TODD ZYWICKI: “Did anyone else notice that the Libertarian Party in Montana (Stan Jones, who received 3%) provided far more than the margin of victory between Tester and Burns?”

Dave Kopel notices that it wasn’t a bad election for gun rights, either. And ten states passed anti-Kelo property rights initiatives.

MARK TAPSCOTT EXPLAINS THE ELECTIONS in one sentence: “When Republicans worry more about staying in government than about limiting government, they get thrown out of government.”

Heh. Indeed.

JAMES TARANTO: “This column is scrupulously nonpartisan, but we will bend the rules for a moment and acknowledge that last night’s outcome was not what we were hoping for.”

A LOOK AT THE AIRBUS MESS, from Popular Mechanics.

JOHN BOEHNER will seek the Republican leadership in the House. The Hotline blog still calls it “Majority Leader,” but of course it’ll be the Minority Leader in the next Congress. Old habits die hard!

Here’s the PorkBusters podcast interview with Boehner.

JOHN BOEHNER will seek the Republican leadership in the House. The Hotline blog still calls it “Majority Leader,” but of course it’ll be the Minority Leader in the next Congress. Old habits die hard!

Here’s the PorkBusters podcast interview with Boehner.

MICHAEL SILENCE EMAILS that the Knoxville News-Sentinel has started running Chris Muir’s Day by Day cartoon in its print edition. I’m happy about that, and I’m not the only one!

AUSTIN BAY HAS SOME THOUGHTS ON RUMSFELD’S RESIGNATION, plus this more general observation:

The big race in 2006 was Lamont versus Lieberman. Joe Lieberman won. That’s a warning to Nancy Pelosi and Co. If they go “nutsroots-Lamont Left” they will squander their victory. Ed Driscoll suggests 2006 is a race-to-the center. Lieberman has carved out one the strongest personal political positions in America. For Joe, November lemonade from the lemons of August.

Joe Lieberman is this man. Nancy Pelosi had better pay attention.

But will she?

MAKING PROGRESS ALREADY: Hastert’s out of the GOP leadership race.

THE ECONOMIST: Libertarians emerge as a force. “Libertarians are a generally Republican-leaning constituency, but over the last few years, their discontent has grown plain. It isn’t just the war, which some libertarians supported, but the corruption and insider dealing, and particularly the massive expansion of spending. Mr Bush’s much-vaunted prescription drug benefit for seniors, they fume, has opened up another gaping hole in America’s fiscal situation, while the only issue that really seemed to energise congress was passing special laws to keep a brain-damaged woman on life support.”

Gee, where have I heard this stuff before?

I caught a bit of Limbaugh talking about how this loss was the Republicans’ own fault, too. And, you know, his analysis sounded kind of familiar, as well. And for an idea of just how out-of-touch the GOP leadership has been, listen to this interview with Ken Mehlman from back in May, when there was still time to do something.

UPDATE: Read this post by Dean Barnett, too.

TOM COBURN’S OFFICE sends his statement on the elections. Big line: “This election does not show that voters have abandoned their belief in limited government; it shows that the Republican Party has abandoned them. In fact, these results represent the total failure of big government Republicanism.”

Click “read more” for the full statement.

ONE FREE KOREA writes:

On Korea policy, I tend to agree with Gordon Flake: I really don’t think it will make much of a difference. Nobody in Congress really seems to love either of the Koreas anymore. My impression from my various field trips to Congress was that some of the Dems were more hawkish than some of the Republicans, although the Republican staff made a far better impression for the depth of their knowledge and concern. If International Relations goes to Tom Lantos, I certainly won’t cry in my beer.

Plus some historical perspective on midterm elections.

BILL WHITTLE HAS SOME THOUGHTS on what to do next.

BUSH: Rumsfeld’s resigning, to be replaced by former CIA Director Robert Gates.

We’re going to try to do a podcast interview with Austin Bay and Jim Dunnigan about the impact this is likely to have later today.

UPDATE: The Belmont Club: Is America turning into Israel?

CHANGES AHEAD FOR LABOR LAW? One of my colleagues thinks so, and I’d say the elections make that more likely.

NEAL BOORTZ: “The voters gave the Republicans a well-earned kick in the gut yesterday. . . . This is good news .. and bad news. Good news because of the message it sends to Republicans. Bad news because of the message it sends to Islamic jihadists who are dedicated to the destruction of our culture. One thing is certain. The Republicans worked very hard for this defeat.”

ONE THING THAT WENT WELL YESTERDAY, at least in my opinion, was the election coverage from Pajamas Media. In particular, I thought the marriage of cheap digital cameras that shoot good video — all the PJ video, except for my clip, was done with this inexpensive Canon Powershot — with lots of people having access to YouTube really worked out well. I hope we’ll see a lot more of that kind of thing, which I’ve been pushing for years. The video capabilities of digital still cameras, as I’ve noted in the past, are underappreciated, but terrific for the Web.

A ROUNDUP OF ELECTRONIC-VOTING GLITCHES at CIO Insight.

UPDATE: Ouch: “As the line was shifting I heard a woman say ‘This is what it’s going to be like with government health care.'”

BOB CORKER: “Looks like I might be the freshman class of one on the Republican side.”

GRAND ROUNDS IS UP: Actually, it was up yesterday, but nobody paid any attention because of the election.

JOHN FUND LOOKS AT ACORN in Missouri.

AUSTIN BAY LOOKS AT Saddam’s conviction in this week’s column.

ANN ALTHOUSE recaps the CNN blogger party and observes: “It was actually surprising how un-socially-awkward most bloggers are.”

Nor was her judgment distorted: “To answer your question: I had only two small glasses of red wine.”

ED DRISCOLL SAYS we’re galloping toward the center.