Laurence O'Donnell and Sarah Palin bring up two elements of politics that I always despise.

On O'Donnell's end, he basically predicted the end of the world because he thinks Rand Paul is going to filibuster the vote to raise the deficit ceiling. If that doesn't happen, the US defaults on their debts and the world economy falls apart. O'Donnell was incensed by this idea and would have seemed furious if he didn't seem so pleased with himself for thinking of it. My problem is: where was this earlier? Not that I watch everything O'Donnell says but if this was such a big issue, why wasn't he pushing for people to ask Rand Paul or his supporters where they stand on it? It played to me like he was keeping this in his back pocket so he'd have something to rail against when the Republicans gained power. It's just frustrating.

On the other hand, Sarah Palin almost had me throwing my remote at the TV. When asked if people are going to have to work together, Palin said (paraphrasing here), Of course people will have to compromise. We'll tell the Democrats that the train is leaving and it's not heading in there direction so they better get on or be left behind. How in the world does that equal compromise, co-operation, or working together?
Thankfully, Dana Perino later brought in some common sense, saying that President Obama is going to need to lead and usher in a new era of co-operation when he gives his address tomorrow. If he "eats some humble pie" and says that people need to start compromising, it could help lead both parties to listen to one another. The question was then asked if Obama had it in him and that wasn't answered. I'm kind of nervous about it. The attitude of the White House has been pretty haughty and I'm not sure if the President is going to be willing to just give up his agenda. Should be interesting to see.

While Fox was giddy and MSNBC was pissed off (and borderline disrespectful), CNN seemed calm and on point but they once again lost the presentation battle. Their experts were thrown together in what looked like the Jetson's kitchen table or something. It looked more like a focus group of random people rather than a group of experts. It also didn't help that the makeup was awful (even on my non-HD TV) and James Carville looked like he was about to fall asleep. They also went with the handheld feel which made me wonder when the Cloverfield monster was going to attack.

As for winners and losers, I think Sarah Palin and Barack Obama kind of won for losing. For Palin, a majority of her candidates won and the media won't have Christine O'Donnell and Sharon Angle to kick around anymore. Had either of those two won, it might have been rough on Palin since their brand of crazy would be linked with Palin. On the other hand, the new governor of Florida is a man who made money by buying hospitals and downsizing them and he might be just what Obamacare needs. The fact that Scott has a hand in redistricting is a problem for Obama but I think when Scott starts putting his agenda into action, it's going to show people why Obamacare was pushed through better than anything that has come out of the White House in the last two years. In general, the Republicans now have a voice in government but I don't think that they have anything to say and a lot of their issues are going to put people off (especially on health care where bigger, cross-state insurance companies will only make matters worse and many Republicans favor ditching Medicare which people like.)

Of course, if they were smart, the Republicans will just look to tread water, don't try to change healthcare yet and get a two year extension on the Bush Tax Breaks so they can have the tax cuts to promise in 2012.