The Washington Post has rescinded their call for Cardin in MD, as that race continues to be tight.

I’m not surprised, as the Cardin prediction seemed a little premature to me. Steele has run a very tight campaign, and the old idea that majority African-American districts will go overwhelmingly (as in 90-10) Democrat won’t hold true in this race. Steele has run a very strong campaign against the very weak Cardin, so having him beat the prognosticators would be quite satisfying indeed.

It seems all but inevitable that the Democrats will now gain control of the United States House of Representatives. That isn’t a huge surprise, and over the long term, it’s probably beneficial to the Republicans in two ways:

The first is that Nancy Pelosi is emblematic of the liberal left, and conservatives outnumber liberals by a significant margin. Even though I can’t stand Bill O’Reilly, he’s been harping on the difference between “San Francisco values” and mainstream American values. Pelosi stands on the wrong side of nearly every issue, and she’s a poor advocate. She’ll give the Republicans a nice punching bag for the next two years. Furthermore, the Democrats are winning based on fielding some very conservative candidates — the parties may have shifted, but the ideologies really haven’t.

Secondly, the Republicans need a kick in the ass. I’m a conservative first, and a partisan second, which is why the loss of the House doesn’t disturb me as much. The GOP lost touch with their Main Street values and got far too involved in the K Street culture. The 1994 revolution was all about cutting the size and scope of government. We have betrayed those values. We ran on improving government, and we haven’t done that.

The GOP needs to rediscover its own values. They need to rediscover the spirit and the policies that drove them into power in 1994. Again, this is not time for partisan whining. We lost, and we lost big. We can’t blame the Democrats. We have only ourselves to blame. We can win, but only by staying true to our values — which is the lesson the Republican Party needs to learn before 2008 when the slate gets wiped clean.

It’s looking like Gil Gutknecht wasn’t as in danger as the polls had him – he currently leads Tim Walz by a healthy margin of 53-47. That could change, but it’s been holding fairly steady. I’m still thinking that Gutknecht will win, and it won’t be as close as the polls were indicating.

Bachmann has a healthy 5-point lead, and it seems like Wetterling is going down. That’s a bright spot in a dark evening.

What truly irks me is that Pawlenty is down, and not by a small margin. I refuse to believe that the people of Minnesota would elect the likes of Mike Hatch. It’s early in the evening, and the outstate votes remain to be counted, but that just is not sitting well with me. Hatch is not only a mean-spirited, thin-skinned hothead, but he’s ethically challenged as well. As a future attorney, he’s one of the stereotypical 99% that gives the other 1% of us a bad name. I don’t think that Hatch will win, I can’t believe that Hatch will win, but if he does, I will be quite irate.

UPDATE – 9:45PM: Gutknecht/Walz is down to a 2% spread — so it’s possible that Walz is still in play. I’m skeptical, and the information I’ve gotten indicates it won’t be that close, but everything is still very much up in the air.

UPDATE – 9:50PM: At least the movement with Hatch/Pawlenty is moving the right way. I really hope Hatch doesn’t win, I have to live in this state for at least the next three years…

UPDATE – 10:00PM: Pawlenty keeps closing, but I’m still worried. Surprisingly, all the other GOP statewide offices are getting hammered. Even the Star Tribune endorsed Patricia Andersen, and she’s losing by a wide margin. I’m not sure what the story is there — I suspect that a lot of GOP voters only voted for Pawlenty or alternately Hatch isn’t doing well with Democratic voters in a period of high Democratic turnout. It’s also possible that the metro areas (which get counted first) are distorting the vote. I’ve known Mary Kiffmeyer informally for a while, and she always struck me as a dedicated public servant — I would hope that she and Andersen would be able to keep their jobs. Short of abject partisanship, I see no reason why they shouldn’t have been reelected.

UPDATE: 10:20PM Central: Pawlenty is closing the gap, although Hatch is still ahead. However, Gutknecht is falling behind Walz. I’d still be somewhat surprised if Walz won, but it’s looking like this could be a night of many surprises.

Pretty much everyone has called the MN Senate race for Amy Klobuchar — which is hardly a surprise. What’s truly disgusting about tonight is how many abject losers have been elected to the Senate. Bob Casey Jr., Bob Menendez, and now Klobuchar are all terminally unprepared for such an august office. It’s one thing to lose, it’s another to lose to such a bunch of schlubs.

I will give Klobuchar some credit, compared to the other two losers, at least she has some accomplishments to her name. Then again, that’s like being elected as the Nicest Smelling Person in the sh*t shoveling industry.

The big question now becomes which one of them takes the Mark Dayton Award for Biggest Moron in the Senate?

The Allen/Webb race still is insanely close, but with 90% reporting, Allen has a 2% lead. I’d be tempted to call the race, but it’s already gotten close so many times that anything could happen. Allen’s had at least a slight lead for most of the evening, so it seems likely that Allen could squeak by, but it may be a long time before we have a definitive answer.

Double ugh…

UPDATE: 9:08PM Central — Triple ugh… now it’s closing again…

The Democrats just got one seat closer to control of the Senate as Fox is calling RI for Whitehouse. Chafee was always a RINO, so ideologically the change doesn’t mean much, but in terms of Senate control this is another bout of bad news for the GOP.

Fox is calling the MD Senate race for Ben Cardin over Michael Steele. I hope that doesn’t play out, but it seems like Steele wasn’t able to pull it off. This was another one of the GOP’s long shot races, so it doesn’t change the balance of power much.

Still, this is going to be a long night for the Republicans.

Allen had been ahead by 2, but that’s now down to half a point. This one is going to be a real close one, and it may come down to absentee ballots. Ugh…

Joe Lieberman has been reelected in Connecticut, according to Fox. That’s not a big surprise, but I just like rubbing it in…

So far the Republicans have lost the two races that they were predicted to lose – PA and OH. NJ was a Democratic seat and always a long shot. The real race is just beginning — Allen is still holding his own, and the other races are still to be counted.

TN seems to be holding for Corker, although it’s too early to call it for sure. So far, everything is going the way one would expect, which means that the Republicans are poised to lose control of the House and the Senate still hangs in the balance.