(Because you can't get enough of this crap on every other website today...)

My previous hemming and hawing aside, there's a lot to be happy about with Obama's re-election.

But even beyond the presidential election, last night was pretty big. Elizabeth Warren's election is the biggest thing to be happy about. Tammy Baldwin's win is big. Replacing Joe Lieberman with an actual Democrat (and not Linda McMahon) is great. Independent Angus King is potentially interesting; i heard he was talking about eliminating the filibuster with Harry Reid. Overall, the Senate's make-up has improved quite a bit. We won't see any immediate results from that since Republicans still control the House, but it's a good foundation. There's one Democrat that didn't win in the Senate that i'm glad about, and that's Bob Kerrey. He would have been another in the Lieberman/Even Bayh category that does more harm than good, and i'd rather have a pure opponent than someone the Dems think they can trust but screws them over at the last minute of every deal.

In the House a number of bogeymen were defeated: Joe Walsh (replaced by Tammy Duckworth who seems like she'll be great), Todd Akin (tried for the Senate and failed), Allen West. These are symbolic, scalp-taking, victories since they don't change the fact that Republicans still control the House (as expected), and they could be fleeting: Reps come up for re-election every two years, and elections on the non-Presidential cycle have much lower turnout, which means only the more engaged people vote, and that generally helps Republicans. The Democrats seemingly failed to prepare for that in 2010 and didn't mobilize OFA to get out the vote the way you would expect. So this is potentially an area of concern for 2014. The Senate situation for 2014 isn't looking great for Dems either.

Another area for celebration are the referendums - either legalizing gay marriage or beating back anti-marriage proposals, decriminalizing marijuana, and chipping away at California's draconian anti-tax rule. All good stuff, but again, referendums in the off-cycles represent a vulnerability.

Next up: seeing how Obama handles the so-called "fiscal cliff" negotiations.