memeorandum: What Schumer Wrought ... FIND THAT MESSAGE: Obama's policies … (Mickey Kaus/The Daily Caller)

2:47 AM ET, November 6, 2014

Top Items:

Ezra Klein / Vox:

9 takeaways from the 2014 election — 1) The Democrats lost. — Badly. This wasn't just a tough map. Democrats lost Senate seats in Iowa and Colorado. They lost governor races in Florida and Wisconsin. Hell, they lost governor races in Illinois, Maryland, Maine, and Massachusetts!

Discussion: National Review, JustOneMinute and The Dish

Jonathan Chait / New York Magazine:

The Democrats Have Two Choices Now: Gridlock or Annihilation — Well, that could have gone better. — Shares — A cardinal fact of American politics that has emerged during the Obama years is that demographic forces are slowly and inexorably driving the electorate leftward.

Discussion: Taylor Marsh, Hit & Run, Washington Post and National Review

Matthew Yglesias / Vox:

Mitch McConnell may be the greatest strategist in contemporary politics — Mitch McConnell's reelection tonight wasn't very newsworthy. Polls had shown clearly for weeks that Allison Lundergan Grimes was far behind, and far behind is where you would expect a Democrat to be in Kentucky …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and The Atlantic Online

Ed Morrissey / Hot Air:

Reid: Why can't we all just ... get along? — Consider this karma avoidance by the soon-to-be-ex-Senate Majority Leader, but Harry Reid's new act won't fool anyone, least of all Mitch McConnell. Reid has run the US Senate for the past eight years like a dictatorship, steadily eroding minority privileges …

Discussion: The New Republic, Newsmax.com, The Hill, RedState, Washington Post and Mediaite

Jay Newton-Small / TIME:
McConnell: No Shutdowns, No Full Obamacare Repeal

Discussion: The Hill, Hot Air, Talking Points Memo, The Daily Caller, Guardian, Yahoo! News, CBS DC, Liberal Values, OnPolitics, Outside the Beltway, Hinterland Gazette, New Yorker and New York Times

Sahil Kapur / Talking Points Memo:
Meet The Real Next Senate Majority Leader: Ted Cruz

Discussion: Addicting Info and The Atlantic Online

The Hill:
Democrats sift through the debris

Discussion: Roll Call and Power Line

Washington Post:

Transcript: President Obama's Nov. 5 news conference on midterm election results — President Obama held a news conference Nov. 5 at the White House to discuss the results of the midterm congressional elections . — PRESIDENT OBAMA: Good afternoon, everybody. Have a seat.

Discussion: Althouse, The Federalist, Hit & Run, Los Angeles Times, National Review and Patterico's Pontifications

Washington Post:

GOP crafts narrow agenda for new Congress, seeking unity, Democratic votes — Hours after solidifying their control of Congress in the midterm elections, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John A. Boehner are quietly laying plans for a series of quick votes in January …

Discussion: New York Times, Techdirt and Hit & Run

Alexander Bolton / The Hill:
‘Hundred-year majority’ for House GOP?

Discussion: Shakesville

Greg Sargent / Washington Post:

What really went wrong for Democrats — The most common explanation we're hearing for the GOP sweep of a dozen Senate races last night is that an already-treacherous map for Democrats was made a lot worse by the failure of core Dem voter groups to show up. — But multiple Democratic …

Discussion: Washington Monthly and Firedoglake

John B. Judis / The New Republic:

Here's Why the Democrats Got Crushed—and Why 2016 Won't Be a Cakewalk — Barack Obama has been elected president twice, but his party has now gotten drubbed in the two midterm elections held during his presidency. He will face a Republican Senate and House.

Discussion: Rush Limbaugh, Bloomberg View, ThinkProgress, Power Line, New York Magazine, No More Mister Nice Blog and The Dish

Carol E. Lee / Wall Street Journal:
For Obama, a Harsh Referendum

Discussion: National Journal and Hot Air

Ed O'Keefe / Washington Post:

Joe Manchin on election results: ‘This is a real ass-whuppin’ — Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W. Va.) did not mince words on Wednesday when asked to describe the historic losses by congressional Democrats. — “This is a real ass-whuppin,” he said. — Manchin is a moderate first-term senator …

Discussion: Mediaite, Power Line and Talking Points Memo

Alexander Bolton / The Hill:
McConnell expected to woo King, Manchin

Discussion: The Daily Caller, Politico and Liberaland

Washington Post:
Battle for the Senate: How the GOP woke up while Democrats were feeling the drag

Discussion: Politico, New York Times, The Daily Caller, Truth Revolt, Hot Air, Ed Driscoll, BizPac Review, The Atlantic Online, Hit & Run, Power Line, The Hill, The Rothenberg Political …, Mediaite, Bloomberg Politics, Taylor Marsh and RedState

Betsy Woodruff / Slate:

Wisconsin Three-Peat — Why no one can beat Scott Walker. — WEST ALLIS, Wisconsin—"First off, I want to thank God." — Gov. Scott Walker had just come on stage at the State Fair Exposition Center to give his third victory speech in four years, and the supporters mashed up in front of the stage were totally losing it.

Discussion: Althouse

Daily Mail:

EXCLUSIVE - Navy SEAL who killed bin Laden revealed: Rob O'Neill named as SEAL Team Six hero who shot 9/11 mastermind three times in head - and has already inspired series of Hollywood films — SEAL Rob O'Neill named ahead of Fox News interview in which he will tell how he killed bin Laden and why he is giving up his anonymity

Discussion: Gawker, Raw Story, The Gateway Pundit and Mediaite

Rebecca Leber / The New Republic:

Congratulations, Voters. You Just Made This Climate Denier the Most Powerful Senator on the Environment. — In handing Republicans control of the Senate on Tuesday, Americans effectively voted for the party's hostile plans against President Barack Obama's environmental legacy.

Discussion: Raw Story, Firedoglake, Little Green Footballs and Hit & Run

Steven Hayward / Power Line:

Climate Change? An Issue for Losers — Ross Douthat nails it in his NY Times blog post-mortem: … Andrew Restuccia notes in Politico: … Will Bunch in the Philadelphia Daily News: … The Keystone pipeline appears to have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, according to the National Journal:

Discussion: National Journal and New York Times

Andrew Restuccia / Politico:
Tom Steyer, greens have rough night at the polls

Discussion: The Daily Caller and Outside the Beltway

Jay / Miami Herald & MiamiHerald.com:

Alex Rodriguez's DEA confession: Yes, I used steroids from fake Miami doctor — › — ‹ — For 21 tumultuous months, New York Yankees superstar Alex Rodriguez has defiantly maintained he never used banned substances from a Coral Gables anti-aging clinic …

Discussion: New York Times, Truth Revolt, New York Magazine, abc11.com and The Daily Caller

Harold Meyerson / American Prospect:

The Democrats' Catastrophe and the Need For a New Agenda — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, joined by his wife, former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, celebrates with his supporters at an election night party in Louisville,Tuesday, November 4, 2014.

Discussion: Lawyers, Guns & Money and Seeing the Forest

Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:

The Polls Were Skewed Toward Democrats — For much of this election cycle, Democrats complained the polls were biased against them. They said the polls were failing to represent enough minority voters and applying overly restrictive likely-voter screens. They claimed early-voting data was proving the polls wrong.

Discussion: Gawker, The Dish, Hot Air, The Daily Caller, Outside the Beltway and Talking Points Memo

John Podhoretz / New York Post:

A stunning tidal wave of change in the Senate — Virginia Republican Senate candidate Ed Gillespie tells his supporters that the race is too close to call at his election night party in Springfield, Va., Wednesday, Nov. 5. — The 2014 midterms were the Beach Boys election …

Nate Cohn / New York Times: The Democrats' Southern Problem Reaches a New Depth

Kris Maher / Wall Street Journal:

West Virginia Elects America's Youngest State Lawmaker — A West Virginia University freshman who did most of her campaigning out of her dorm room became the youngest state lawmaker in the nation Tuesday. — Republican Saira Blair, a fiscally conservative 18-year-old …