Well, it sure is a bad day to be the most Republican-inclined woman on the Ortho-blogosphere.

I had been sort of hoping it just wouldn’t be as bad as the polls were leading us to believe. So on top of all the other indignities, I have to start believing polls now? Ugh.

It’s worth remembering, of course, that there’s not much of this that impacts my daily life. The election result I’m really the most depressed about is the stem cell initiative that was approved. It was the only one in the country in this election (which I think is why Michael J. Fox did his ad first in Missouri), and I wonder if it was a sort of trial balloon. And I also wonder if the amendment would have passed if it hadn’t been for really deceptive language on the ballot, which made it look like the amendment discouraged cloning. Actually what it does is pay some due diligence to restrictive language while permitting the state to clone fertilized embryos for stem cell research.

It’s horrible, and now it’s the law, unless it gets declared unconstitutional. But that’s unlikely, isn’t it? I don’t believe conservatives remembered to order up our own passel of activist judges — who knew we’d need those creeps?

So, trying to look on the good side:

• All right, all right, they’ve won. Now shut up — I’ve met some liberals and heard many more who seemed like they’d just gotten obsessed with “winning,” as if the elections were a football game. I may be guilty of that kind of reductionism myself at times, but with the kind of issues that are at stake in elections right now, it seems like a tiresome self-indulgence.
• All right, all right, they’ve lost. Now shut up — I never could get behind the “We’ll show those guys!” conservatives who advocated staying home or voting Democrat to “teach the GOP a lesson.” There’s a Supreme Court justice that might get appointed before ‘08. What “lesson” will it teach the GOP if Bush is unable to get anyone remotely moderate appointed? What “lesson” will the GOP learn when Bush caves on minimum wage and immigrant amnesty, as he seems likely to do?
• Bluedog Democrats — A number of Bluedog Democrats — more conservative, and sometimes pro-life, pro-business and pro-military — got in. Any chance they’ll affect the Old Guard types who run things? Naah, probably not, but it might make for some interesting fireworks.
• That whole “governing” thing – The Democrats have been putting a lot of energy into running down the Republicans and using them as handy scapegoats. It’s easy to talk about the wonderful things you would do if you’re not in power. The Democrats’ margins might be slim, but they exist, and there are a great number of True Believers who are waiting to be impressed.
• Better chances in 2008? — I’m not really sure. Most people don’t feel undying allegiance to one party or the other; they just want to see if any of these clowns actually has a single idea how to run the country. With the margins as slim as they’ll be, it’s unlikely that the GOP will wow anybody with their manliness. Nor will the Dems (in spite of what they tell the Daily Kos crowd) be able to be Liberal as They Wanna Be. Everyone will probably just pussyfoot around accomplishing nothing much. And in 2008, we’ll have at it without having any clearer idea if our party of choice is worthy of our vote.

Well, that certainly didn’t cheer me up much. I see Chocolate Chip Cookies of the Apocalypse in my future.