Sunday after the election offers a bountiful harvest of post-election wrap-ups in the major dailies. Some of the better ones include:
In “Liberal groups expect postelection results” LA Times reporters Peter Wallsten and Janet Hook focus on potentially divisive issues facing Dems as the try to consolidate their victory. The LA Times also has American Prospect Editor Michael Tomasky’s “Dems put the ‘big tent’ back together,” arguing that Dems shouldn’t buy into the ‘conservative victory’ view of the election, and instead should build the left-center coalition that has always been the key to their most significant wins.
The New York Times post-election wrap-up “Incoming Democrats Put Populism Before Ideology” by Robin Toner and Kate Zernike probes some of the newly-elected Dems to assess prospects for bipartisanship. Leon Panetta’s “Govern, Don’t Gloat” op-ed argues that now is a good time for some Democratic humility and a genuine spirit of bipartisna cooperatrion. Nonetheless, No good Democrat should miss “2006: The Year of the ‘Macaca’,” Frank Rich’s blistering critique of GOP bigotry and fear-mongering in campaign ’06.
WaPo‘s Jonathan Weisman’s “Democrats Find Lessons In GOP Reign” mulls over the lessons Dems should glean from the failure of Gingrich’s scorched-earth philosophy of congressional leadership. Wapo is also featuring Joe Trippi’s “The Democrats: Is Winning Winning?“, predicting more trouble for the GOP ahead and assessing prospects for Dem ’08 candidates from Bayh to Vilsack.
And speaking of hot prospects, check out the Boston Globe’s Politics Section for a host of articles on Deval Patrick’s historic election as Governor of Massachusetts, rich with lessons for winning strategies. Then relax, take a moment to savor the victories of ’06, because campaign ’08 begins in ernest tommorrow.

Yes, we’re all sick of lame political ads. But now is not the time for good Dems to hibernate, because there’s still a lot of interesting analysis to be digested if we want to learn how to win even bigger in ’08. So take a gander at the Campaign for America’s future web page “Truth in Advertising: 2006 Campaign Ads Reveal Progressive Populism.” There you be able to watch ads deemed most effective for the successful campaigns of Ron Klein, Sherrod Brown; Claire McCaskill; Bob Casey; Amy Klobuchar; Bill Ritter; the Appollo Alliance; The DNC and the DCCC. Bit of a slow load, so go pour a drink, kick back and see how the winners do it.
Then read the PDF analysis by Robert L. Borosage, Eric Lotke and Robert Gerson discussing the framing psychology, spending decisions, issues spin and image-shaping in the aforementioned ad campaigns.

The Center for the Study of the American Electorate has posted its preliminary report on the 2006 turnout, and the numbers may hold some clues for Dems looking to ’08. Overall the report concludes that “a modestly increased percentage of Americans turned out” at polls across the nation — 40.4 percent of eligible citizens, compared to 39.7 percent in the ’02 mid terms. This was the highest percentage since 1982 (42.1%).
Turnout increased in 21 states, but decreased in 26 states and the District of Columbia(CA, OR and WA absentee ballots are still being counted). The five highest turnout rates were recorded in MN, SD, MT, UT and ME, the lowest five in MS, LA, DC, NC, and AZ.
The highest Democratic turnout percentage increases over ’02 were recorded in NE (+10.7%); WI (+14.8%); VA (+13.2%); SD (+9.9%); WY (+9.8%); OH (+9.6%); VT (+8.6%) and NH (+8.6%). The highest Democratic turnout declines were in LA (-8.8); IL (-5.1%); AL (-5.0%); MS (-3.8%); GA (-3.5%); NC (-2.7%); and MA (-2.6%).
The most obvious conclusion is that the GOP GOTV operation praised in the MSM didn’t make a dent in the congressional elections. Even if the GOP did have a superior GOTV operation, it couldn’t overcome the rising tide of discontent or the limitations of Republican candidates. Good GOTV can make a difference in a close election, but not enough when a strong trend is surging.
The Democratic turnout decline in southern states lends some credence to the argument that Democratic resources would be more profitably invested in other regions. However, it could also be argued that these figures indicate not enough effort has been invested in developing southern candidates and campaigns.
Lastly, note that two of the top five turnout states, MN and ME allow voter registration on election day. Having picked up six governorships and nine state legislative chambers, Democrats may now be in a position to enact same day registration bills in more states. Note also that only three states have no voting restrictions on convicted felons or even prisoners, and two of them, ME and VT are top five turnout states.

Ezra Klein kicks off the soon-to-be-heated discussion about the meaning of the election with a provocative article in the American Prospect, “Spinned Right.” Klein shoots the interpretation of the election results as a triumph of conservative politics full of holes. A sample:

…the conservative election meme is a myth. Hard-right ballot initiatives, from the abortion ban in South Dakota to the gay marriage ban in Arizona, went down to defeat. It’s the first time that’s happened to an anti-gay marriage ballot initiative. Meanwhile, the stem cell initiative in Missouri passed.
More tellingly, every Democrat elected supports raising the minimum wage. They all support stem cell research. Only nine describe themselves as pro-life. And the most conservative Democrats, mainly those running in the South, largely went down to defeat. In Tennessee, Harold Ford, whose campaign focused on his church-going ways and conservative values, lost. Jim Webb is up by a few thousand votes. Meanwhile, unabashed progressives like Sherrod Brown, Ben Cardin, Sheldon Whitehouse, and former socialist Bernie Sanders cruised to victory. As Tom Schaller has noted, the flip-rate in the South was a meager five percent. The real transformations came in the liberal Northeast, where a slew of not-quite-left-enough Republicans were felled by a phalanx of progressive candidates, and the Rust Belt, where economic populists took out a series of traditional conservatives.

New Donkey Ed Kilgore and other Dems take a different view. As Kilgore notes:

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.

This interesting debate is just cranking up, and it will likely go on for a long time. One thing all Dems can all agree on; it’s a hell of a lot more fun to argue with each other after an historic victory.

All eyes on Montana, where the Senate race may also be headed for a recount, as Democrat Jon Tester holds on to a 1,700 vote lead as of 10:25 a.m. EST. According to Mary Clare Jalonick’s AP report in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle:

Burns, a three-term incumbent, and Tester, an organic grain farmer from Big Sandy, were separated by only about 1,700 votes and .04 percent with 99 percent of precincts reporting. Tester had 194,914 votes and Burns had 193,179 votes. Libertarian Stan Jones had 10,166 votes.
…Vote tallies were still coming in Wednesday morning, more than 10 hours after polls were scheduled to close – a situation caused by equipment glitches, high turnout and a recount in Yellowstone County because of errors there.
A losing candidate can request a recount at his own expense if the margin is within 1/2 of a percent, which would be a margin off roughly 2,000 votes in the Montana U.S. Senate race.
…Tester told CNN that the campaign did not see any irregularities in the voting so far, noting there is record turnout…”We are making sure that every vote that gets cast gets counted,” Tester said.

Don’t bother checking the Montana Secretary of State’s website for updates, since it lags behind the Associated Press totals.

The probability of a Virginia recount may not be the happiest of prospects, but it looks very good for Jim Webb, according to Tyler Whitley’s report in the from the Richmond Times-Dispatch (updated at 9:18 a.m.):

As of 8:45 this morning, Jim Webb’s lead over Sen. George Allen had grown to more than 8,000 votes, out of more than 2.3 million cast. Only six of 2,411 precincts remained to be counted, according to the State Board of Elections.
All but one of those precincts, in Isle of Wight County, were for absentee ballots. The counties where absentee ballots had yet to be counted were Halifax, Loudoun and two in James City. Absentee ballots also were yet to be counted in Fairfax City.

Hard to see how Allen can goose a victory out of an 8K deficit from those counties. Whitley’s article also includes some inside skinny on exit polls and a good rundown of the race.