Retroreflectivity

Well, everyone and their cat is opining on the Tea-nami, so I guess I'd better too. If y'all are jumping off a cliff, I should be at the bottom to catch you! Also, just as a side note, cats really don't like tea.

Any analysis at this point must take into account that 2 Senate and 10 Representative seats have not been officially called (according to cnn.com's results tracker). Three-quarters of Washington's mail-in ballots are in, and things are not looking good for Republican Dino Rossi (again). Alaska's returned ballots are at the same point, with a large number of absentees (which would most likely be military) still to be counted. For the sake of decent politics everywhere, I hope Daddy's Little Brat doesn't get to keep her toy-er, seat. And I hope that Alaskans realize that the only reason the Republicans in the Senate let her keep her powerful positions (which was her only platform) is because they wanted to play nice. What a disgrace.

That being said, the Republicans did well Tuesday night. A sweep of the House that will go down in the history books. Taking back several Senate seats. Goading a Democratic president into admitting his policies didn't work (and giving Ed Morrissey a week's worth of Obamatuerisms). And although not every single Tea Party candidate won their race, the movement as a whole did well as they saw their platform of fiscal conservativism validated by the voters. (If you're keeping score at home, Sarah Palin is currently 52 for 82 endorsements, or 63.4%.)

Everyone's also got their "lessons" from Tuesday night, but I haven't seen mine yet. And my takeaway from this significant exercise in democracy is this: If you're a politician, you serve all the people, not just your core voters. In Marco Rubio's victory speech, he pointed out that not only would he serve the people that had voted for him, but the people who had not voted for him as well. The Democrats who (and some of the Republicans who got booted in the primaries) learned the hard way that Rubio's principle is a foundation for our democracy. Your representatives, whether you voted for them or not, have an obligation to listen to you once they're elected. And if they don't, we have the American tradition of "Throw the bums out!"

And, on that note, this guy is no longer representing the district we live in. Yee-haw!