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The election

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It's evening in America.
Obviously this was a huge loss for the Democrats, and not a very surprising one either.  Political scientists have been telling us for years that the economy is by far the most reliable predictor of election results, and lo and behold with a lousy economy the ruling party lost big time.  The one big disappointment is that my home representative is now ur-schmuck Scott Tipton, a guy I actually know reasonably well (I went to high school with his kids).  I'm rather amazed that the GOP managed to not win the Senate—a couple months ago it looked pretty much in the bag, especially with Harry Reid down a bazillion points and Mike Castle a lock in Delaware.  We've got incompetent teabagger nutcases Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell to thank for that.

Broadly speaking, I think this could be a good opportunity for Democrats to position for the next election.  If they can not fall into a cringing ball as usual and try to give a good showing against the GOP house majority, which will in all likelihood shut down the government and impeach Obama, things could work out in 2012.  Also if the economy recovers a bit from quantitative easing, that might give Obama a bit more credibility.  Two things are for sure: the next two years are going to be absolutely vicious, and nothing of substance will happen.
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