Victory?

Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Exit Polls

It's over. The Dems came through, and their victory march delivered a strong message to Washington.
It was a long night for most newscasters, and I understood. As expected, a few Senate races are nail-biters (and Virginia is still up in the air as I write this, although AP has declared Webb the winner). We'll just have to wait and see.

Me, I already happy that that crazy, looping biorhythm that is American politics has swung up again. A decade from now the people will probably get tired off it all again, and another cry of "Throw the bums out!" will be heard across the country, but for now it's enough to see Carl Rove and his hyper-partisan, 51% style of campaigning thrown for a major loop. He didn't see this one coming, at least until it was too late.

For now I will bask, pleased that the Congress has turned in a new, less fanatical (if possibly more gridlocked) direction.
I hope the President has the wits to work with his new Congress, a Congress that will actually implement that rather quaint custom of oversight.
I hope all the mandate-braggers of 2004 put this election in their pipe and have a good pull.
I hope we all, even me, realize that politics is politics but we do have soldiers at risk and we need to pull together if we are to get out of this Middle Eastern mess.
I hope we heal as a nation.

I hope.