If I Grin Any Wider the Top of My Head Will Fall Off

I was born by the river in a little tent
Oh and just like the river I've been running ever since
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will

It's been too hard living but I'm afraid to die
Cause I don't know what's up there beyond the sky
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will

I go to the movie and I go downtown
Somebody keep telling me don't hang around
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will

Then I go to my brother
And I say brother help me please
But he winds up knockin' me
Back down on my knees

Ohhhhhhhhh.....
There been times that I thought I couldn't last for long
But now I think I'm able to carry on
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will

--Sam Cooke

And damned if it didn't.

If anyone shows up here in the next week the Santorum Shots are on me.

I went into this election afraid that once again the Democrats would snatch Defeat from the jaws of Victory. Or maybe the Republican dirty tricks - voter suppression, letters to Democrats, Blacks and Latinos that they'd be arrested if they voted, Saddam Hussein's finely timed verdict in the Court of Judge Wallaby, Diebold, poll-switching and all the rest - would steal enough votes to swing the election.

It didn't matter. The Democrats took back the House, the Senate and the governor's mansion in the biggest mid-term reversal in recent decades. No Democratic incumbents lost at the national or gubernatorial level. Not. One. Single. Seat.

The Progressives will point to their get out the vote effort. The DLC GOP-lite will say that their "triangulation" strategy carried voters in Kansas or Indiana. The foreign press is pretty much writing off the Bush presidency and sees it as a massive repudiation of him and his policies. Polls seem to show that people have gotten tired of the Republican strategy of appealing to raw fear. "The faggots are coming! The faggots are coming!" and "If you vote against us the terrorists will come and steal your precious bodily fluids" just stopped working. Even 30% of evangelicals voted Democrat this time. Here in Oregon it was nearly as good. The "vulnerable" Ted Kulongoski was easily re-elected despite Saxton's enormously expensive campaign. He will start his second term in the same Party as both Houses in the Legislature. It would have been nice if Measure 42 had passed and 47 hadn't.

What will the Democrats do? Will they take a Progressive turn? Will they do a Tony Blair and position themselveds slightly to the right of the GOP? Will we see deadlock? Dare we hope that they will shine lights into the dark corners and watch the roaches scuttle? Those are all tomorrow's questions. Right now I'm basking in the warmth of the first good political news in twelve years.

Thank you America. You did the right thing.

[Note: It was really, REALLY hard not to make Santorum jokes.]