Down goes Allen West.

We still have Michele Bachmann to kick around.

But they now have Alan Grayson to kick around.  (No, I’m not arguing an exact equivalency there.)

Syed Taj lost to Kerry Bentivolio.  Bah.

There’s a funny sad mixed funny ha ha twitter battle of fear and loathing between Ted Nugent and Donald Trump.  (More fun here.)

I had assumed that Mormon coat-tails of Mitt Romney would take down Jim Matheson in Utah, and brig in Mia Love — a “Tea Party” and the potential first black woman Republican in the House.  It didn’t.

Gay marriage passed in two, maybe three states.  That monkey is off the gay marriage back.  No longer do we have to hear that cry out of undemocratic process in “Every time it’s gone on the ballot, THE PEOPLE have rejected it.”

Watching CNN coverage, repeatedly zooming into the maps of Florida and Ohio, is fascinating and hypnotic, but not good for you.  THERE IS NO NEW INFORMATION.  The coverage at the sites of polling places is just kind of silly… that stuff should be shown on CSPAN, or maybe CSPAN-4.

I decided to walk past Pioneer Square to compare and contrast with the scene from four years ago.  No, there was no soggy singing expedition like four years ago.  I can point to a couple random car honks with someone shouting out the window “OBAMA!!!”, and one random guy cursing Obama.  There is a sense of what I like about this election of Obama over the one from four years ago:  the attitude toward it from supporters is more realistic.

The famous red streak map — Leafing over state wide returns, I can suggest it will probably exist in the same form this time out.  Ie: West Virginia and Arizona’s totals have fallen further from Obama.

The Tea Party effect in the Senate is mixed.  On one hand, the Democrats picked up — all indications are 2, count them two seats — remarkable considering it was a map of 10 Democratic seats against 23 Republican seats, off of the 2006 landslide.  But if you consider the make-up of the Republican caucus — the departing Republicans are Richard Lugar in Indiana, Scott Brown in Massachusetts, Olympia Snowe in Maine, Kay Bailey Hutchinson in Texas — the least conservative members — along with Jeff Flake of Arizona.  The incoming members are Deb Fischer of Nebraska, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Ted Cruz in Texas.  The Tea Party did its job of defeating the Real Enemy, their supposed “RINO”s…
The Democratic side is more mixed in the “polarization” effect.  Outgoing it’s the most conservative members of Ben Nelson in Nebraska and Kurt Conrad in North Dakota… harder to peg Jim Webb in Virginia… everyone knows Joseph Lieberman in Connecticut, and there’s partyliners Herb Kohl in Wisconsin and whoever it is that fills New Mexico’s seat.  They’re replaced by blue dogs in terms of Heidi Kleitcamp in North Dakota and Joe Dannaly in Indiana, your strangely Liebrmanesque figure of Angus King in Maine, and the step to the left appears there with Chris Murphy in Connecticut, Tim Kaine in Virginia, Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts, and apparently Martin Heinrich in New Mexico.

Claire McCaskill’s strategy of nudging her opponent to a primary victory then leaving the stage and letting him talk worked brilliantly.  Joe Dannaly’s similar strategy worked as well.

Actually I think Albert Gore did quite well in Mississippi, with his 40 point 4 percent.  He bested Obama, right?

Preliminary third party results:
Johnson (Libertarian) 0 0 1,139,562 1.0%
Stein (Green) 0 0 396,684 0.3%
Barr (Peace&Freedom) 0 0 48,776 <0.1%
Anderson (Justice) 0 0 34,521 <0.1%
Goode (Constitution) 0 0 3,553 <0.1%
The Libertarians may just have snuck into single digits.

Nate Silver wins some weird pissing contest over stats versus “I don’t like your stats”.

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