Election Day: Palin's Panic and the Right-Wing's Big Freak-out

7:00 PM PST

Over at the National Review, John J. Pitney Jr. had this doleful (and bizarrely nonsensical) response to the Democrats' rout:

As we look to the next 2-4 years, we should keep in mind this passage from Nikos Kazantzakis, The Last Temptation of Christ: "A prophet is the one who, when everyone else despairs hopes. And when everyone else hopes, he despairs. You'll ask me why. It's because he has mastered the Great Secret: that the Wheel turns.

Yep. Keeping waiting for that wheel to turn.

5:00 PM PST

According to conservative commentator Michael Medved, Republicans will regain power only if,

... some sense of international peril, some imminent and undeniable threat, forces the electorate to focus more on the fate of the country ...

Wishing for national disaster is a pretty strange way to show your love for America.

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3:20 PM PST

Republicans and Fox news are still shamelessly trying to tap into anxieties over race. As Josh Marshall writes on Talking Points Memo:

It's hard for the GOP and Fox News to give up on whipping up fears that Obama is going to set up a black dictatorship in America where sundry pimps and gangbangers will replace the civil service and institute a reign of racial terror and compulsory miscegenation. Fox and the McCain campaign are pushing hard on this story of two men outside a polling place in Philly dressed in Black Panther garb. People affiliated with the McCain campaign showed up, to photograph or possibly provoke an incident. The police were called. One of the two guys was asked to leave; and he left. The other guys turned out to be an official poll watcher. That was probably the best resolution. As near as we can tell there's all sort of misinformation being disseminated about whites being prevented from voting, etc. We talked to an Obama campaign volunteer who saw the whole thing. And you can see her account here. This is just a kinder, gentler version of the Ashley Todd 'Carved B' mumbojumbo, another desperate Republican attempt to whip up racial hysteria to give them hope of winning the election.

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2:20 PM PST

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) expressed his deep concern for the future of the country today, saying in so many words that a Democratic majority in Congress will destroy America. From Think Progress:

... Lieberman made clear that he firmly opposes Democrats gaining 60 seats in the Senate, saying that the survival of the country is in doubt if Democrats break the filibuster threshold:

BECK: But do you agree that Senator Hatch said to me that if we don't at least have the firewall of the filibuster in the Senate that in many ways America will not survive?

LIEBERMAN: Well, I hope it's not like that, but I fear.

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1:50 PM PST

You can always count on right-wing talk radio shock jocks for subtle, complex political analysis informed by a deep understanding of history. Like the following commentary by right-wing talk show host Bill Cunningham (reported by Media Matters):

"Much like Castro took over Cuba, Mao Zedong took over Red China, and the Communists took over Russia, Obama now is poised, according to many of my good friends on the left like Paul Mason and others, to seize power in America, and I hope to be a bloodless coup.

You mean, like a majority of Americans going to the polls to cast their votes? Actually, that's called democracy.

Cunningham then somehow managed to top himself with the absurdity and offensiveness of his next statement:

[Obama] goes out to his left-wing buddies in San Francisco and smears God, smears guns, smears everything great about this country. Then he comes to these rallies like bromides, like Adolf Hitler in 1933, and the faithful are shouting, 'Yes we can, yes we can.'

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1:30 PM PST

Earlier today Sarah Palin refused to reveal whether or not she had voted to return Ted Stevens (the guy just found guilty of committing 7 felonies) to public office. From John Nichols at the Nation:

" ... when specifically asked whether she had voted for the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate, Palin said, "I am also exercising my right to privacy. And I don't have to tell anybody who I vote for. Nobody does. And that's really cool about America, also."

So, no election morning endorsement for Ted Stevens, her scandal-plagued mentor.

But, to the last, the supposed reformer could not quite bring herself to reject the senator who last week was convicted on seven counts of concealing bribes, er, gifts.

It may not just be a case of Palin balancing partisanship, personal loyalty and political reality.

Maybe she was just thinking ahead.

Palin's not talking about taking a victory lap.

After voting in Wasilla, she was flying to join McCain in Arizona. But, she said, "It's great to be home for a couple of hours here, and then we'll be back tomorrow."

And what if, as expected, Stevens loses to Democrat Nick Begich?

A special election? Another leap onto the national stage? Senator Palin?

Could be a good resumé builder for that 2012 run.

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