Bush is pushing and they know the dhimmi's will give it to them. It's not a conspiracy, just a lack of motivation to win. I really detected a lack of motivation on Bush's part, just like in '92, when his father seemed to give up halfway through the campaign.