The first installment of the inevitable intra-party Democratic debate over what yesterday’s victory means has been stimulated by Fox Newsish claims that Dems took Congress by running conservative candidates who will be at odds with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. And this spin war has converged with a pre-election argument about where Dems should look for a national majority.One Democratic spin on the results has been that the Donkey Party won by consolidating its Blue State strength, snuffing congressional Republicans who had previously survived by pretending to be more moderate than the national GOP leadership.There’s some truth to this take, if only because a national “wave” election tends to take out the Nancy Johnsons and the Jim Leaches who indeed were living on borrowed time.But the results do not provide a good argument for Democrats to write off Enemy Territory and focuse on their Blue State geographical base.15 of the 28 Democratic House gains were in Red States, most of them in Red or Purple Districts.3 of the 6 new Senators are from Red States.3 of the 6 gubernatorial pickups for Democrats were in Red States.About half of the state legislative gains were in Red States.We are beginning to turn Purple States blue, and Red States purple. I can’t imagine why any Democrat would think of this as bad news, but there is clearly a point of view among Democratic intellectuals that messing around with voters in Red State areas, particularly in the South, represents an exposure to ideological contamination.I am beginning to slog my way through Tom Schaller’s recent book, Whistling Past Dixie, that makes the most intellectually credible case I’ve read so far for Democrats to eschew any southern strategy. I will probably review the book somewhere or other, but the bottom line is that Schaller’s worried about the ideological risks involved in any Democratic strategy that involves the weird, religiously-oriented, “backward” South, as opposed to allegedly progressive ground in the Midwest and West.I don’t know how much time ol’ Tom has spent in the Rocky Mountain West, which he posits as a vastly more progressive region than the South, but I have to tell you there are a whole lot of rednecks there, which doesen’t bother me but should bother Schaller. And I’m not sure I understand why it’s okay for Democrats to focus on states like Indiana, which have not gone Democratic since 1964, but not okay to pursue votes in places like Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennesse, Kentucky and Georgia, which have cast their electoral votes for Democrats in the last decade or so.On the more general point of whether it’s a problem for Democrats that their freshman class has some alleged “conservatives” on board, the much-esteemed Mark Schmitt nailed it over at TAPPED:

Unlike Tom Schaller, I have to admit, I wasn’t bothered at all by the spin that the Democrats won because they embraced a lot of candidates with conservative views and backgrounds….

[T]he bulk of the Democratic majority came from Northeast, Midwest and Mountain seats where the winners were not conservative.So the spin that the Democrats won because they moved in a more conservative direction is inaccurate. But so what? Consider the alternative spin, which is that Democrats are a bunch of extreme liberals, who will be as far out of touch as the Republicans and who will be destroyed in 2008? I’d rather have a party that’s fairly liberal but has a reputation or image as moderate than one that’s really moderate and over-cautious but has a reputation for being extremely liberal, which was the situation through much of the 19990sThe fact is that the Democratic Party has been a centrist, moderate party for some time, in the sense that on balance the party’s governors, legislators and policy agenda fully represent the center of public opinion. (As shown, for example, by the fact that the viewpoint of independents was very much in line with that of Democrats.) But it was a damaged brand; it needed a remake of its image. This is a chance to do it, by showing that the party has in fact incorporated the center. Highly visible veterans, openly religious candidates, and social conservatives like Casey send a cultural signal, not an ideological one, a signal that this is a party you can be comfortable in. Sometimes you need to seem like you have changed just to make people understand what’s been going on all along.

Truth is, moderate Democratic candidates do pretty well all over the country, given a chance. But if we perversely decide not to compete where such candidates do particularly well, we will handicap our party, just as Karl Rove handicapped Republicans by demanding partisan loyalty to a highly ideological agenda.

I’ve just watched about all I could stand of George W. Bush’s press conference announcing the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld. Not surprisingly, he got a lot of questions about the implications of yesterday’s elections, and started yammering about his desire to work with Democrats.Yeah, right. Next thing he’ll be telling us he wants to be “a uniter, not a divider,” and usher in a “responsibility era.” Day before yesterday, he was finishing up a campaign swing that focused on the argument that the Democratic Party was basically a terrorist front organization. And even in today’s remarks, he couldn’t stop himself from suggesting that anyone who questions his and Rumsfeld’s sorry record on Iraq is undermining the troops and frightening the Iraqis.As for the timing of the decision to finally let Rummy go, a couple of years too late, I’m sure we’ll hear from right-wing chatterers that it couldn’t happen before Election Day because it would have discouraged the conservative “base.” If, God forbid, I were a conservative base voter, I’d be pretty damn insulted by the idea that Rumsfeld, who has done more to discredit Republican national security bona fides than anyone not named Dick Cheney, was one of my heroes. The real issue is that the administration needs to pretend it’s rethinking Iraq before Democrats ride into Washington, take over congressional committee gavels, and start asking questions about Iraq that should have been asked by Congress a long time ago.Rumsfeld’s proposed replacement, former CIA chief Bob Gates, is currently president of Texas A&M University. Let me be the very first to suggest his replacement in College Station: my colleague The Moose. He’d love to return to his native Texas; his original strategy of joining the staff of Governor Kinky Friedman hasn’t exactly worked out. And the timing’s perfect: he could get out of the political arena on a high note, just after the humiliation of Karl Rove and the apotheosis of Joe Lieberman, and before John McCain has a chance to break his heart. Despite his yankeefied higher education in New York and Ann Arbor, the Moose is totally an Aggie Wannabee. I can attest to the fact that he knows every word of the Aggie War Hymn, and can sing it at a considerable decibal level.So if anything really good is to come of the latest Bush maneuver, maybe this is it: A&M President Marshall Wittmann. To paraphrase the War Hymn:Rummy’s horns are sawed offRummy’s horns are sawed offRummy’s horns are sawed offShort! A!

There’s still a lot of confusion about where things stand in the Senate, but now that the networks have called Montana for Tester, we are going to have a Democratic Senate. In VA, Webb is up 7,000 votes with nothing much out but a couple of very small boxes and then some provisional ballots. The provos will almost certainly boost Webb’s margin. As things currently stand, Allen can ask for a recount, but here’s the rub: he has to wait almost three weeks until the results are certified. It’s hard to imagine a recount can reverse Webb’s lead, so Allen and GOPers generally have to decide if they really want weeks of derisive commentary about their stance on recounts in Florida six years ago, when it’s unlikely the delay will do them any good.The other irony, of course, is that Democratic control of the Senate now depends on Joe Lieberman. Nobody has any reason to think he won’t do what he promised and caucus with Democrats, but there may be a little bit of uncomfortable crow-eating among those who have spent months arguing that Lieberman’s not a Democrat anymore, and should be stripped of his seniority.

I’m about to try and get a couple of hours of sleep, but the most interesting electoral story at 3:30 a.m. EST is whether the skin-tight Webb-Allen race in VA will wind up deciding control of the US Senate. If Jon Tester hangs on to his lead in MT, it will indeed all come down to VA. Jim Webb’s current 7,000 vote lead gives George Allen a statutory right to a recount. And as we know from 2000, all hell could break loose at that point. Tomorrow’s not too soon for Democrats to get lawyered up for a sustained battle over VA. Republicans will certainly initiate it, and this time, it would be nice if Democrats figured out how to simultaneously win in court, and in the court of public opinion.

Well, my suggestion that this would be an early night for political junkies was obviously wrong. A combination of close races, slow counts (caused largely by high turnouts) and very cautious media “calls,” has made this election a real nail-biter.At this point, the net Democratic gain in House seats stands at 25, and climbing.In the Senate, we’ve won three seats so far. Tennessee is gone; Virginia (where Jim Webb leads by about two thousand votes with a handful of scattered Democratic and Republican precincts still out) is going into Recount Land; Claire McKaskill has taken a late narrow lead in MO, and Jon Tester has a steady but still early lead in MT.We’ve won 6 net governorships so far; the only real disappointment has been in RI, which was excrutiatingly close.And further down ballot, we’ve won control of a number of state legislative chambers: both Houses in IA (where Dems pulled off the trifecta of holding the governorship and flipping both the state legislature and the congressional delegation), the IN House, the MN Senate, the NH Senate, and the MI House.It’s taken a while to develop, but this is a good late night for Donkeys, with the possibility of getting better by Dawn’s early light.UPCATEGORY: Ed Kilgore’s New Donkey

As we wait for the votes to start trickling in, and get ready to focus on a vast landscape of close races, it’s a good time to pause and reflect on some unclose races where the bad guys have already lost. First up, there’s Ricky Santorum of PA, who is sort of a poster boy for all those big-time Washington pols who get a little ahead of themselves. Not that long ago, after establishing himself as a hero to the Cultural Right, and serving as the Senate point man for the lobbyist-shake-down K Street Strategy, Ricky was lookin’ damn good in the mirror each morning. Indeed, as recently as late last year, he was maneuvering to succeed Bill Frist as Republican Leader in the Senate, and envisioning himself occupying the Oval Office in 2009. He reportedly regarded the Democrat who is likely to trounce him tonight, Bob Casey, somewhat like a pit bull regards a raw steak. Now Ricky’s about to become an ex-senator. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.Then down in FL, there is Senate Republican Nominee Katherine Harris, who perfectly represents the blowback from the savage Bush-Cheney endgame in 2000. Having done more than anyone outside the Supreme Court to secure the presidency for W., she became the Conservative Republican Base Champion par excellence, and thus could not be denied a Senate nomination when she asked for it. Her bizarre, if-you-love-Jesus-you-gotta-love-me campaign, which was marked by repeated resignations of her staff and consultants, will end tonight with an ignominous defeat by Bill Nelson. And for dessert, Democrats could pick up her old House seat. It wouldn’t be quite accurate to call OH Secretary of State Ken Blackwell the Katherine Harris of ’04, but there’s no question in my mind that he aspired to the title. Along with Harris, he’s a living advertisement of the case against partisan election administration. He’s also so violent a cultural conservative that none other than George W. Bush (according to the recent Bob Woodward book) called him a “nut.” And in his doomed gubernatorial race this year, he showed his class by letting his campaign drop broad hints that his opponent was gay, soft on sexual predators, or both. On top of everything else, his political meltdown tonight should convince GOP strategists that African-Americans are not going to vote for just anybody who is African-American.When these three folks go down hard tonight, I will pause to enjoy the moment. And let’s not forget the earlier fine moment when another bad guy, Ralph Reed, lost the opportunity to lose tonight (the Republican who beat him in the Georgia Lieutenant Governor primary, Casey Cagle, is in a tight race with distinguished Democrat Jim Martin tonight).

Ah yes, it’s finally Election Day, when the only poll that really matters is the one in which voters actually vote. And unlike some recent elections, we’ll probably know most of what we need to know nationally well before midnight. That’s because so many of the key House and Senate races are in the eastern and central time zones. Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post‘s “The Fix” political blog has posed a very nifty “viewer’s guide” for tonight that identifies, by poll closing times, the races that will pretty much indicate how well Democrats will ultimately do. In addition to the possibility of an early night, it’s also clear political junkies will have to get a life before the polls close as well. In reaction to the exit poll debacle of 2004, The Powers That Be in the news media are swearing that the handful of network analysts who will have access to exit poll data during the day will be locked in a room, stripped of their blackberries and cell phones, until 5:00 p.m. EST, at which point they will be allowed to speak to their employers. Maybe leaks will occur shortly thereafter, but the odds are that no reliable data will be out there until the nets make their calls. Pollster.com has the full story, and more about exit polling, here. I’ll be posting randomly during the day and night, for those who want a change of pace from the tube or the big political sites.

About three weeks ago, Washington Monthly editor Paul Glastris called me with an interesting proposed writing assignment: pretend it’s the day after the elections, and you’re writing an op-ed for a major newspaper advising your party’s leaders about what to do now. But here was the twist: write two of these fictional op-eds, one based on the presumption that Democrats will take over both Houses of Congress, and the other based on the opposite proposition that GOPers shock the world and maintain control of both Houses. Glastris approached some other folks with a similar offer, and it’s all up on the Monthly‘s site now. In the end, Mark Schmitt and I were the only ones who wrote the op-eds both ways. But the package has Tom Daschle, Daniel Levy, David Gergen, and Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein addressing the day-after realities of a Democratic win, while Dick Armey and David Greenberg write up an unlikely GOP victory. The title the Monthly gave my “Dems win” piece–“Kick ‘Em While They’re Down”–is a little misleading, but I like it. Check it all out as you get out the vote, with fingers crossed.

It’s t’wo days til Election Day 2006, and there’s a lot of nervousness out there about how things will break at the very last minute. Yes, it’s hard to find much of anybody, even in GOP circles, who doesn’t think Democrats will retake the House. But today, a new Washington Post/ABC poll has the Democratic generic ballot advantage dropping to 6 points. And Mason-Dixon has dropped a batch of new Senate polls showing Chafee up in RI, Corker romping in TN, Burns drawing even with Tester in MT, and Steele within 3 of Cardin in MD. Tomorrow, of course, may bring other polls that contradict this latest burst of semi-cheer for the GOP (I know Markos is a big fan of Mason-Dixon’s accuracy, but I’ve always suspected them of a fairly heavy thumb on the scales for Republicans), but today’s buzz is illustrative of a general uncertainty about what will really matter at the very end. I suspect a lot of this is derived from (a) the unexpected tilt of last-minute trends in the last two midterm elections, (b) the confounding two years ago of the common assumption that undecided voters break against incumbents in stormy weather, and (c) the mythology that has developed around the GOP’s 72 Hours get-out-the-vote system. Add in to these factors the remote possibility, being trumpted by hopeful Republicans, that the Saddam verdict and sentence–or even less credibly, the Kerry furor of last week–has had a significantly positive effect on conservative base turnout.The final factor, of course, is the infamous “horse-race” psychology of the political chattering classes, who love close elections and thus tend to promote them. I don’t know if Democrats will take the House narrowly or massively, or take the Senate at all, but I do know you will have to get pretty deep into the expectations game to view any likely result on Tuesday as anything less than a Democratic triumph. Not that long ago, the CW was that gerrymandering made any Democratic takeover of the House almost impossible until 2012, and that the red-state/blue-state divide guaranteed virtually perpetual Republican control of the Senate and of most state governments. No matter what happens, Democrats will defy those expectations on Tuesday.

In all the flurry of last-minute polls, ads and talking points, one of the most interesting Signs of the Times of this midterm election is the highly selective deployment of the President of the United States. Not wanted in many competitive states and districts, and following the Rovian strategy of energizing a very dispirited conservative GOP base, Bush is going into very red territory and nowhere else: Georgia, Texas, Kansas, Montana, Nevada. This is reminiscent of the limitations experienced more than thirty years ago, heading into the very similar 1974 elections, when, before his resignation, Richard M. Nixon wasn’t wanted much of anywhere. Indeed, in Kansas that year, when Sen. Bob Dole was embroiled in a very tight race, he was asked if he wanted the President to appear in the state for him. “I wouldn’t mind if he flew over Kansas,” quoth Dole. Actually, Nixon spent a good part of early 1974 flying around the world to places where locals could be counted on to show up in large numbers to cheer him and wave American flags. This is obviously not an option for George W. Bush. Republicans are clearly back on their heels going into Tuesday’s elections. George W. Bush is a negative factor for the GOP nationally, and I doubt he’s going to have much magic for candidates even in the reddest of red states.