Voting Day!

I don't have any predictions -- other folks are better at that. I'd urge you to vote, but since you're reading this blog, you're probably doing that already. I'd tell some kind of story about what I'm doing at the polls, but I'm here in Singapore with my absentee ballot hopefully in the hands of the Travis County election people.

While the outlook is obviously gloomy, it's important not to lose perspective. Assuming that the expected scenarios come to pass, and Democrats hold the Senate while clearly losing the House, things will still be better politically than they were for most of the last ten years. It's not like the Republican Party can just run off and start more disastrous wars. On the downside, GOP attack politics will be really messy and we won't be able to make any serious legislative progress on substantive issues like climate change and the bad economy. That last part is what's really depressing. Hopefully Obama can use the powers of the executive branch to just fix some of this stuff.

I expect that we come out of this with a playable hand. Maybe we end up playing it badly and disaster unfolds over the next several years. Maybe we play it well and we're in shape to clear out 2010's Sharron Angle types when 2016 rolls around for full control of Washington again, this time without as many Byrds and Dodds making process objections when we want to pass legislation. Republicans have overreached before in doing their bizarre Congressional publicity stunts -- impeachment, Terri Schiavo -- so it remains to see whether GOP Congressional leaders will make smart tactical choices too. There's lots of action ahead of us, folks.

And if any of you happen to be in Singapore on Friday, there's going to be a party at my place. We don't know yet whether it'll be a drunken depressed party or a drunken mildly relieved party, but either way it's on.