Some post-election musings

Nothing profound to say, but I guess I should have "a post-election musings" post to go with my pre-election one. (Thanks Scott for your musings, posted as a comment to my last post. As usual pithy and to the point.)

I found the evening interesting enough. Outcome overall was predicted accurately by polls. So no big surprises. That took away from the drama.

I was interested in the television coverage. Shifted from CNN to MSNBC to Fox. Found Fox coverage to be dull and unimaginative, so I didn't spend much time there. MSNBC "coverage" was interesting. Was not so much analysis and news; more like a rant with lots of sarcasm and rolling of eyes. Found it somewhat entertaining, so went there a lot. CNN had the best coverage for information and analysis. Lots of different points of views, and CNN tried to take a serious look at what was happening. In addition, all the moving maps, magic walls, and colours gave it a nice circus like atmosphere. A little too much yelling weakened the show. Do they really need 10 people yakking at the same time?

I think some lessons were learned by all sides. The tea party/Republicans discovered that weak candidates (e.g. O'Donnell and Angle) will lose even in an historic sweep election. This will be important for next time around. Should improve their choices of candidates. The Democrats have learned the obvious - that unless the economy i.e. jobs, housing, improves a lot in the next two years, the President will likely be a one term President. The public is simply not buying the "it would have been much worse had we not done what we did" message. Can the economy improve enough in two years to change the anti-Administration sentiment? No idea. The Republicans have learned that they can win in 2012. This should bring out some people who might otherwise have sat the next one out. As for Bill and Hillary, something tells me that there was schadenfreude
in yesterday's outcome. Bill cannot be accused of sitting on his hands and as for Hillary, I wouldn't count her out for 2012.

I warned you.. nothing profound or original.