First, the good news:

As an Illinoisan, I'm thrilled that the Land of Lincoln will be in the hands of Democrats for the first time since 1977. Though Rod Blagojevich (as CNN Headline News called him last night, "Bloy-vich") is a part of that Chicago machine and isn't the best choice for any office other than a Chicago office, he also has a Democratically controlled state house and state senate. At least under his tenure, we'll likely see the repeal of the death penalty, the passage of human rights legislation, the O'Hare expansion, and funding for small business.

But it's not Rod that I'm most excited about. It's the election of Lisa Madigan, Illinois' first female Attorney General. It's only her second run for an office. She's only 36. And she's a hotty, but that's beside the point. Lisa Madigan is exactly the type of person we should elect if we want change. She's young but she knows the ropes. She's a hard worker with good ideas. She believes in people. And though she may not entirely know what being Attorney General means having only practiced law for four years, she doesn't stop until she gets a job done right. Oh, and she's a hotty.

Illinois is due for some huge change, and perhaps it is finally on its way. Hopefully, they'll play their cards right. They have a huge deficit to deal with, a lot of social programs to implement, and they have to do it without raising income taxes. It's possible, and I hope they can pull it off.

Okay, it was sexist of me to refer to Lisa Madigan's looks when assessing her place in elected office. So to be fair, Rod Blagojevich has really bad hair. Really bad.

Now the bad news:

The pundits on TV keep talking about how Dubya won last night. And he did. Not since 1902 has a first term president gained congressional seats for his party in a midterm election and gained unilateral control of the government.

I prefer to look at it this way: Tom Daschle lost the election. The Democrats kissed Dubya's ass, scared that they would lose elections. When are politicians going to learn that to win elections, they have to be seen as different than the other candidate? Democrats could have played the corporate responsibility card. They didn't because they would have lost funding. They could have played the Iraq card. They didn't because they were too timid and even voted for it against their better wishes. Dubya didn't just paint the Democrats into a corner -- the Democrats' complacency led them to the corner, and they watched as Dubya painted it.

With only one Democratic Senator left who voted against the war in Iraq (my Senator, Dick Durbin, God bless him), we're going to war, no doubt about it. We bombed in Yemen -- where are we going to bomb next?

Not to mention that conservatives on the Supreme Court will feel safer about stepping down. In fact, the judicial system will entirely be padded with fascists.

Furthermore, the corrupt CEOs, including the one that is currently Vice President, are going to get free rides.

When the majority of voters rank Homeland Security third as the issue most important to them and the economy first and still elect Republicans, what does that say? Honestly, I don't know. I hope I figure it out.

So are we fucked?

The Republicans may control the Senate, but they don't have enough of a majority to break a filibuster. The Democrats can still block plenty of bills from passing.

The other glimmer of hope is actually something that Tom Daschle said. Now that the Republicans control all three branches of government, they have no excuse if things get worse. To an average citizen who pays just enough attention to the government to complain about it, a filibuster is not important. It's the faces they see on TV. And if all Joe Schmo sees is Republicans in office and we're at war with the rest of the world while no one has a job and our leader puts himself and his personal gain above the interests of his citizens, things may change.

But that's assuming Joe Schmo actually leaves his Lay-Z-Boy to vote. So unless something extraordinary happens, yes, we're fucked. God have mercy on us all.

As a tangent, I watched election returns last night for six-and-a-half hours straight, so I heard a lot of press secretaries and campaign managers talk to junior reporters. As far as I can tell, "outside-the-box" is hanging on for dear life, but the catchphrase for this decade is...(drum roll)...

"CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC"

If I had a dime for every time I heard someone say "cautiously optimistic" last night, I could take all of you who read my blog out for a good meal. And by "all of you who read my blog," I, of course, mean me.