While the Democrats are going to do well tonight from an objective standpoint, we will have to wait to see how they fare compared to expectations. However, it is telling that the election will be as close as it is despite the terrible environment for Republicans, who have nobody to blame but themselves and who have made it possible for Democrats to run a purely negative campaign and put forth no agenda of their own.

If Republicans would have passed earmark reform, held the line on spending, done something meaningful on immigration after making a big stink about it and made permanent any of the 2003 tax cuts, they would not be in this mess. Guys like DeWine and Weldon deserve to get dumped, but it's too bad the rest of the party is so esconced in the Beltway mentality of big government largesse and incumbency protection that they have to drag guys like Ken Blackwell and Rick Santorum down with them.

Leaving aside the fact that Democrats may be the worse of two evils, voters would be justified in delivering a drubbing to Republicans. Our "leadership" in Congress has been shameful and ineffectual. If it takes two excruciating, but in the grand scheme of things short, years of Speaker Pelosi to return to the spirit of '94, then it could be worth it in the long run. Especially if we can replace guys like Hastert, Boehner and Blunt with guys like Pence and Shadegg. Pelosi will be stymied anyway trying to run the House with a tiny majority that includes some very moderate Democrats.

But stepping back from the particulars of 2006, the broader picture is good for Republicans. Arthur Brooks in today's Wall Street Journal points out the larger trends that favor conservatives.

By all rights, the Republicans left in Congress after this election should be able to pool to work in one minivan. Instead, they are probably facing a 10% setback in House seats--hardly a disaster by midterm election standards. What's more, many of the Democrats at the vanguard of today's political "revolution" are not exactly left-wing zealots. Robert Casey, who leads incumbent Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, opposes abortion rights. On issues of gun control and immigration, Senate candidate Harold Ford of Tennessee sounds like a Republican. James Webb, who seeks to unseat Virginia Sen. George Allen, actually used to be a Republican. The lesson is that Democrats can win modestly if the Republicans implode, and preferably if they look more or less like Republicans. This is hardly a mythic victory for the American left; indeed, the larger cultural picture--in which the election is but a minor political datum--remains strikingly bleak for American liberalism.

Read the whole thing for his analysis, but it should cheer you up. So don't fret, fellow Republicans, today will be a blip in the big picture.. Every dog has his day and 2006 will be the Democrats' day. Think of this as a chance for our party to do penance and to cleanse itself of its corrupt, profligate ways.

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