1. So I was wrong: The results for the House, combined with those for the Governors and state legislatures, are genuinely impressive. The Republican party is now the more national and more dominant one. It’s also clearly a policy-driven result—a fact the MSM is attempting to obscure with a huge amount of noise about Palin and anonymous corporate giving.
2. Lots of able Republican talent has been introduced into the various levels of government. But the star, of course, is Rubio, who gave a dazzling and very precise victory speech.
3. There’s now, in fact, no chance Palin will be much of a player in the 2012 Republican nominating process. There are lots of good governors—present and former—to choose from. And it will be hard to keep Marco off the ticket.
4. Still, lots of Republicans are just a little disappointed that their candidates didn’t turn out to be utterly invincible everywhere. The Senate results are somewhat unlucky, I guess.
5. The overall national result for now is the gridlocky form of gridlock. The division of the House and the Senate seems to guarantee that nothing new will be passed and nothing old will be repealed. Perhaps the urgency will be to mend the health care scheme in the direction of affordability and sustainability. But more likely the Democrats will hope that the scheme as is will eventually prove to be popular as it is implemented.
6. It’s also clear that both parties in Congress are more “ideological.” Moderate or relatively conservative Democrats took a big hit from more conservative Republicans.
The remaining Democrats are further to the LEFT, and the Tea Party discipline, among other things, has pushed the Republicans a bit more to the RIGHT. It remains to be seen what these facts mean for good government and all that.
7. Next to Rubio, the candidate who moved me most last night (believe it or don’t) was the utterly uncharismatic and achingly earnest Harry Reid. How did that guy get to be the leader?
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