For a person who considers themselves in the political "middle" this was probably the best election result in years. That sounds a little weird when you consider that the democrats kind of ran away with the evening. Here are a few things that I thought went well:
(1) Ok, I have to admit it, when Arnold Schwarzenegger first got voted into office in California I thought, "Oh my god, he's an idiot". He'd been known to be pretty chauvinistic and his "acting" abilities smelled of another Jesse Ventura (I actually lived in Minnesota when he won - ecarumba!). But I have to eat crow, because I think he's been pretty good so far. His wife, Maria Shriver, really balances out his agenda for one. He's also awesome on the environment...he's actually figured out how to go around the president. Other countries are dealing DIRECTLY with California....that's pretty cool. And he actually admits when he's wrong....that's pretty refreshing these days.
(2) The democrats winning now puts some restrictions around how much power the president has. Say what you will about Bush, some love him, some hate him....but he's pretty polarizing no matter how you look at it. At least now he can't push every hard-headed desire through congress.
(3) Many of the democrats who won are much more toward the center than in the old days. These "Blue Dog" democrates are actually focusing on balancing the budget...something neither the old democratic agenda used to care about and something the new republican agenda is not currently caring about.
(4) I'm actually excited about 4, yes FOUR, of the possible 2008 candidates! I've always really liked John McCain...he's a genuinely good guy, Hiliary was instrumental in Bill Clinton's presidency and he was solid, Rudy Giuliani did an awesome job leading NY through 9/11, and Barack Obama is super dynamic on the democrats side and actually seems to want to make good decisions, even if it means going against his own party.
So what does all this mean? For me it means that instead of the 2 outside fringes of society pushing all their agendas through, now it's the moderate middle (otherwise known as a compromise) gaining a ton of steam. So I'm actually kind of excited again about where things are headed!