AFTERMATH – AT 7:44 A.M. ET:  So now that yesterday's vote has been counted, what happened?  Well, not much really. 

There will be all kinds of analyses this morning, but they're meaningless.  The vote went pretty much according to the polling.  The only surprise, and it wasn't much of one, was that Republican Tim Burns didn't pick up John Murtha's seat in western Pennsylvania, which would have been big news.  The Democrat, Mark Critz, a Murtha employee, squeezed in with a narrow victory in a district that's 2-1 Democratic.  Democrats will point to this as a famous victory, but Critz's vote percentage – in the low 50s at last count – isn't famous. 

Michael Barone points out that many traditional, somewhat conservative Democrats didn't come out to vote in the 12th.  These are the people that Republicans are counting on to help in November, but Barone warns that they simply may not vote, and Republicans should not count on them.  That's good advice.

Joe Sestak, the newly minted Dem candidate for the Senate in PA, is obnoxious, but will be toughter for our guy, Pat Toomey, to beat than Arlen Specter.  Sestak, as we've noted, is a former Navy vice admiral (the wrong men sometimes get promoted), who refuses to man up and admit that he was pressured out of the Navy because of personality conflicts.  Indeed, he's said that he left the Navy because of his daughter's illness – a disgusting use of a child's health to mask the truth.  But that's Joe. 

Also obnoxious is the GOP candidate for the Senate in Kentucky, Rand Paul, whom we cannot support.  The son of extremist Ron Paul, Rand is less nutty but nutty enough.  His foreign- and defense-policy views, on the fringe left, are simply unacceptable, period.  Dick Cheney warned about him, but the GOP voters of Kentucky, to their discredit, weren't listening.  Paul claims the support of tea partiers.  When they learn more about him, they may start drinking hemlock rather than tea.

In Arkansas, Sen. Blanche Lincoln was forced into a runoff by Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, who ran to her left and had the support of the usual leftist suspects.  Should be a GOP pickup in November.

The big lesson is from Pennsylvania's 12th C.D.:  Republicans must not be overconfident.  There's been a lot of GOP strutting recently.  There's an election in November.  Save the strut for the next day.  Earn the strut beforehand.

May 19, 2010