REASONS TO BE, IF NOT CHEERFUL, THEN NOT TOTALLY MISERABLE

I'm happy that Barney Frank won easily, to the horror and disgust of a lot of wingers. I'm happy that Carl Paladino's behavior problems kept the crazy wave out of my state. I'm happy Linda McMahon lost. I'm happy Tom Tancredo lost to John Hickenlooper. I'm happy it wasn't even close in Delaware.

Basically, we're mostly back to red states and blue states in this country and I'm happy I live in a blue state, and a blue region.

***

Now, it's conventional wisdom among real political savants that the truly important contests tonight are the governors' races, because governors control redistricting for the House of Representatives, and once districts are drawn, party control is fixed for a decade.

Except, um, this is going to be the second party switch in the House since the last round of redistricting. Was it all just done really, really ineptly after the 2000 census?

I don't think so. District demographics change, and swing voters keep switching parties in a desperate attempt to find one they like, especially when things suck in America, as they have pretty much for the entire 21st century.

So I'm not going to panic regarding party switches in governors' races. I think there'll be another wave reasonably soon (alas, probably not until Republicans seize control of the entire federal government and fail to extract us from an economic lost decade, but still). And maybe I'll live long enough to see Democrats figure out what to do after a winning election cycle.