RACHEL MADDOW, HOST: Good evening, Keith. I‘m warming up the big election desk for us tonight already, trying to make sure that my knees fit underneath it.
OLBERMANN: Is it heated?
MADDOW: You know, it‘s a little warm.
OLBERMANN: Uh-oh. We‘ll send maintenance over. This again? Does anybody know about that? It‘s like the wiring again?
MADDOW: It‘s not ticking. It is a little warm. I‘ll let you know if anything exciting happens.
OLBERMANN: I‘ll bring my bucket.
MADDOW: Thank you, Keith.
And thanks to you at home for staying with us for the next hour.
At this time tomorrow night, we will be giving you some of the first results from this year‘s elections. Twenty-four hours from right now, I will be sitting in this very spot—actually I think I‘m sitting where Chris is going to be sitting. I‘ll be sitting in a spot really close to this spot, maybe over here, alongside my MSNBC colleagues and we will be reporting what is happening across the country in the 2010 elections.
Now, no matter what happens in any individual race tomorrow night, the aggregate result is sort of clear from here. Republicans are going to pick up seats. Probably, Republican will pick a lot of seats.
In 2006 and in 2008, the last two elections, the aggregate story on election night was the exact opposite. Those were two huge elections for Democrats. And over those last two elections, Democrats picked up a total of 52 seats in the House, 14 seats in the Senate.
If predictions for tomorrow‘s results are borne out, Democrats have a chance at holding on to the Senate but they will likely lose control of the House of Representatives. It is not done a deal, but that‘s what everybody is predicting. That means that we are now at an important moment in this country‘s political history.
It took them a couple of elections to do it, but what the Democrats built for themselves over the last few years culminated in 2008 with a Democratic president, a Democratic Senate, and a Democratic House. That trifecta will likely no longer hold true as of tomorrow night.
When the new Congress that‘s elected tomorrow is sworn in in January, we will likely be entering into a period of divided power in this country. Now, the pundits and political scientists always say that Americans prefer divided power, and maybe that‘s true.
But one government is not divided, like in this past 21 months, when one party controls the executive branch and the legislative branch. It gives you a rare but clear and unobstructed view of what that party stands for, what that party‘s made of, what that party values.
Democrats and liberals especially often criticize their own party for not acting boldly enough when given an electoral mandate.
But in this moment, before it is judged by voters, what did Democrats do? What did Democratic politicians do? What did the Democratic Party do with these last 21 months? What did they stand for? What were they made of?
It turns out what they were made of was historic.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
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