Watching and waiting

The returns are starting to come in. I'm for a hold in the Senate and 1- or 2-seat Dem majority in the House, but I'm ready to be proven wrong on that last (i.e., fewer Dems), and this election could still go any way. But that's what I think we'll see at the end of the evening. NRO has its usual symposium of predictions, including "how would you write tomorrow's NYT headline?" (which most participants read as, "how will tomorrow's NYT headline read?", a slightly different question). This produced, naturally, some amusing answers, including Kathryn Lopez' "GOP Retakes Congress. Minorities, Women, and Children Hurt Most." and Kate O'Beirne's "Democrats Defeat Black Candidates in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland." Of all the statements, Mark Steyn's comment on this overall pathetic election, with its choices of bad and worse, resonated most:

[If the Democrats take the House or entire Congress], of course, it will be a sobering moment: The American people will have chosen to reward a September 10th party mired in sour oppositionism and cobwebbed boomer pieties. Don’t get me wrong. Both wings of the political class have underperformed since 9/11, and this unlovely election is the consequence. But even a narrow Dem victory will embolden the media: Unlike 2004, they’ll have succeeded in dragging the dead horse of the Democratic party across the finish line, and they’ll be even more audacious in two years’ time.

However, even if the Dems take both houses, I predict they'll have a harder time of it in charge than they think they will -- and I agree with the NRO commenter who doesn't forsee a Speaker Pelosi, even with a Dem House.