And that Obama is nothing if not brilliant. This guy has had some liberal victories legislatively, and when word of these victories — the realities of healthcare, financial reform, student loan reform, etc. — trickles out, we will have pride and stamina again. We will experience grace again, the grace of generosity to the underdog; the grace of second winds, and psychic WD-40. The grace of unseen water wings.

I say, buckle up, buckeroos and buckerinas. Fingers crossed and heads high. Once more into the breach. Also, figure out how you, in your area, can help mobilize the Latino vote. We owe Harry Reid to Hispanic outrage and get-out-the-vote efforts — send someone money today. (I love Mi Familia Vota, but there are organizations in every state.) Or go somewhere nearby and register Latino voters, and the youth, who accidentally forgot to show up on Tuesday — the “yout,” to quote the great Joe Pesci in “My Cousin Vinnie.” Help whip up the Youts for 2012. Lots to do! Kids to mentor, wars to protest, homeless people to help through the coming winter night. Time to rest and get ready.

So goodnight, moon. Goodnight, long national nightmare of the last two months, when it looked like we might lose John Dingell, and Barney Frank, and HAR-RY. Good night, Carl Paladino, with your cute red bat! Goodnight, Christine O’Donnell, with your election night list of demands — fabulous! I don’t know a living writer who could have thought that up, or the “I Am not a Witch” campaign. Maybe the late, great Terry Southern? But anyway, excellent — and goodnight. Goodnight, Dino Rossi, but can we keep the name? And goodnight, icky Meg Whitman, thank you from the bottom of my heart for not being my new governor. Money and power and ego can’t buy ya love, huh? Does that suck, or WHAT? And we all know what it’s like to spend money unwisely — who among us does not have some crazy purchase in our closet or drawer and garage right now? The stories I could tell — the blisters, the eyeglass frames that look so adorable on Justin Timberlake. Oh well, good night, Meg; and thank you for your courage, Meg Whitman’s housekeeper. And good night, Joe Sestak — but DON’T go very far away. You’re the real thing. Good night, Joe Miller, even with all those rascally votes still to count. But goodnight, and thank you for sharing.

Let’s all go have some well-earned rest. A new day dawns.

O’Donnell’s primary triumph immediately turned Delaware into a safe seat for Democrats. Coons went from trailing Castle by about 15 points to leading O’Donnell by at least that much. The closest poll of the entire general election campaign still showed O’Donnell losing by ten points, and Coons’ final margin was 17. The bottom-line is obvious: With the GOP establishment’s candidate, Republicans would have gained a seat in Delaware on Tuesday night, but with the Tea Party’s candidate, they blew the chance. 

It’s true that O’Donnell struggles can be chalked up to her erratic behavior (claiming political opponents were spying on her from her bushes), her personal financial issues, and the embarrassing clips from her old appearances on Bill Maher’s show that came to light – and not her ideology per se. But she also embodied the spirit of the Tea Party movement, which is best understood as an uprising of the party’s conservative base against its professional political class. Her lack of political seasoning was part of her appeal during the primary, with conservative activists openly admitting that they didn’t care if she cost them the election — at least she hadn’t been in Washington for years and at least she hadn’t voted for TARP!

That same sprit lifted Sharron Angle to the Republican nomination in Nevada against Harry Reid. As we documented earlier this year, there was no reason to expect that Reid, the Democrats’ Senate leader, would survive this campaign. He entered 2010 trailing his most likely GOP foes by double-digit margins; we could only find two senators in the last 30 years who had faced similar predicaments in their reelection years and gone on to win – Jesse Helms and Al D’Amato. All of the others who had faced Reid’s numbers went down to defeat. Nevada voters, especially in this brutal economic climate, were eager to get rid of Reid.

But Angle, with her history of extreme views and her off-putting campaign antics (among them: literally running from the press, declaring that she’d answer questions only when she was elected, and telling a group of Latino students that they looked Asian) gave those voters pause. Did they really want to send someone so flaky to represent them in Washington? A bland, average Republican would have defeated Reid in a 15-point snoozer. But Angle’s liabilities were so stark that voters rejected her – and handed Reid one of the most improbable Senate victories in history. As in Delaware, the Tea Party clearly cost Republicans a Senate pick-up in Nevada.

We may soon be able to say the same about Colorado, where Tea Partier Ken Buck now trails appointed Democratic incumbent Michael Bennet, with some votes (mainly from Democratic-friendly areas, apparently) still to be counted. Bennet was not as reviled by his state’s voters as Reid was in Nevada, but he was hardly beloved, either — and with the national climate poisoned against Democrats, he made for an inviting target for the GOP. A boring, non-threatening Republican candidate would have been well-positioned to take advantage of the climate and oust Bennet, handing the GOP a pick-up.

But Buck, a county prosecutor who once worked on Capitol Hill, had a penchant for generating headlines that made swing voters uneasy – particularly with his declaration a few weeks ago that homosexuality is akin to alcoholism. News of his insensitive treatment of a possible rape victim back in 2005 also unnerved the masses. Just enough voters, it seems, had just enough doubt about Buck to override their desire to vote against the Democrats.

With Delaware, Nevada and Colorado, Republicans would now be looking at 50 seats in the Senate – with results from Washington, where Democrat Patty Murray barely leads her GOP foe, still outstanding. Even without Washington, they’d be in position to bargain with Joe Lieberman or Ben Nelson to switch parties and hand them an outright majority. Plus, if Angle hadn’t been the nominee in Nevada, imagine how much GOP money, from national party organizations and from individual donors, could have been directed to other pick-up targets. Like, say, Washington.

Republicans had a terrific night on Tuesday, no question about it, with plenty of Tea Partiers winning — particularly in House races (where it can be easier for flawed candidates to slip through). But it can also be said that their night could have been better — and that without the Tea Party, they’d either have a Senate majority right now, or they’d be rapidly closing in on it.

And it was always clear that O’Donnell would lose in the fall, given her checkered past and penchant for erratic behavior and provocative pronouncements. A generic, bland Republican would have been well-positioned to win this race, with swing voters eager to voice their frustration with the Democrats who rule Washington. But O’Donnell’s presence turned the race into a referendum on her ideology, her background and her behavior — and her deficiencies were severe enough to move swing voters back to the Democratic column.

We’ll soon know if Tea Party candidates have cost the GOP any other Senate races; you can keep tabs on them here. But if Republicans end tonight one vote short of a Senate majority, they’ll have the Tea party to thank for it.

The Foreign Relations committee is not as much fun as Appropriations, Finance or Armed Services — because no lobbyist wants to deliver giant comedy sacks of money to a member of the stupid Foreign Relations committee — so, should the GOP take the Senate, all the Republican senators who want to be big wheels will jump ship to one of the cool committees. Meaning the GOP members on the committee will include some of these exciting young Tea Party Republicans, except only Christine O’Donnell wants to join, so I guess she’ll probably end up chairwoman.

So vote O’Donnell, Delaware!

(More seriously, this means that Barack Obama’s START treaty is probably — like everything else that requires any sort of Senate action — doomed. I mean, even if O’Donnell doesn’t win. Because no Republican candidate will get elected this year by promising to help the president rid the world of nuclear weapons.)

 1. Delaware: Christine O’Donnell

2. New York: Carl Paladino

3. Nevada: Sharron Angle vs. Harry Reid

4. Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear

5. Sarah Palin 2012?

6. Tea Party Express

7. GOP candidates roundup (featuring Carly Fiorina, Meg Whitman, Linda McMahon and Rand Paul)

For further Salon appreciation of NMA, read Mary Elizabeth Williams on the group’s Lindsay Lohan coverage here, and Andrew Leonard on NMA’s response to a video from the right-wing Citizens Against Government Waste here.