The press/cable news is bending over backwards

[LawnLover]

to make this sound as if it's a repeat of 1994, but from where I stand, this could have been a LOT worse.

The bummer: loss of the House.

The good stuff:

1) Tea Baggers like Angle and O'Donnell sent back to the rocks they crawled out from under. Yeah, some got through, but they'll be quickly ignored now that they've done the job the Repugs wanted them to do;

2) California going full blue (my state);

3) The Dems hanging on to the Senate;

4) The Repugs in the House now take the blame for the next two shitty years, leaving Obama in a good position in 2012;

45 NO MORE FUCKING CAMPAIGN ADS.

Yeah, I put emphasis on the last because I need a huge break from this stuff for a while.

Keep in mind that Clinton did pretty damn good during his tenure, despite having a completely Republican Congress during most of it. Yes, they went after him for bullshit, but without the Senate in their pocket, the Repugs in the House can't do much more than make themselves look stupid.

This "wave" had very little to do with anything other than the state of the economy. People need jobs and if they don't have them at election time, they blame the party in power.

It could have been much, much worse.

[ananda]

1. No, it was about as worse as it could get.

You have to look at state trending.

More and more states are trending batshit crazy conservative.

I think it has to do with an inability to understand what's going on in
this country and the world economically.

People are basically living in a past totally distorted by the media into
a travesty of what it was. Turning the past into a parody of itself
is what this media does best. But it's got nothing to do with reality.

The reality is that the corporations and the rich fatcats are now in
charge. They are totally sociopathic and self-interested. The rest
of the country and the world are there to serve their interests, and
one way to do that is to keep them addles and crazy.

[LawnLover]

2. The rich fat cats have ALWAYS been in charge

At least for the last couple centuries. The banks and oil barons have owned this country for decades. Why does everyone seem to forget this?

[liberal N proud]

3. Their agenda is to push this into 2012 and defeat the President

They will run Sarah Palin against Obama and between now and then the party of Just Say No will be saying Obama can't lead. Watch and see.

[LawnLover]

5. There are a couple problems with that scenario

1. The Republicans hate Sarah Palin and god, I hope they DO run her anyway;

2. Obama will be in a better position to blame the Repugs come 2012 and get reelected.

Honestly, people around here act as if they've never been through this before. We've been through it time and time again and managed to survive. As things go, this could have been a LOT worse.

[obama14]

9. We still own 2/3rds

He could have only done that if they took the Senate too. We still own 2/3rds of Government. Republicans can simply say the Senate is holding up "all the change".

[LawnLover]

6. That's ALWAYS the agenda. For both parties. Defeat whatever President has the keys. nt

[Big Blue Marble]

4. It can always get worse.

And it may. Right now everyone is attempting to adjust to a very difficult result. Each of us will do
do that differently as we work through the stages of grief to find acceptance in this strange new world.
Most of us are currently in some level of shock and disbelief.

The only constant is we live in a world of growing uncertainty. Because of the implications of Citizens United,
and the structural changes in our economy, this election is like no other. Corporate power is on the ascendancy
while most seem blind to the ramifications of this takeover of our institutions. It would seem the more
corporations destroy the fabric of our society, the more the people blame our government, the only potentially effective
tool available to balance the power of the corporate state.

Where we go from here is truly an unknown. We are, as they say, in uncharted waters.

[LawnLover]

7. It can always get BETTER, too.

We are NOT in uncharted waters. We've been here and WORSE many times before.

I'm quickly coming to the conclusion that the average age of people here is about twenty-five -- and that's fine -- but if you think the end of the world is coming, you haven't lived long enough to have seen it come and go many times over the last several decades. Yet here we stand.

[Big Blue Marble]

8. I assure you I am way over 25.

I have lived through many elections cycles including many dark results. There are currently variables
in play that were not present previously as I mentioned above. Additionally, the communication system is
broken. The media misleads far better than it educates.

This is a time like no other. While there have been ups and downs and back and forths in these previous
election cycles that you and I lived through, the power that we the people have have held has been ebbing.
The intention of those in charge is that it will continue to ebb as they grab more and more levels of control.
That is their mission and, as of now, they are succeeding.

[spanone]

10. i want the media to explain the 'horse race' in california

not even close