Democrats take the Senate!!

George isn't running for president any time soon. Even with the changing demographics in Virginia, he lost a campaign he should have won to a candidate who had never before run for public office by running a miserable campaign.

I have been talking about Jim Webb on this forum for nine months. (And incidentally his wife grew up in the Vietnamese community in New Orleans East.) I am a huge fan of Webb and actually made a small contribution to his campaign. I think the guy is going to make a very interesting US Senator, but Webb's forte is not his campaign skills. Allen ran a terrible campaign, and the last-minute attack on Webb's novels was just stupid and backfired.

The biggest consequence of the Democrats taking control of the Senate will be Leahy heading the Senate Judiciary committee, seemingly the most ideological of all Senate committees. If Stevens steps down, there will be a battle over Senate confirmation. But the Democrats need to be careful. They don't need to remind the country with a presidential campaign 12 months away of all the reasons so many went Republican 12 years ago.