Aftershocks

Losing Ted Kennedy's Senate seat is a blow- no way around it, but it is not the worst thing to ever happen. Time to start looking at the silver linings.

1.)  In many ways, 60 was the worst number of Senate seats for the Dems while keeping a majority. It is the exact number needed to end a filibuster, but it required keeping people like Lieberman and Ben Nelson in the fold. Jon Stewart said it well: Bush did whatever the f$#$ he wanted with a much smaller majority. Time to either start passing things with 53 votes or have Republicans hop on- no more selling of the soul in order to placate Joe Lieberman.

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The good stuff starts at about 6:45 in...

2.) Much better to get the wake up call in January than in November.  During the primary campaign, the Obama team stuck to their game plan and didn't get worked up by the fact that critics were flipping out about Hillary Clinton, McCain's "Celebrity" ad, Palin, etc. Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod are pretty damn smart and politically attuned-  good people to have in charge of the campaign operation.

3.) People are angry, but not just at the Democrats. Brown ran a great campaign, but the GOP as a whole is still viewed negatively by the electorate. Maybe Brown becomes the shining star of the GOP because the alternatives still suck- Palin, Romney, Steele, Rush, Beck, Cheney- yikes.

Let's not wet ourselves quite yet. And yeah, I'm the same person who said this.

Election Watch

Update 2: Nate Silver on the things to watch. 

Update: According to Chuck Todd, 25% of the votes should be counted in the first hour. 

The polls in Massachusetts a little more than an hour. Lots of speculation and reading of the tea leaves, but don't think there have been any comprehensive exit polls (probably a good thing since President Kerry can attest that they are worthless). It does sound as though there will be heavy turnout for a special election, but that can cut both ways- Coakley is helped by lots of voters in a traditionally liberal state, Brown definitely has the enthusiasm factor.

My prediction right now is a 8 point win for Brown.

All I see on the Dem side today is lots of finger pointing- never a good sign when that happens before the damn election is over. And this sure didn't help my confidence any.

Seems like the White House isn't very confident of victory.