Congratulations Democrats, I didn’t think you had it in you. I expected you to wander back in from the political wilderness under the tutelage of much more dynamic leaders than Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Rahm Emanuel, Harry Reid, and Chuck Schumer, but hey you pulled it off and that is all that matters.

So now what?

Feel free to post your post-election predictions. As for me I expect the Republicans to usher a new batch of Congressional leadership in, whether that will be a good thing from them will remain to be seen. All politics being local I hope they give the Representative from Michigan 8 a once over while they are looking. Then there is the 2008 Presidential election. Will the results from last night help or hurt the likes of John McCain or Mitt Romney? Again I think that remains to be seen. But I will go out on a limb and predict that no matter what Speaker-elect Pelosi says the President is going to be impeached over the war in the next two years because the Democrats are going to need to offer the base something other than gridlock. But I've been wrong before.

Election Day always gives me a thrill. We will, more or less peacefully, decide who shall govern us for the next two years. Yeah, we'll complain and point fingers and accuse our opponents of cheating in some manner. But at the end of the day we won't go for our guns regardless of the results. Yes, the system is imperfect, but at the end of the day we will accept its verdict. Even the most cynical among us realize the system is what matters, not an individual result. This is, and must remain, a political process, not a legal one.

Celebrate today, we are a small minority of humans in history who have a government of the people, by the people and for the people. Most of us have done little to deserve this, so celebrate that The Grand Experiment continues.

Something interesting is going on in Latin America, and within the Latin American left.
After the recent defeats of hard left candidates in Peru, and Mexico, and Hugo Chavez's recent embarassment in his failed bid for a security council seat, it's obvious that Latin Americans are taking a hard look at the hard left, and deciding they don't want to go down that road again.

It is widely believed by people on the left, these days, that they are forever being accused of "treason" by people on the right. My own perception, on the other hand, is that people on the left complain about this more than it actually happens, and that, moreover, they are about as likely to do it themselves as to have it done to them. But, then, I would see it that way, wouldn't I, right wing apologist that I am? So how shall we tell for sure? Let's investigate! Let's try "googling" it. But what should we google?