[Constantine XIII]

Actually, this is the part where we go on the interweb and blame everyone except for ourselves.

:p

[Ancesthntr]

The Dems didn't win - the Republicans lost.

Iraq was clearly the largest failure - and it was a failure of vision and nerve, IMHO. Bush still had the country in his pocket when we went into Iraq. He could and should have gone in with more troops to finish the job more quickly - but he seemed afraid of the press/media reaction.

2nd, the Republicans did lose their way - they spent like drunken sailors, and they failed miserably to settle the immigration problem. Had those 2 areas been attended to properly, IMHO we'd still be talking about Speaker Hastert.

The 3rd problem was with corruption and stupid statements. It wasn't a huge factor, but it didn't help at all. Foley and Allen's idiotic macaca statement lost the Republicans seats. OK, the Dems do stupid stuff, too; you expect a certain amount of it, but that alone shouldn't (and usually doesn't) decide elections on a national level.

The Republicans need to regrow a pair. They need to stand in the middle of the train tracks with their hands out shouting "STOP!!!" I expect to see Senate filibusters of the idiotic, impractical and unconstitutional crap that the Dems will inevitably try to put on Bush's desk, and when these things land on his desk anyway I expect to see vetoes. If the Republicans cannot do this, then we will have to relearn the phrase "President Clinton" in 2008 and all will be lost.

Pence is a good man - I just hope that he, and people like him, can find the b@lls and backbone of the Republican Party.

[jordan8]

It is the duty of the losing party in a free election to humbly accept defeat

And nobody humbly accepts defeat better than the Republicans. The media homogenizes politics. There is really little difference between the Republican and Democratic leadership's vision of what sort of society we should be, mostly there are just tactical differences in how to get there. They both believe in the politically correct society as broadly laid out by the mass media, the Democrats because they want to, the Republicans because they have to. The Republicans hoped to obscure that fact with the war in Iraq, but perpetual war for perpetual power was always a nonstarter, something a less desperate group might have recognized.

[mission9]

"...renew our commitment to limited government, national defense, traditional values and reform."

I believe more cogent, result-oriented national policies must emerge too, such as a commitment to energy independence, and immigration reform.

[Quix]

Lost

--our way

--our collective minds

--our values

--our horse sense

--our safety

--our property

--our freedoms

--our opportunities

. . . maybe not in one fell swoop . . . but ragingly more so.

[kevao]

Twenty-five years after the Reagan Administration came to Washington with a conservative agenda of limited government, the American people chose a different course.

LOL!!! The Republican Party that lost yesterday was *not* a Reaganesque, conservative party.