Especially for a grandmom of 66. Date of birth: March 1940.

Chart to follow.

Welcome back to the party of pragmatism and reality based results. Let me be, if not the first, then one of the many to say thank you for restoring my faith in the general population. Turns out that our country has not been quite as over run with red state yahoos as I thought.

But before you get all big-headed about your role in this election, let me say one thing.

WHAT THE FUCK TOOK YOU ALL SO LONG?

Seriously, Iraq was a quagmire in 2004. Science has been shoved under the rug since 2000. The budget has been careening out of control since the start of the Iraq war. The No Child Left Behind act was failing kids before it was enacted. The scandals being reported on now have been going on for years. We all knew the Medicare Rx plan was going to blow chunks. Where the hell have you been?

Were you too dazzled by the latest season of reality TV shows for the last 6 years to pay attention to the news? Did your education suck so badly that you couldn’t understand the middle-school level of writing done in most major newspapers? Did you miss the “Don’t believe the hype” lesson most of us learned as teenagers upon discovering that plucky girls in glasses don’t actually win the quarterback and skinny boys with greasy hair don’t get the head cheerleader in the back seat with her skirt pulled up? (Slight disclaimer- I was that cheerleader with the skinny boy- but I am the exception that proves the social rule). Did you think that voting with the frat boy party and beating up on gays and immigrants was gonna make you popular?

OK, admonishment done. I promise that as long as you all continue to act like thinking, rational human beings I will never again mention the 6 years of hell we have all been facing. We’ll just say that you were “going through a phase” and put it to rest. But you do have to prove that you are going to continue to use your brain at the ballot box and not let the self-esteem challenged inner teenager punch your card.

As a reminder of some of the rational things that will hopefully come from your vote:

Science will once again trump magic fairy dust and faith healing in dealing with the environment.

Women’s bodies will go back to belonging to individual women and we will, hope upon hopes, start valuing already alive children more than we value clumps of dividing cells.

Budgets will be balanced, taxes will be fair, incomes will go up. This is what Democrats do, by the way. The “tax and spend” liberal idea is so outdated that Eisenhower would cringe to hear it used.

We will stop giving swirlies to the EU and the rest of the world when it comes to international relations. I know it seemed really hilarious to you when Bush was doing it before, but you know the people that get swirlies and wedgies and are otherwise tormented are always the ones that come back 10 years later as gazillionaires who can lay off your entire division out of spite. We are starting the process by not allowing John Bolton permanent title to embarrass us on the floor of the UN. (Thank Lincoln Chaffee for that one, ousted as he is he is showing that the needs of the country are worth more than his need to stick it to the winners).

This is just the beginning of rational behavior. Again, thank you for coming to your senses or for finally being bored with Dancing with the Stars or Survivor.

Sincerely,

The Red Queen who has been a rational blue voter since my first registration.

RQ once made an offhand comment: funny when you pause the video and you almost always get someone in a weird looking pose.

Here’s one. OK, I admit, this only chuckle funny, but its worth a couple of seconds.

This is Viera, or whoever from one of those early morning shows discussing how the Republicans got their ass handed to them (sorry, still gloating).

The AP is calling Virginia’s Senate race for Webb.

Welcome to the ruling party fellow Dems. It’s about fricken time.

I think the left also needs to learn some lessons regarding this election cycle; it needs to find a way to stay included. As much as applaud the Dem victory, it came at the expense of moving to the center. Don’t get me wrong. I like the and understand the center, but it is not a place for new ideas and place for the voices of the disenfranchised. Without losing its personality, the left has make it clear that is not the mirror image of the far-right wing religious wackos.

One place we can start is our stand on the environment. Now that 99% of the population at least believes that global warming will have a tangible affect on all life forms, the left can point that it has held a very sensible view of climate-change since it has become an issue.

I like being a lefty, a liberal. But now it is time for the left to feel pride about itself. Too many times the mention of liberal comes with a rolling of the eyes. It’s time to end that shit!

At the same time the left needs to realize that being included will involve playing politics; making deals, forging compromises and taking stands. As good as our ideas may be, they do no one any good if they are not used.

I think the election will end or severely mute the influence of the evangelical wing of the Republican party. Between, Haggard, Foley and David Kuo’s book, the religious right is now marginalized. I am certain that Catholics, for example, hated being lumped in with religious fanatics. It will be interesting to see how this right-wing fringe reacts; who they choose to back. Rest assured that candidates will now treat the fanatics as if they were radioactive.

I welcome this development as it may help get people who want to kill for Jesus out our lives. On the other hand, these ‘nuts’ aren’t going away anytime soon: Haggards mega-church has 30 MILLION members, a tenth of the population. Who’s going to make sure these people don’t create a Christo-fascist Crusade against we infidels?

Best thing about this election cycle though is the fact that when these crazies claim morality, we can always counter with the tale of the mega-preacher (and his wife), snorting massive amounts of meth and paying $300 a pop for a gay hooker (who said he was bad in bed)!

But this time the advice is from me.

The states are currently responsible for voting practices. That needs to end. Election Boards are run by partisan appointees and elected officials who have a personal stake in the outcome.

There needs to be a federal level right to vote and an office not unlike the GAO (non-partisan general Accounting Office) to administer voting policy. If you want to require ID, then it should be provided free of charge at the time of registration. If you want to limit felons from voting, it should be explained how they can be punished twice for the same crime. Who can vote, and how they vote should be universal. Voting machines should have paper receipts, one for the voter and one for a recount. Voter intimidation should be treated as a serious offence with jail time, not unlike witness intimidation and clear rules for what constitutes intimidation should be established.

There should be specific guidelines for how many machines and poll workers are at each polling place based on population size. There should not be long lines discouraging voters in poor districts because of lack of machinery.

In other words, we should make voting universal and remove as many restrictions to individuals as possible because there really is no such thing as too much democracy.

For the new Democratic majority

These next two years are a test, not a mandate. We are not giving you a car, we’re letting you borrow it for your date. If you bring it home before curfew and there aren’t any scratches or dents on it, we might let you start driving it to school daily. You are not in charge here, you work for us. Do not forget that.

And suddenly, the government starts to look a little bit more like the people it is supposed to represent. The biggest gain is the new Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. For the first time ever, we have a woman third in line to the presidency. This is the closest we have come to the presidency so far. Previously, Secretary of State Madeline Allbright was fourth in line, but because she was born outside the country she was not eligible to take the president’s spot.

The future Madam Speaker shows us her scary side. This will come in handy during investigations into Republican wrong doing.

It’s nice to see women getting ahead in the Senate too. We now have 16 Senate seats, which is not nearly the 50 we would need to be truly represented, but it keep increasing.

Claire McCaskill from Missouri thanked Rush Limbaugh after Limbaugh’s vitriol on the Michael J. Fox ads drove stem cell supporters to donate mass cash to her campaign. Yay- a win for Dems, women, and science!

Deval Patrick, first African American Governor of Massachusetts who won after his opponent ran a really disgusting commercial to scare women out of voting for Patrick. Huhm, black man running for governor and his opponent tries to swing women voters by scaring them with the idea that Duval supports rapists.

Keith Ellison, the first ever Muslim representative elected to Minnesota’s fifth district. I’m sure the right wing nutbags are declaring this a win for “islamofacists” while completely ignoring the fact that the right wing nutbags have more in common with the Taliban than with the rest of America.

Gabrielle Giffords, the new Rep from Arizona’s 8th district

For more Women in the Senate, House, and Governorships check out Emily’s List.

For more on African American gains in the House check out this.

If I’ve missed someone (and I am sure I’ve missed plenty) let me know in comments.

In honor of our sweep of the House and our soon-to-be control of the Senate (Virginia rule requires a 10 day wait for election certification and then a mandatory recount if the difference is less than one half of one percent) I give you the happiest dance ever.

It’s no mistake that there is a massive Frank Herbert influence in this video either.