The party of VICTORY

They did it.

In spite of Republican voter intimidation, voter fraud, slanderously false negative advertising, gerrymandering, cash advantage, legendary get-out-the-vote machinery, and the "evil genius" of Karl Rove, in spite of a skeptical media, in spite of the lack of a charismatic leader, and in spite of my own prediction, they did it.

And for the cherry on top, Don "I won't admit I lost a war" Rumsfeld has been consigned to the shameful sidebars of the history textbooks.

And Tom DeLay is gone. Rick Santorum is gone. George Allen is gone. I can barely believe my eyes.

In Slate, Bruce Reed points out what a startling turnaround this represents:

In 2004, the GOP had the Democratic Party on the ropes. Democrats lost people over 30, high-school grads, college grads, and voters in every income category over $30,000. The Democratic coalition was down to two groups with nothing else in common: dropouts and post-docs.

What a difference two years make. In 2006, Democrats won or tied every age group, every education level, and every income group below $100,000. Nearly half the electorate identified themselves as moderates, and Democrats won them by a whopping 61 percent to 38 percent. After a long, six-year vacation, the voting bloc Democrats have always needed to be a majority party—the middle class—finally came home.

That translates into roughly a 53 percent to 45 percent margin in the national vote. As Speaker-in-waiting Nancy Pelosi and her colleagues must have thought waking up this morning—quite a majority, Madam, if we can keep it.

At TPMCafe, Stirling Newberry issues a caution and a call for unity:

The reality is that out there in the country, America, the vote was not for ideology. It was agains corruption and stupidity, and it for change. The Democratic party does not have a big enough majority that any one wing can act without the others. Everyone wins, or all of those conservative seats that Bruce Reed is so happy about will be back in Republican hands in two years time. Everyone wins, or Nancy Pelosi will find her majority melt on key votes, and lead to her being as imperilled as an old NFL quarterback who punts with his hands.

Matt Yglesias hopes that the unheralded "second wave" of Democratic victories at the state level will reverse the tragedy of gerrymandering:

Heartening as last night's big sweep was, the volume of change in House seats was actually rather modest compared to the swing in public opinion and underlying voting behavior. The cause, in no small part, was pro-Republican gerrymandering. As you'll recall, the CW a few months ago was that Democratic recapture of the House was impossible because of these gerrymanders. Nonsense, of course. No gerrymander makes you immune to public opinion, good candidates, and well-run campaigns. But where the lines are drawn matter -- they turn narrow wins into small defeats, or big wins into medium-sized ones.

That's why it's so heartening to see these state-level wins that will put Democrats in a position to draw some more favorable lines in the future. Even better, state legislators get to draw their own lines so as to entrench victory.

I happen to totally agree. It's at the state level where elections are decided and permanent power bases are built, and the Democrats did even better at the state than the national level. This could be the start, not the culmination, of a Democratic wave.

Slate's Daniel Gross theorizes that Republicans are losing the rich:

[A] look at the rather crude exit polls show that the House Republicans didn't get much of a return on all the pandering they've done to the wealthy. And it's quite possible that the defection of angry rich folks might have helped tipped the balance in places like the Rhode Island and Virginia Senate races, and Republican house losses in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Colorado, and Arizona. Back in 2000, Bush referred to "the haves, and the have mores," as "my base." Today? Not so much...

Yesterday, the poll for the House vote in the East showed that the 25 percent of the electorate making over $100,000 went big for Democrats overall, 57-42, compared with a 49-48 margin in 2004. In 2006, those making between $150,000 and $200,000 voted for Democratic candidates by a whopping 63-37 majority, and those making more than $200,000 went Democratic by a slim 50-48 margin. That's a huge shift from 2004, when Republicans took the $150,000 to $200,000 demographic 50-48 and rang up a huge victory among the over $200,000 set: 56-40...

On a nationwide basis, the wealthy still vote Republican. But not by much. According to the 2006 exit poll, on a nationwide basis, of all homes making more than $100,000, Republican House candidates received a 51-47 majority, and among those making more than $200,000, Republicans racked up a 53-46 majority.

And there's word that evangelicals were a key factor in the Democrats' victory when they defected from the Republicans in droves:

Those early exit polls also showed that three in four voters said corruption was very important to their vote, and they tended to vote Democratic. In a sign of a dispirited GOP base, most white evangelicals said corruption was very important to their vote — and almost a third of them turned to the Democrats.

The Washington Post agrees, and argues that religious Christians must be a part of any lasting Democratic coalition.
TNR reports that Catholics are turning blue too.

And TNR also thinks the Netroots had a lot to do with the Dem victory.

That, and Western populist candidates.

Of course, in the end, it was all about the Iraq War.

If the Democrats are going to maintain this big tent they've built - a fragile and beautiful coalition - they're going to have to do a lot of smart things in the next 2 years, and avoid doing stupid things. Easier said than done, I know...more to come on my ideas about how to do that.

But tonight, let's just bask in the glory of the fact that they did it. The Democrats, America's traditional party of national unity, has come through one more time when we needed them most. The Republicans, a party that has slipped into corruption, fraud, and blithe ineffectuality, have been shown the doors of Capitol Hill. Good riddance to them, and let's raise a glass for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Sometimes the good guys actually do win.