So, it’s official: The Republicans had their asses handed to them last night. (Judging from recent scandals, a little ass handing might be just what some of these folks secretly enjoy.) So while, the Grand Old Shortbus Party tucks its tail and staggers off into the sunset of their permanently 12-year majority, I think all of us who voted “D” deserve a little bit of celebration. And maybe some loutish gloating. It’ll be at least be a few months until “arch-liberal” Nancy Pelosi shows her true colors and ruins it all by arriving for her first day on the job with a shaved head, multiple nose piercings, legislation to enact National Sodomize Your Neighbor Day tucked under one arm, and a lunch box full of steamed fetuses with Tofu stuffed under the other. For now, those on the side of decency and reason should feel pretty fucking fantastic about what can only be described as an utter rout.

A special ReverseBlog thanks has to go to the two men chiefly responsible for the massive Democratic victory (remember, even in the “revolution” of 1994, the Republicans never set up a majority this big): Karl Rove and RNC chair Ken Mehlman. Guys, it takes special skill to turn a ton of money, fantastically in-your-favor district lines, a well-developed GOTV operation, and a bunch of entrenched incumbents into minorities in the House, Governor’s mansions, and soon to be the Senate. You were unable to take A SINGLE SEAT away from the Democrats in any of these categories, which, aside from the catastrophe of the Bush presidency will be your true political legacy—the complete repudiation of your ideology. You may have wrecked the conservative movement for years, if not more. So, thanks dudes.

And a more serious thanks to Chairman of the DNC, Howard Dean and his vaunted 50-state strategy for helping to put all sorts of weird Congressional races into play: Trauner in Wyoming (who may still win), Kleeb in Nebraska, Grant in Idaho, etc. Even if we didn’t take them all, we took a bunch of “red” districts that no one would have thought competitive in 2004. Kudos. As of today, the Democratic Party is the only truly national party in America.

There are obviously many other folks out there who deserve our thanks, so here it is. It’s hard to say how much better things will go for the U.S. with these new Democratic majorities (Bushie doesn’t do well when cornered), and some will certainly argue that we can’t expect anything but the status quo, but I for one, at least today, remain hugely optimistic.

But Virginia is....wafer thin!

For a great majority of us at RS, the last time we saw something of this caliber, we were effing teenagers! I must say to wake up this morning feels very, very odd...like MTV's Singled Out and Broadway's RENT were just making their debut. There's this great new band, guys, Crash Test Dummies...heard of 'em?

But seriously, thank God...and cross your fingers for a sure to be ugly continued nail-biter in Virginia...

Nice to see George Allen taken down a peg or two, but come on....Macaca? Who would vote for that guy?

It's been so weird to wake up in notoriously red Indiana and realize that what just 2 days ago was a 7-2 delegation we sent to the House in favor of the GOP is now a 5-4 delegation in favor of the Democrats. As you said, it takes a very special talent to turn even Indiana against you in that way. Well done Ken, George, Karl, and of course Dick.

Thank you.

Man, I can't wait for National Sodomize Your Neighbor Day. The sooner they pick a date, the sooner I can start planning. I live on a pretty densely populated block, so I need to work that daybook and really schedule everything, otherwise there's no way I'll get to everybody.

Oh, wait -- that's "neighbor," singular? Forget it, then.

Seriously, I wish I could feel happier about this, but a huge percentage of Dems who won hotly contested races were not all that liberal. On top of that, polls indicate that this upset was more about generalized dislike/distrust of Bush and company than an endorsement of the opposition -- an "anyone but them" vote. CC is right in saying this is more about the incompetence of Republican party leadership (in the trenches and in the White House) than a vote of confidence in the Democrats. It was a choice between motivated mendacity, honed over six years, and the alternative, which is a kind of marginalized, slump-shouldered, whiny negativism (if there's a grand vision being put forth in opposition to the Republicans' social, economic and foreign policy agenda, I haven't seen it yet). But yeah, it's better than the alternative.

My head is already shaved, and I am getting my multiple nose piercings this afternoon.

Matt - i think the assertion that many of these Democrats who won aren't particularly liberal is bunk based largely on Republican talking points. It sure plays well to the media, though. Tester, Webb, Whitehouse, and others -- I'd say MORE of the guys who won are the kinds of liberals we'd like to see in office as opposed to "Blue Dog" conservative Dems (also remember how many of these folks won in a blue states and/or were actively supported by the "crazy lefty" blogosphere). Maybe not necessarily classic post-60s libs like a Waxman, but the kind of grassroots populists that we've been missing for too long.

But in the end this distinction may not be hugely important. We're a big tent party again, and will continue to be for a very long time...Just my take.

CC: I take your point about the populist strain cultivated by some candidates, but it bugs me that there aren't a whole lot of old school lefties slipping into previously Republican-held slots. To some extent, I do think the Fox News prophecy -- that the Democrats have to become more like Republicans in order to survive as a national party -- has come true, albeit so incrementally and patchily that for now it seems more a budding tendency than a trend.

These distinctions are relative, though; even if some of the winning Dems aren't particularly liberal (by my definition, which is admittedly out of step with modern times) they are more liberal than the people they replaced, and I'm not about to dismiss that.

However, I do have a pretty strong instinct -- a hunch, I guess -- that this is not a turning point, or anything close. It seems as if, ever since LBJ, the Democrats have taken one step forward and two or three steps back as a national power. The new, aggressively left, so-called "Watergate baby" Democrats swarmed into Congress after the midterm elections of 1974, thanks to voter revolt against the hubris and corruption of Nixon and his minions, and Jimmy Carter won the presidency as a pretty damned liberal Democrat in 1976 (he quoted Bob Dylan along with the Old Testament!). But four years later Reagan displaced Carter, the neoconservative strain of Republicanism went mainstream, and the erosion of the Democratic congress began in earnest. The Democratic party that retook Congress this week is not nearly as organized or fervent as the Gingrich gang that pulled a similar upset and knocked Clinton for a loop midway through his first term and set the stage for total Republican dominance from 2000-2006. The only irrevocable rule of politics is that in an election, the side with a vision beats the side with no vision (a formulation that pleasantly reminds me of Louis Black's distinguishing between the two parties: "The Democrats are the party of no ideas, and the Republicans are the party of bad ideas"). The only exception to that rule -- and we saw it invoked this week -- is when the party with a vision becomes so arrogant, stupid and casually corrupt that the political mainstream does a cost-benefit analysis and decides that, all things considered, it's better to let the machine be steered by somebody with no sense of direction than by someone who confidently continues to drive America toward the lip of an active volcano, blithely ignoring passengers' screams of terror when they're not instructing them to quit being such pussies.

Seems to me that unless somebody in Congress' New Establishment comes up with something vaguely resembling a vision -- something besides, "Man, Bush and his supporters sure do suck" -- this will turn out to be more a speed bump than a turning point. I hope I'm wrong about that.

Anyway, that Borat sure is funny.