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Nice summation MuadDIb.
Actually, President Bush said something the other day that was extremely astute.
There's no way you can interpret the Democratic gain of 28 seats in the house as anything other than a "thumping". However, this election doesn't even match the 2004 election in terms of the magnitude of the victories. There was a really interesting graphic on the NY Times today showing win margins from the 2004 and 2006 House elections (and linking the districts in the two). In 2004, the Republicans won by much much larger margins than the Dems did this week. This week was remarkable for the breadth of victories, not the depth of them. No mandate, no sea change. Just a change in direction, and one that could be re-fought in 2008. To produce a sea change will require some dynamic leaders to emerge in the next couple of years and some visions to be articulated in a pretty compelling way.
I'll say again in this thread that the governorships the Dems picked up could be of as much strategic import as the legislative victories. We could be seeing Governors from the class of '06 as presidential candidates in several elections in a decade or so.
ubertuber's packaged assessment: nice job dems, but it's still just an electoral pancake - broad and thin.
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Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam
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