“I almost wish there were another podium here tonight, because I feel like Nancy Pelosi has been in this campaign the whole time. And Nancy ought to take a victory lap with me. And maybe President Obama as well. The disservice and disrespect that has been leveled on them has been so outrageous and so unjustified that it makes me really fear for this country. When you have two people who work every day to make life better for every American and they put up with the nonsense … [I]t’s not only unjustified, it’s un-American.”

2. Linda McMahon (candidate for Senate in Connecticut)

McMahon, the WWE executive who spent over $40 million on her own campaign, suffered a solid defeat. The general tone of her aggressive campaign attacks on Richard Blumenthal might have led viewers to expect a bitter concession; however, her performance was surprisingly classy. On a night when platitudes about “Pennsylvanians,” “Nevadans” and “the people of Delaware” largely came across as tinned, her profession of “love” for the people of her state sounded genuine. And perhaps most significant, in a year of rabid partisanship, she was one of the only losing candidates to insist that her followers transfer their support to a victorious rival, projecting her voice over a booing crowd to say: “Each of us, because we [carry] a love for this state and for our country, in our hearts, we are all going to be supportive of our newly elected officials. Because we want them all to succeed; because if they succeed, we succeed.”

3. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis.

With his three-term run in the Senate coming to an involuntary end, Feingold’s concession speech was short and sweet. “Being your senator has been the greatest honor of my life,” he told a disappointed crowd, before offering a quote from Bob Dylan’s “Mississippi”: “But my heart is not weary, it’s light and it’s free/I’ve got nothing but affection for those who’ve sailed with me.”

THE WORST

1. Carly Fiorina (candidate for Senate in California)

Strictly speaking, Fiorina’s speech to supporters last night was not a “concession,” since she didn’t actually concede. Though every network had already called the race in favor of Barbara Boxer by the time Fiorina took the stage, the Republican still told an audience in Irvine that she and Boxer were in a “dead heat tie.” In a performance entirely consistent with the snarky tone of Fiorina’s television ads (not to mention the “sooo yesterday” jab at Boxer’s hairstyle that an open microphone picked up earlier this year), she said of those who had called the race for Boxer: “Maybe that was probably not a smart thing to do.” Words she’s probably regretting right about now.

2. Carl Paladino (candidate for governor of New York)

No one with any knowledge of the Paladino campaign could have been surprised by the eccentric nature of his concession speech. Brandishing an orange baseball bat, “Crazy Carl” issued his victorious opponent, Andrew Cuomo, a bizarre threat:

“I have a message for Andrew Cuomo, the next governor of New York. I’ve always said my baseball bat is a metaphor for the people, who want to take their government back. But this isn’t my bat, after all. As our next governor, you can grab this handle, and bring the people with you to Albany. Or you can leave it untouched, and run the risk of having it wielded against you. Because make no mistake, you have not heard the last of Carl Paladino.”

The bat comes out around the 5:55 mark.

3. Christine O’Donnell (candidate for Senate in Delaware)

One of the earliest concessions of the night, O’Donnell’s speech began on a decidedly positive note. “We have won,” she announced, “because the Delaware political system will never be the same.” (This apparently confused O’Donnell’s brother, who could be heard remarking, “We won, did I miss something?”) Soon, though, O’Donnell was lecturing the candidate who defeated her (by 16 points), Chris Coons, about his responsibilities in the years ahead. Among other things, O’Donnell said she had already asked Coons to watch a 30-minute infomercial produced by her campaign. “We can only hope and pray that he chooses to go against his party leadership and do what’s right for the people of Delaware,” she said.

The first-time candidate, who is 56, was diagnosed with breast cancer in February 2009 before she formally announced her run against Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer. She completed chemotherapy and radiation treatments a year ago and had reconstructive surgery in July after having a double mastectomy.

Recent polls show the race between Boxer and Fiorina tightening with just six days left before the election.

A University of Southern California-Los Angeles Times poll released Sunday showed Boxer maintaining a narrow advantage, 47 percent to 41 percent, against Fiorina. The gap was smaller than the same poll showed a month ago.

Both women have maintained busy schedules criss-crossing the most populous state in the nation.

On Tuesday, Fiorina sent supporters to take her place to meet with small business owners in two Riverside County cities to discuss jobs and the economy. Supporters will again take her place at a scheduled campaign stop in San Diego on Wednesday afternoon.

Boxer, meanwhile, appeared Tuesday night with first lady Michelle Obama and Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, to urge Democratic supporters to grant Boxer a fourth term.

Mrs. Obama was scheduled to appear at a private lunch at a West Los Angeles home Wednesday on Boxer’s behalf. Boxer was scheduled to meet with volunteers in West Hollywood in the afternoon.

Carly Fiorina’s new attack on Barbara Boxer goes for the depression jugular, with a stark series of graphic, high-contrast black-and-white shots that paint a eschatological picture of California. One photograph, depicting the liquidation of a retail store, could have been lifted from a Walker Evans retrospective at the San Francisco MOMA

Check out that opening scene. Grim-faced farmers standing on a barren field, a Grapes of Wrathian image if ever there was one. During this, the equally ominous announcer intones:

“After 28 long years of Washington partisanship, this is Barbara Boxer’s California. Trillions in reckless wasteful spending. Destroying small business. Killing jobs. Crushing hopes.”

It’s a calculated effort to move people by activating the neural circuits that exist in their brains. We all have imprints of the calamity of the Great Depression, and this spot seeks to summon them up and pin them on Boxer. As Drew Westen, who wrote “The Political Brain” puts it:

“Electoral success is about shaping and activating voters’ networks of association — bundles of thoughts, feelings, sounds, and images that become linked in the brain. Political campaigns are about activating and shaping networks through stories and images.”

Will the spot succeed? For it to work, there needs to be an existing network of imprints about Boxer that can be stimulated by the imagery we’re seeing. You need to connect with a fundamental impression to be able to amplify and harness it. I don’t think that’s the case here.

Yes, Boxer is seen as a dogmatic liberal, a big spender, and somewhat self-righteous. But the commercial pushes too far past the boundaries of Boxer’s perceptual map. Voters just won’t emotionally accept the argument that the economic wreckage they see around them is “Barbara Boxer’s California.” They recognize, on some equally deep level, that the responsibility for California’s condition is spread wide. The exaggeration doesn’t fit the crime.

By contrast, Boxer’s new spot is positively chirpy, with upbeat music and a string of her accomplishments, from veteran’s benefits to after-school centers to “fighting for new jobs.”

But the commercial is a dud. Just as Fiorina overstates Boxer’s culpability, this spot feels blithely detached from the immediate and profound crisis California is facing. What Senator couldn’t dredge up and string together a few one-off accomplishments after decades in the Senate?

Boxer’s previous spot, vilifying Fiorina for layoffs and shipping jobs offshore when she ran HP, were negative but far more effective, because they tapped into another set of neural circuits – that Fiorina is cold and calculating.

So as far as this round of spots goes, it’s Fiorina’s landscape of destruction versus Boxer’s landscape of denial. Boxer is slightly ahead in the polls, and Fiorina’s shout-out to John Steinbeck might actually widen the gap.

This year’s real conditions for Democrats are certainly threatening, but there are indications that the impending repudiation will not be as devastating as suggested by the current narrative. Whatever ultimately happens in the House, where a Republican takeover appears likely if not inevitable, the Senate will probably remain under Democratic control — despite enormous spending by “independent” groups such as the Club for Growth, the voice of Wall Street conservatives; American Crossroads, the Karl Rove outfit; and the Chamber of Commerce.

At least that is the view of Scott Rasmussen, the pollster whose survey techniques and conservative predilections have often provoked suspicions of Republican bias in his results. As of last Friday, Rasmussen’s latest “Midterm Election Update” said that “a Republican takeover of the Senate appears unlikely,” with Democrats predicted to hold at least 51 seats, Republicans at least 45, and four races (in Nevada, Colorado, Wisconsin and Illinois) rated as tossups. Today Rasmussen marginally revised that estimate by moving West Virginia into the “Toss-up” column when a new poll showed popular Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin slightly behind Republican businessman John Raese in the Senate race.

Meanwhile the revision of Republican expectations of glory is fully underway in California, where Sen. Barbara Boxer was once among the GOP’s prime targets. Now the incumbent Democrat is starting to pull ahead of Republican Carly Fiorina, despite a wave of negative ads bought by the Chamber of Commerce and other third-party opponents. (Last week Rasmussen revised its assessment of the race from Toss-Up to Lean Dem.) Even more notable is the surge of Attorney General Jerry Brown, the Democrat running for governor against former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, billionaire darling of the Republican right, whose record campaign expenditure of $120 million (and climbing) is expected to be four or five times more than that of her opponent. That massive spending imbalance, with thousands of anti-Brown commercials flooding the state’s airwaves on her behalf, has itself become a symbol of Whitman’s distance from ordinary citizens.

Other signs of life on the Democratic horizon include the surprising polls showing that Kentucky Democratic Senate nominee Jack Conway is roughly tied with Republican Rand Paul, the Tea Party’s favorite loony until the advent of Christine O’Donnell. If Conway had enough money to match the third-party expenditures on Paul’s behalf, he might even have a chance to win.

Democrats elsewhere could learn from the examples of Brown and Boxer — and even Conway — who haven’t hesitated to strike back hard or behave like winners. What those races show is that monetary advantage need not always determine outcomes. If Democrats stop ducking and cowering — and offer an aggressive “closing argument” — they may still escape the worst possible debacle in November.