memeorandum: GOP crafts narrow agenda for new Congress, seeking unity, Democratic votes (Washington Post)

12:40 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: JustOneMinute, National Review 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, The Great Debate and The Atlantic Online

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: Talking Points Memo, Mediaite and Power Line

Jay Newton-Small / TIME:

McConnell: No Shutdowns, No Full Obamacare Repeal — An exclusive interview with TIME about his plans as Majority Leader — Sen. Mitch McConnell was giddy, not an emotion often seen in the sober 72-year-old Kentuckian. But that's the only way to describe TIME's interview with him in Perry County, Kentucky, on Monday afternoon.

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

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, The Hill, RedState, Washington Post, Mediaite and Politico

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

Discussion: Politico, The Daily Caller and Liberaland

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

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

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, Hot Air, Hit & Run, Los Angeles Times, National Review and Patterico's Pontifications

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

Discussion: American Power, Shakesville and rubber hose

New York Times:
Negativity Wins the Senate

Discussion: Lawfare, Christian News …, Mediaite, Liberal Values, Washington Post and John Hawkins' Right Wing News

New York Times:
After Election, President Vows to Work With, and Without, Congress

Discussion: The Nation, Guardian, Power Line and TalkLeft

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, American Power, 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: Hot Air and New York Times

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

Nicholas Confessore / New York Times:

Outside Groups With Deep Pockets Lift G.O.P. — Last fall, Steven Law, the president of the nation's largest Republican “super PAC,” met with two of his party's biggest donors in a Houston office. Both had given generously to Mr. Law's organization, American Crossroads …

Discussion: Washington Monthly

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

John Podhoretz / New York Post: A stunning tidal wave of change in the Senate

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: The Gateway Pundit, Gawker, Raw Story and Mediaite

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

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, ABC News and The Hill

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

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

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 …