The Democrats take all!!

I know I'm late posting about this, a week late to be exact, but with the wedding, the vacation, the return to work, and a class I had to take for my job I had no time left to blog or read or anything else.

I did however follow the election returns, and it's a big understatement to say I was delighted by the results. The Democratic Party won, as was expected, the House of Representatives by gaining 29 seats (more than twice what most people expected and what they needed to retake the House from the GOP) and more may be coming, since ten races are still now undecided.

The Democrats also pulled off the unthinkable by winning the 6 seats they needed to retake the Senate as well. They now have a razor thin majority of 51-49, thanks to the 2 lone Independents who will vote with them and against the Republicans.

Unfortunately, one of those two is Joe Lieberman, who won his seat here in Connecticut for a 4th time, in spite of a legitimate Democratic candidate who had beat him at the primaries. Joe, sanctimonious prick that he is, decided to run anyway, and ended up winning thanks largely to the state's Republicans' support (and the Republican Party's money machine).

It remains to be seen how long it will be before Joe decides to switch affiliation and join the Republicans on the other side of the aisle, thereby giving them the Senate back (in a 50-50 situation the Vice President breaks the tie, and guess how Cheney would vote...) Honestly, I don't feel comfortable at all knowing that Lieberman is now the single most powerful Senator in Washington. If I were Reid, I'd sleep better at night knowing that Ned Lamont were the new Senator from Connecticut.

Finally, the Democrats also won 6 governorships, bringing their total to 28 vs the Republicans' 21. One race is still undecided. This bodes well for 2008's presidential elections, since the state governor can often help his party's candidate win the state's electoral votes.

All in all it was a terrific result. Not only did the Democrats take back both chambers of Congress, thereby regaining the ability to block each and every move of this very dangerous president in his last two years on the job (how do you like your official lame-duck status, Mr. President?), but they also managed not to lose anything they had. Every gain the Democrats made came directly out of the Republicans' columns (and one independent).

That's a great result, that speaks volumes in terms of how much dissatisfied the country was with the Republican leadership across the land. Yes, because the Democrats also won the majority of state houses and senates throughout the country.

Now we're well positioned to take the White House in 2008 and make even more gains in the Congress. Let's try not to screw it up and we'll be in a position of power for a long time to come.