Last night before bed, after a long grueling night of watching results, updating the live blog results page and watching liberal pundits party and conservative pundits freak out, I had my woe is me moment. Wrote the words I dreaded, put up a little video and went to bed.
It's a new day, I am over it. We win some, we lose some.
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan deserve credit for exciting the Republican base again and Romney's concession speech was class in and of itself.
Despite the doom and gloom I am seeing, recriminations, hand wringing and the inevitable "what went wrong" posts, the fact is that America voted for status quo.
Obama is still President, The Senate is still led by Harry Reid and the House of Representatives is still controlled by Republicans.
The state of affairs is exactly what it was before last night's election.
Obama will continue to push his agenda. The Senate will continue to do nothing. The House will continue to hold a tight fist on the purse strings of America.
Our Republic voted for that.
Weeding through the offerings from the right this morning, one of sanest voices in all the headlines I am seeing from conservative pundits,, one not allowing bitterness to rule, is Michelle Malkin, who points to the good that came out of this election:
We have so much to be proud of tonight:
*Diligent Tea Party activists grew the limited government movement and organized — producing winning candidates across the country at the local, state, and national levels.
*A new generation of citizen activists online helped contribute to the vigilant policing of media bias and White House lies on everything from Fast and Furious to Solyndra to Benghazi.
*Conservative women pushed back more forcefully than ever against Democrat femme-a-gogues and Planned Parenthood promoters.
*Small business owners, Republican blue-collar workers, minority conservatives, young conservatives, religious liberty advocates, and growing numbers of Hollywood conservatives all stood up and made their voices heard.
Thank you Michelle, I almost despaired, not because of the results of last night's election because that is done and over with, but because I wasn't sure I would find someone that was looking at the good that was done this campaign season.
Let me add a couple more points to Malkin's above.
• The right united in a way that hasn't been seen in decades.
• We welcomed in many young Republican voters. While Obama captured the majority of young voters, Romney captured six percent more of the youth vote in 2012 than McCain did in 2008. In 2008 Obama garnered 66 percent to McCain's 31 percent and this election cycle it was 59 percent Obama and 37 percent for Romney. That is a 13 point swing.
[Update] LID reminds us of another bit of good tidings from last night.
• Exit polls showed that Obama received 68% of the Jewish vote, the lowest percentage since Michael Dukakas received 64% in 1988. (Thanks LID) - [End Update]
We have four years to capitalize on these gains. Let's not waste them.
So, pick yourselves up, dust yourselves off and come off the ledge because nothing has changed with the White House, Senate and the House of Representatives..... it is status quo for the next two to four years.
[Update] Legal Insurrection gets the quote of the day "View Tuesday as a substantial setback but not the end."
PS- I saved the best part of this morning for last, then forgot to mention it.
The never-ending 2012 campaign season is over.. no more political commercials!!! Yeah!