Last night was the worst-case scenario for Democrats. Here's why:
1. Dems maintained the Senate and Harry Reid. The House can now run the people's wishes up the flagpole again and again, and Reid and Obama will have to now be the "Party of No", which is the only political position Dems have taken recently against Republicans. As much as we'd love to see Reid gone in shame (his son got throttled), he is still the face of why last night went so horribly wrong for his party. Republicans have a firm hold on the filibuster, and need merely wait on another election cycle to take over the Senate completely.
2. Governors's can begin the process of re-districing key swing states back to the way it was during the Reagan years. Did you see what happened in Pennsylvania? The Governor, five House seats, and a senator's spot all go Republican? Absolutely unfathomable, given the Democrat-friendly districting lines there. That was really the story of the night because Dems will have huge problems for years to come now that their years of gerrymandering can be undone.
3. The industrial belt - Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Missouri, etc - all went red last night. That critical portion of the country just gave the finger to Obama bigtime.
4. All that remains of the Democrats is the far, far left, much like most of what remains of Republicans are ultra conservatives. In that ideological battle, the Republicans will win. The one exception was in West Virginia, where Dems retained a Senate seat, but the guy will vote against Obama on virtually everything. Democrat in name only.
5. Even in liberal strongholds, people like Murray in Washington had difficult times retaining seats that used to be an afterthought.
The message was loud and clear last night, and now it's up to Obama to either be pragmatic like Clinton and admit defeat - "the era of big government is over" - or go even harder and more divisively to the left than he already is.