I can't say I'm happy that Republicans have lost the house of representatives.  I went out and voted today. My votes tended to be for Republicans overall. I don't consider myself to be a Republican but given the choices, I'm going to vote for the people who come closest to representing my views as long as they have worked within a certain threshold of what my expectations are.

Since I'm in Michigan, in Wayne County, that basically means that the incumbants are Democrats anyway.

Nation wide the Republicans didn't just lose. They got CRUSHED. What conservatives have been warning the GOP about for months has finally come to pass.  Only in the last month did the GOP wake up and realize just how pissed off the right of center population of the United States is. They're pissed off at what appears to be corrupt and lazy Republicans who don't represent their values anymore.

When they right did wake up, GOP idealogues like Rush Limbaugh had the audacity to blame US for the GOP's problems. In a text book case of shoot the messenger, GOP labeled me and others like me as "cut and run conservatives" for daring to say that given how poorly the GOP has been in the house (and senate) that it wouldn't be the end of the world if the Democrats win.

Well, now they have. The Democrats are in charge and in the next two years we'll get to see if, once in power again, behave like a bunch of fringe kooks like so many of their leaders and supporters are. Or whether it will be, as many of us expect, not quite as bad as one might think.

So...

Why did the Republicans lose?

1. Their base didn't come out in strength. The house Republicans, who once promised to get rid of things like the Department of Education saw instead a huge increase in funding. In fact, money for pork was available all around. The GOP, in power, decided that our money was really their money after all. Worse, they didn't get very much done. Only at the 11th hour did they finally -- and only because of the election -- finally throw some meat back to their supporters in the form of a border security policy which wasn't even comprehensive (not that I favor Bush's quasi-amnesty plan but we do need vastly increased guest worker programs).
2. The war in Iraq motivated many moderates and Democrats to come out. I happen to be in the camp that supported the war and is still glad we removed Saddam. But I am scratching my head as to why, exactly, are we still there "nation building" 3 years later.  The entire thing has been handled poorly by the administration since the end of major combat operations. Absolutely incompotently.  And many moderates who might tend to vote Republican decided to vote for Democrats to send a very clear message that they're pissed off too.
3. Incredibly biased media coverage. This is a story that will probably not get told but it has gotten out in some channels just how left-wing the major media in the US has become.  For instance, for the first time in history, the New York Times did not endorse a single Republican house or senate candidate. Not one. That's how far left it's drifted and the NY Times is pretty representative (I think) of the major news outlets.  They have done an effective job of making Iraq look far worse than it actually is, have managed to not report the excellent economy we currently have, and have managed to ignore scandals by Democrats while spending weeks and weeks on things like Foley.

But really, item #3 only mattered because the Republicans had botched 1 and 2. And they paid for it.

Now, between now and 2008 we can see IF the right-wing fear mongering comes true. As a reminder so that we can come back to this...

The Republicans have claimed the Democrats will do the following:

1. Pull us out of Iraq prematurely by cutting off funding.
2. Raise taxes.
3. Force Bush to only nominate moderate Supreme Court Justices.
4. They will attempt to impeach Bush.

There were others but these are 3 that are most easily verified by 2008.

So what should the Republicans do between now and 2008? Well first they should pray that the Democrats act like deranged kooks. But failing that, they need to recognize that conservatives expect a lot from their representatives and if you want to represent us, you better be ready to get off your ass and do it and do it in a way that serves our interests (balanced budgets, lower taxes, secure borders, smaller government, not toadying up to incompetent Presidents, etc.).  Sure, the Democrats won't serve our interests either. But they're not pretending to be likely to get our votes.