By now, get-out-the-vote partiers will have received their special gift of the elections--a massive hangover and a return to business as usual. We all prepared for the worst--and perhaps we ended up with the least worst, which somehow flips a mobius strip and becomes the best we get.

Suffice to say that future Democratic candidates success is clearly now riding on how they use their position of relative power within a system of checks and balances that has steadily eroded under their passive-aggressive lame-puppy-dog eyes. What can Democrats do to distinguish themselves from being merely critics preaching to the choir? And how can John Kerry help fuck up the next election?

Ethics scandals--a somewhat less cloudy phrase than moral values, seemed from all counts by the mainstream media, and to some extent the president in his concession speech, to have had a tremendous impact on turnout and dissafection with the ruling party. As GWB complained, GOP write-in candidates had an uphill battle winning races in Houston District 22 and South Florida District 16. Maybe their old voters felt a little shame themselves for a while.

But the scandal that is the elephant in the room is the host of illegal actions carried out by this Administration which may yet go unpunished. Rumsfeld's resignation means nothing if the same cadre of other officials does everything in its power to stay the course in an unsanctioned war and leave finding an exit-strategy to the next Administration. Conspiracy theories about 9/11 aren't necessary when the facts of illegal activity, undue corporate influence, and corruption are staring the House Intelligence Committee in the face.

If newly-elected Democrats do not heed their constituents' calls for investigations of impeachment, raising the minimum wage, returning to a state of broad civil liberties, rapidly decreasing fossil fuel dependence, massive oversight on the War on Terror including troop withdrawals and potential extended campaigns in the mountains of Pakistan, they will have barely a leg to stand on in the next presidential election, when anything goes.

Don't forget that terrorists are now emboldened--because they see that two corporate-financed parties have a lock on our democratic system and we promise to stay good ideological enemies for the foreeable future and keep justifying massive retaliation for our actions in Iraq and all-out support for Israeli's border-creating military adventures in the Gaza Strip.

The sooner the media can get to the root of the American Debacle, the sooner politicians will start plotting a new direction. As it stands, the informed debate and necessary criticism is just a lot of babble about a horse race and political capital.