Deborah Lipp

A lot of us feel like Tom Tomorrow:

It’s as if the biopsy results just came back and you don’t have cancer after all. You’re not giddy, exactly, but you can finally take a deep breath and maybe let some of the tension drain out of your shoulders. The future remains uncertain but you can begin to imagine it as something other than relentlessly bleak.

This feeling of relief also came up in comments at Tom’s place, and I said:

I realized this morning, I brace myself every day for what I’m going to be angry about. And today I didn’t have to.

You know, it feels good. And it’s not that I think that rose petals are now going to be coming out of Harry Reid’s ass. Back to Tom Tomorrow:

As a general rule, I don’t have much faith in Democrats, having not fallen off the turnip truck within recent memory

Not so much. But I feel I can make a difference now. Because I’ve been calling Senators Clinton and Schumer, and my representative here in NY 17, Eliot Engel. But sometimes I haven’t been, because what can they do, really? Whatever heinous compromises they made, have been the compromises of people who are fundamentally powerless in a Republican-rigged system. The majority party has been steadily stripping the rights of the minority party, until our Democratic representatives could do little more than speech-giving and fundraising.

Now they can do more. Now I can, when they behave like assholes, make phone calls and feel that someone might listen. And oh, my, does that ever feel good.

Bob Harris has a really good look at what this historic victory means. It’s worth reading the whole thing, but here’s the part that really got me between the eyes:

If the numbers stay as they are (pending recounts, etc.), here’s the final scoreboard, assuming I haven’t missed something:

Not one Democratic incumbent lost in the Senate.
Not one Democratic incumbent lost in the House of Representatives.
Not one Democratic incumbent lost in any state Governorship.

All told, 504 major offices were at stake tonight.

Not one changed hands going Democrat to Republican.

Wow.

Let’s rally ’round the bonfire, boys!

Rumsfeld resigns.

I just watched some of the press conference. David Gregory asked if the election was a referendum on the war. Bush said, yes, the war, but other things as well. He said people want their representatives to be “honest and ethical.”

Whoa Nelly. Isn’t that like, admitting the Republican Congress was dishonest and unethical?

Why, yes, I think it was.

I spoke, as you know, to a lot of voters. Over fifty calls yesterday alone, of which fifteen or so resulted in conversations. (I left about 20 phone messages.) Over two hundred calls total, so make that about fifty conversations.

The number one issue people mentioned to me was corruption, followed by healthcare. If I mentioned the war to such people, they said “That too” but it wasn’t first on their minds. What was first on their minds was “Get the bums OUT.”

People have changed parties. Uninformed people who didn’t know their candidates’ names were committed to a straight Democratic ticket, especially former Republicans. I still think it was worthwhile to repeat the name a couple of times.

It was hard to feel I was getting out the vote, because almost everyone I spoke with was pretty firm, one way or another. They’d already voted, or were about to go out and vote. No one needed polling place information when I offered it. I didn’t take that as a sign that I was useless, I took it as a sign that voters were unusually interested, and that’s a good thing. I honestly feel I’d work to get out the vote even if I wasn’t working for Dems. (I mean, I wouldn’t work for Repugs, but I’d be happy to do party-neutral calling. It’s the patriotic thing to do.)

Nonetheless, most of the calls I made yesterday were in Virginia, so if we take the Senate, you know who to thank. 😉