The election's over....now what?

After a weekend trip to visit family out of state and a day trip to Charlotte, I watched the local, state and national election returns with some interest last night.  Changes are coming, whether I/we voted for them or not!

In our home area of Lexington, KY, an openly gay man was elected mayor, ousting a first-term incumbent who had previously not run for anything.  Turns out that your record is your record, good or bad, and the outgoing mayor had some items in his term that must have led voters to choose otherwise.

Our local congressional district will apparently continue to be represented by Ben Chandler, grandson of the late and hyper-popular former Governor A.B. "Happy" Chandler.  The younger Chandler really had problems defeating his opponent, who at this writing was just a few hundred votes behind.  Needless to say, he's not conceded.

And now we know that in Washington, the House of Representatives will be Republican-controlled and a new speaker, John Boehner (he of the frightening perma-tan), will take the reins.  He's already said that he and his fellow party leaders will work with the White House ONLY on their issues, not on what President Obama considers valuable.

But the Senate will remain under Democratic control, albeit a smaller majority, and will continue to be led by Harry Reid, who survived a Tea Party Republican opponent's challenge and retained his seat.

And what of the Tea Party?  Looks like their results were mixed, having won some races handily (such as the hotly contested Senate race here in Kentucky), winning others narrowly, and losing others.  It'll be interesting to see how many of these "smaller government" advocates are able to stick to their principles once they reach Congress.

Finally, this apparently wasn't a good year to try to buy office, as wealthy candidates such as Carly Fiorina (late of Hewlett-Packard), Meg Whitman (eBay) and Linda McMahon (WWE--wrestling?) were all unsuccessful in their bids for the Senate or state houses in their respective home areas.

I'm no political expert, but I firmly believe that the next two years will be more interesting than the last, that's for sure!

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