Brief political foray

It's no secret I'm quite left of center, but not, say, Berkeley left. Just slightly.

I couldn't be happier about the midterms for the most part. Frank Rich got it right -- this was the rise of the moderates. Most Americans are quite centrist in their views, and they were sick of the GOP being beholden and hostage to ultra-right wing political cronies and undue influence. No better was this illustrated than in South Dakota, where most republican voters struck down the sweeping anti-abortion law ever seen since Roe v. Wade. It, like government under Bush, went too far, and voters finally recognized that. And they came to see an old axiom come to life: absolute power corrupts. GOP control of the presidency and legislature was, in the past 8 years, a slap in the face of the Constitutional framers. Make no mistake -- a vast majority of the voters said that this vote was about national issues and a referendum on Bush. And it was a stinging rebuke of the presidency and his perceived incompetency on national and international issues. Let the moderates rise.

But -- did anyone else notice that the former darling of the right wing Ann Coulter was conspicuously absent from the entire political landscape during the midterms? What happened to her?

Let's hope bipartisanship can work -- and that the new in-power in-vogue Democrats can put populism on par with ideology.