READER EMAIL: Here are a few excerpts from my voluminous inbox:

While I agree that National Security was the big stick that enabled the Republican success in this election, I don’t think you can overstate the repugnance with which many independents viewed Wellstone’s memorial service. I think there is a strong possibility that mobilized many folks to vote against the Democrats.

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Minnesota folk have a strong sense of decency and and watching Democrats make politics into a tasteless political rally offended us to the core. The Wellstone rally was all people talked about here last week. Poll lines were 3 hours long yesterday; I am guessing the final totals will set a new record for voter turnout.

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OK, so it’s not really a revolution everywhere. Here in Georgia it is nothing short of that: the collapse of a 130-year-old structure of Democratic control of the state government that nobody saw coming, outside perhaps of Sonny Perdue’s immediate family and maybe Ralph Reed.

One local trend that a lot of people missed is that in some key states, including Georgia, Massachusetts and Maryland, Republicans were able to run as outsiders critizing an entrenched Democratic political establishment that voters resented more than everyone thought. This kind of thing can cut both ways, of course, but outside of Illinois and maybe Michigan it didn’t. Even in Wisconsin, where Tommy Thompson’s successor got turned out, the Republicans took over both houses of the state legislature.

On the national level, the big issue that Democrats still haven’t come to grips with may not be the economy at all, though I agree with what Josh Marshall says today about their emphasis on tactics over ideas. The big issue that the end of the Cold War and the 1990’s boom obscured may be that Democrats are still not trusted on national security/foreign policy issues. The last election where they were, really, was the one in 1964. Elections they have won since were those where the electorate’s attention was focused elsewhere: on the aftermath of Watergate (1976), or on the economy (1992 and ’96).

Plenty of criticisms can be made of how Republican administrations have handled defense and foreign affairs, but as with economic issues you cannot beat something with nothing. Democrats are for the most part still identified with weakness, as they have been since the McGovern candidacy in 1972, and with putting interest group politics ahead of national security. One of the most effective GOP attacks on Democrats this year was about applying civil service rules to the new Dept. of Homeland Security — the Democrats never came up with a good reason for their position other than that it was what the public employee unions wanted. To most people it looked like doing what the unions wanted was the thing they were really serious about.

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On the national scene, I think this is relief from the constipation that has gripped us for the last two years. Before the elections, big media was touting that this election would be a referendum on the Bush Presidency and I think it was. Look for those same pundits to back quickly away from that statement now. I think it also shows, much to the pundits’ dismay, that the American people are paying attention.

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As the fallout becomes clearer, I think the Dems are going to see that there are a LOT of people like me: Registered Democrats who have previously been party faithful but who jumped the fence based on the war on terrorism. I talked to a little old man while in line for the polls and he told me he was in this category, and was voting Republican for the first time in 20 years. “Those Democrats are going to get more Americans killed,” he said.

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This past Saturday I was in a townie pub in a ‘burb of Boston. I knew then that O’Brien was toast. Her behavior in the last debate turned off the local and blue collar vote, as did the fact that three of her relatives are “on the payroll”. The final straw, I think, was her stand on allowing 16 year olds to have abortions without parental consent — it turned off many “moderate” pro-choicers. She came across as Hillary Clinton would if she only could, and that’s a sure-fire loser anywhere.

So without the “townie”/blue collar vote, O’Brien didn’t have a chance because MA is being transformed by it’s high-tech, entrepreneurial economy. The liberal base is being sapped by a new breed that wants low taxes, increasing property values and a continuing supply of high paying, high tech jobs. But the kicker is that the “townies” are now recognizing that this is in their best interest too and are defecting from this base.

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Interesting spin in the NY Times that says that President Bush must account for all of those waving hands that voted for the Dems. I don’t recall them saying that when the Dems won big in 1998. Then it was a mandate.

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You voiced some wonder that Ehrlich won in MD despite his position on guns (or perhaps despite KKT’s position on guns).

I would suggest that during the sniper episode more than a few otherwise liberal or liberal-minded people went to buy a gun and came up against the waiting period and the State Police background checks and the Federal forms answer truthfully on penalty of a felony) and rethought their positions on guns and gun control.(Hey, I’m a law-abiding guy/gal, why can’t I have a gun to protect myself, and what if I need one during the waiting period? What if I made a mistake by accident on the forms and get in trouble? Hey, I vote for Connie Morella, therefore I am ok, right?) Maybe some cognitive dissonance set in….

A statistic that came out during the campaign was that thousands of guns were fingerprinted in the last two years (since the law was passed)and not a single crime has been solved on that basis. Meanwhile, the state archivist was found to have declared that MD would not be cooperating with other states’ firearms background checks “for lack of resources”, calling into question the commitment of the administration to doing something sensible about gun ownership by criminals with the existing laws. Further, I believe there was a brief period of time when even the background checks for Maryland gun purchasers were not done properly. When the sniper’s weapon was found to have been brought in from out of state maybe some realized the futility of the exercise.

All of this makes it more than reasonable to assume that what we do about guns is a reasonable question, not an automatic “yes” to more gun laws.

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I’m the state chairman of the Massachusetts Libertarian Party.

I spent the whole day yesterday at the polls, talking to voters and to the political operatives for the Democrats and Republicans.

What Jay Fitzgerald fails to mention is that the anti-income tax initiative was completely a Libertarian initiative, and one that every Republican (Mitt Romney included) opposed.

Tell me again how this is supposed to be victory for conservatives?

This is a stunning victory for the Libertarians; we have demonstrated our ability to set the agenda.

Meanwhile, some members of the Republican state committee (who shall remain unnamed to protect their privacy) have complained to me on numerous occasions of the leftward tilt of their own party, and of the constant witch hunts to eliminate “real” conservatives. . . .

In the mean time, the Libertarian Party is the fastest growing party in

Massachusetts, and we have only just begun.

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1. Terry can claim all he wants that the Democratic base didn’t come out, but the places they DID come out is where they got hammered worst (congratulations, Jeb!)

2. Jeffords just lost everything he sold his soul for, and I think milk AND cheese will be getting much cheaper in the coming months. . . .

9. Look for Maureen Dowd to make inappropriate comparisons to this mandate for Bush to the 100% turnout/vote for Saddaam in Iraq. She’ll make it fit, trust me. If she doesn’t then Molly Ivins will.

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The consensus on the Street is that the Fed will have to cut rates again today to provide stimulus to the economy. Yet Democrats have tried to claim that they have a better economic plan — raise taxes!

If Greenspan does cut rates today, it will serve as an exclamation point to the message voters gave Democrats yesterday — that they don’t have a clue when it comes to a plan for the future.

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The question I’m trying to ask is: “Can the Senate refuse to seat Lautenberg based on the violation of state election laws?”

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Voters in South Carolina elected Mark Sanford governor. He proposed a plan to phase out that state’s income tax.

Voters in liberal Massachusetts nearly passed an initiative to repeal the state’s income tax. It failed only 55-45, a shockingly close margin in liberal Taxachusetts.

Voters in liberal Oregon overwhelmingly defeated a ballot initiative to create universal healthcare in the state because it would have caused massive increases to the state’s income tax.

Clearly, anti-tax sentiment is brewing.

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Ehrlich skillfully finessed the gun issue and made it into the crime issue. According the FBI’s data Maryland is the third most violent state in the nation. (I’ve not seen the more recent data, but at the census bureau site, Maryland was the fourth most violent state in 2000, up from sixth in 1990. Violent crime rates in Maryland did drop, just not as fast as in most other states during the 1990’s.) Ehrlich advocates bringing Richmond’s Project Exile to Maryland to fight gun crime. (Both the NRA and anti-gun groups supported Project Exile.) I know it’s a cliche to say that we need to control criminals not guns, but it’s true. Given Townsend’s spotty record on controlling crime – she was in charge of fighting crime in the administration – Ehrlich’s win also suggests that simply passing more gun control laws is an abdication masquerading as fighting crime.

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How would you like to be Frank Lautenberg this morning?

78 years old and back in the Senate in the *minority* party. Yeah, that’ll get him jumping out of bed every morning.

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It seems to me that the combination of (i) the President’s ability to aid his party’s candidates and (ii) his ability heretofore to keep Senate Dems on the ropes on Iraq, executive privilege, etc. flatly disprove the sentiment running high circa 1999 that the rabid Clinton-haters had irreparably damaged the presidency for all time.

Of course, the speed with which those same persons began to blast the Administration’s “unilateralism” sort of gave the lie to that “damaged presidency” thesis earlier. Even Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. was recently trumpeting the return of the Imperial Presidency a few weeks ago.

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I wonder if German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has placed a congratulatory call to President Bush yet?

This just scratches the surface of what I’ve gotten.

DEMOCRATS LOOKING FOR A MODEL could do worse than to study Phil Bredesen’s campaign. Bredesen looked like a loser early on — having been beaten by the not-very-impressive Don Sundquist in 1994. The Republican, Van Hilleary, was in a strong position and had a good campaign organization. But Bredesen won convincingly in a state that is trending Republican. He even pulled a lot of Republican votes out of East Tennessee, which should have been a Hilleary stronghold.

Bredesen is pro-choice, and generally seen as less anti-tax than Hilleary. He ran as a strongly pro-gun candidate, attending NRA events — I even saw a flyer for a charity skeet-shoot between him and Hilleary. And (though of course it’s easier to do as a gubernatorial candidate) he kept a strong separation between himself and the Barbara Boxer wing of the Democratic Party.

BUSHISM OF THE DAY: N.Z. Bear’s got it.

THE DAY AFTER: John Ellis has some thoughts, and a warning against hubris.

LAST WEEK I GOT A MESSAGE containing an email exchange between an Air Force Academy cadet and a professor who responded very rudely to a polite request for information. I didn’t run it because I couldn’t verify it and the professor’s response seemed so stereotypically rude and anti-military that I wasn’t entirely sure it was real:

From: Peter Kirstein

Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2002 1:46 PM

To: Kurpiel Robert C4C CS26

Subject: Re: Academy Assembly

You are a disgrace to this country and I am furious you would even think I would support you and your aggressive baby killing tactics of collateral damage. Help you recruit. Who, top guns to reign death and destruction upon nonwhite peoples throughout the world? Are you serious sir? Resign your commission and serve your country with honour.

No war, no air force cowards who bomb countries with AAA, without possibility of retaliation. You are worse than the snipers. You are imperialists who are turning the whole damn world against us. September 11 can be blamed in part for what you and your cohorts have done to Palestinians, the VC, the Serbs, a retreating army at Basra.

You are unworthy of my support.

Peter N. Kirstein

Professor of History

Saint Xavier University.

It was, in fact, genuine, proving that some stereotypes have a basis in fact. Neal Boortz has been on top of it and has the whole story, ending with an apology from Professor Kirstein. All I can say is that the students and faculty of the U.S. Air Force Academy have shown far more maturity and civility than their antimilitarist critic. Again.

Although Professor Kirstein has apologized, I can’t help but feel that his initial letter was a more accurate reflection of his feelings than the apology that came out after this letter received widespread attention. And I think that the identification of people like Kirstein with the Democratic Party helps to explain yesterday’s election. While I would defend Kirstein’s right to spout his insulting twaddle — just as I defend the right of fraternity members to wear blackface, which I regard as behavior of equivalent intellectual and moral seriousness — I am embarrassed that the academic profession claims so many people who think like Professor Kirstein, and talk like Professor Kirstein — and that the academic profession, for the most part, isn’t embarrassed about that at all. Indeed, he would have been likely to receive more censure from academics had he impersonated Michael Jackson.

That the email is barely literate, of course, adds insult to injury.

UPDATE: A reader directed me to Kirstein’s website, which he characterizes as “almost a parody.” The picture of Karl Marx’s grave appears to have been removed, but Kirstein does advise fellow professors to “Be prepared for occasional frustration when students don’t always respond to your enthusiasim [sic] and dreams.” He’s also blasting Campus Watch for “McCarthyism,” but the fact that Campus Watch has named him an apologist for terrorism seems to do more to enhance than to detract from Campus Watch’s credibility.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Nope, the Marx picture is still up — it’s here.

ONE MORE: Some liberals in academia are catching on, as this piece from the Duke University Chronicle illustrates. (Via LGF).

LAST UPDATE, REALLY: Reader Tom Donahue writes:

Peter Kirstein’s response to the Air Force Academy cadet is completely in keeping with what those who knew him in graduate school would have expected. Peter and I were in the St. Louis University doctoral program at the same time in the late 60’s, early 70’s. His every day conversation then was filled with ideological cant and he was viewed as a largely harmless if somewhat annoying buffoon. Too bad that the passage of 30 plus years has brought such little intellectual development.

Unfortunately, there is a whole generation of annoying buffoons, hired back when standards were much, much lower, still occuping positions in academia. People like that would be screened out today.

I PLUGGED THE WEEKLY STANDARD’S SUCCESS in getting so many actual articles online so fast, but I should point out that the folks at The Corner pulled an amazing journalistic all-nighter, too.

EUROPEANS FRET, FEARING A BOLDER BUSH: Reader John Chang sends this link, and notes that Gerhard Schroder should be as worried about his prospects as Jim Jeffords. Not much evidence that it’s sunk in, though:

“The likelihood that the American president will feel even more self-confident about his own views than prior to the election is great,” Karsten Voigt, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s U.S. affairs coordinator, told Reuters.

“But on the other side, I think that he needs to convince Europeans. And so far as military action (in Iraq) is concerned, he has not convinced the Germans — yet.”

The question that the Germans and the French need to be asking is not “what will Bush do to win us over,” but rather “what can we do to minimize the paybacks for our backstabbing?”

BILL HOBBS has a post on the Massachusetts anti-income tax initiative, and its surprisingly light coverage outside of Massachussetts. And scroll down for a lot of coverage on the Tennessee elections.

HEY, EVEN ENRON WAS BETTER THAN THIS:

Fraud, errors and complacency in the management of the European Union’s €98bn (£61bn) budget were yesterday laid bare in ahard-hitting annual report by the EU’s court of auditors.

The report confirms many of the allegations made by Marta Andreasen, the suspended EU chief accountant, who claimed the European Commission’s accounting system is deeply flawed.

For the eighth year in a row, the court was only able to certify that 5 per cent of the EU’s expenditure – mainly relating to internal administration – was legal and regular. The remaining 95 per cent, including the sprawling farm and regional aid budgets, was not given a positive statement of assurance “due to the incidence of errors found”.

Incidents of fraud detected include the usual bizarre assortment of fraudulent subsidy claims, including those paid for non-existent sheep and for imaginary Alpine pastures.

Hmm. Remember the tut-tutting about “American-style capitalism” from Euro-politicos when the Enron scandal broke? Somebody call them for comments on this. . . .

POSTMORTEM: Josh Marshall has it about right, I think:

There will be a lot of talk about poorly executed tactics in various races. And there does seem to have been a late wave for Republicans — probably just enough to seal a number of contests, and quite likely related to the president’s election swing. But I think the issue here isn’t poor tactics so much as an over-emphasis on tactics in general. The Democrats have lots of long-term political and demographic trends in their favor. But they don’t really have a politics, a vision, or a message — or perhaps, better to say, the courage and imagination to get behind one. And I suspect that that is the underlying issue.

Tactics can make a difference, and they’re easy to focus on because they’re discrete and — in the warfare mode — they’re fun. But they’re supposed to be an adjunct to the message, not a substitute for the message. When you let them take over, you look like you don’t have a message, and like you’ll do anything to win. That was the import of the Wellstone funeral-cum-rally, and of a lot of other things that the Democrats have done, and it hurt them.

The Democrats need to fix themselves. Marshall predicts that a lot of heads will roll, and they should.

NO BIAS HERE: The current BBC headline: “Congress falls to the Republicans.” Even the Guardian is more neutral, with “Clean Sweep for the Republicans.”

Meanwhile reader Peter Schiavo writes:

I think on a certain level the broad middle is afraid that the Democrats don’t take terrorism seriously. Plus I think the mandate given to the President to bypass the UN and attack Iraq is clear. Let’s see if the French get the message.

I think that’s probably right.

UPDATE: The BBC has changed its headline to “Triumph for Bush in Congress Elections” — hmm.

TACITUS responds to blogospheric sour grapes.

MICKEY KAUS says that the big story is the New York Times’ blowing of its own scoop — its polls over the weekend forecast the outcome, but the Times was too busy spinning for the Democrats to notice.

He has some choice words for VNS — which apparently was showing Florida too close to call even as Jeb Bush racked up a big victory — too. But to be fair, even VNS doubted those numbers.

Jay Fitzgerald, meanwhile, has some Massachussetts insights:

Ronald Reagan wins Massachusetts in ’80 and ’84. The last four gubernatorial races here have been won by Republicans (granted, not of the Rest of the Nation variety). A radical anti-income tax measure nearly wins tonight (and it’s still not counted out as of now). President Bush has a surprisingly strong approval rating here, especially after he rattles the old sword. But what does the rest of the nation still think of Massachusetts? McGovern, ’72. Message to the country: Massachusetts IS more liberal than the rest of the country, but not nearly as liberal as people think. There’s a Democratic machine here that most out-of-state observers just don’t get — nor appreciate in terms of the way it shapes politics here. Think: Cook County of the Daley era. The patronage. The nepotism. The one-party lock. That’s Massachusetts. The Dems draw the legislative and Congressional maps here. That’s why they control the legislature and all the Congressional seats here. But it doesn’t necessarily reflect the mood here. Yes, again, Massachusetts is, without question, more liberal than the average state, but tonight’s results show … well, figure it out yourself. Now if we could only have a Republican party that could get its act together … Hell, I and a lot of other people would even vote Green or French Socialist to get these clowns off our back.

The Massachusetts GOP has been lame for years. Maybe they’ll sieze this opportunity. Maybe they won’t.

NORM COLEMAN IS PRONOUNCED THE WINNER IN MINNESOTA: That’s what the New York Times says in a 7:05 alert on its front page.

This is bad news for Terry McAuliffe. He’s likely to be out of a job soon, which paradoxically is probably bad news for the Republicans.

UPDATE: CNN has called it for Coleman too now. I think it was the tasteless rally that made the difference.

INSTA-PUNDITRY: Sheesh, the Weekly Standard already has four articles up on its site analyzing the election. I just couldn’t stay up until the end last night, after spending the previous evening at Children’s Hospital.

I almost felt embarrassed by being one-upped this way, but then I remembered: they get paid for doing this. You know, with real money and everything!

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan, who routinely keeps later hours than me anyway, has a lot of good points. I especially like the observation that Howell Raines is a mole for Karl Rove. He might as well be.

ANOTHER UPDATE: And Stephen Green has loads of interesting observations.

LILEKS NEEDS A MAID: Go to his site and hit the tipjar.

AS I SAID, a good night for the Republicans. And I suspect that it’s Bush’s campaign swing that made most of the difference. Even some of the winning Republicans seemed surprised, though, at the difference between the vote and their final tracking polls. I think that indicates — as with the VNS debacle — that polls are becoming increasingly unreliable for a variety of reasons.

I think it’s a good thing that polls are becoming unreliable. Maybe as that becomes clear, politicians will stop paying so much attention to them in between elections.

WITH 68% OF THE VOTE IN, Massachusetts’ initiative to abolish the state income tax still has 47% of the vote.

UPDATE: Okay, it’s finished at 45% of the vote. I noticed that CNN was covering the failure of the medical-marijuana referendum in Arizona, but didn’t mention this one at all.

Call me crazy, but I think that a 45% vote to abolish the freakin’ income tax — and in Massachussetts of all places — is a bigger deal.

FOX IS CALLING IT FOR EHRLICH IN MARYLAND. Amazing that Townsend’s anti-gun theme fell so flat, in Maryland of all places.

A THOUGHT: The Republicans are doing a lot better than people expected a couple of weeks ago, and a lot better than parties usually do in midterms when they control the Presidency. Bush has been campaigning like hell the last couple of weeks.

This was a big gamble for him — if he had stayed in the Rose Garden, they probably wouldn’t have done nearly as well, but his spinmeisters could have used history to deflect a lot of the criticism. But once he went out to campaign, it was a gamble: if Jeb Bush had lost, and if the GOP had gotten creamed in some of these other races, he’d look much weaker as a result, and the war effort might have been in danger, leaving him likely to be a one-termer.

But he took the risk, and though at this hour it’s not clear how big the victory is, he’s clearly won a victory.

Do you think he’ll pursue a similarly audacious strategy on the war?

NECN IS PROJECTING ROMNEY THE WINNER in Massachussetts. And Fox is calling it for Saxby Chambliss in Georgia. Looks like a pretty good night for the Republicans after all.

UPDATE: With 62% of the vote in, support for the anti-income-tax initiative in Massachussetts is steady at 47%. That’s big news.

Donald Sensing is tracking referenda around the country.

IN MARYLAND, Ehrlich is currently leading over Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, 51-48 with 82% of the vote in.

UPDATE: Now it’s 52-47 with 93% of the vote in. They’re not calling it yet, but it’s looking good for Ehrlich.

WITH 39% OF THE VOTE IN, Massachussetts’ initiative to abolish the state income tax is at a stunning 47% — this could be the sleeper story of the night. I still doubt it will pass, but this kind of support in “Taxachussetts” bodes ill for people like Garry Wills and Sean Wilentz who maintain that America’s appetite for big government is unslaked.

UPDATE: The percentage is holding steady with 43% of the vote in.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Roger Bournival sends this link to NECN which is updating the results more often. And with 47% of the vote in , the percentage of support is the same.

Jay Fitzgerald is blogging through the night on the Massachussetts returns.

ONE MORE UPDATE: 68% of the vote’s in, and it’s still at 47% support. This is amazing.

MERYL YOURISH is a disenfranchised voter. Jesse Jackson, call your office!

CNN is calling Lindsey Graham the winner in SC.

UPDATE: Fox is calling New Hampshire for Sununu. It’s too early to say that this will be a good night for the Republicans, but it’s pretty clear that it won’t be a bad one.