Strangely enough, on the morning after the morning after I don't feel so bad. Part of the reason is because John McCain was never my candidate. That is, I voted for him, but I mainly voted against Barack Obama as a defensive act against the specter of "change" Obama promises to bring this already plenty great country. I don't like Obama's patronizing attitudes toward all of us "little people" wasting away as victims in need of his savior-style government, his redistributive policies, his anti-American allies and cheerleaders--both in his personal past and now making themselves heard around the world--or his political record such as it is, as I've already made clear in a string of columns. And these were columns, as I was well aware on writing them, that barely mentioned John McCain.

In other words, there is no sense of gaping loss at what might have been.

But there is still deep trepidation and alarm over what will be--some of which is already beginning to materialize. Crumbling world aside: Will Obama push the speech-repressing Fairness Doctrine at home? Will he try to break the Constitution to "save" the financial markets? And will he live up to his hushed-up Marxist pedigree? Or, perhaps, will he go statesmanlike on us, more than content to be the First Black President rather than the first revolutonary president. We have NO idea because we know virtually NOTHING about the man even after two years and a $600 billion PR roll-out.

That said, there remain a few fitting aspects about the election results at least. Thankfully, my favorite US Representative, Sue Myrick, Republican of NC, will be returning to Washington to fight the jihad (remember that?). And it is still a Good Thing that the Clintons are not returning to Washington. Vindicating that scurvy lot with executive power a third time would have rated as something akin to a National Sin. I am also glad that John McCain--and by extension, the Bush people, including the disastrous Karl Rove--lost the Hispanic vote after decades of pandering by shredding our laws and our borders (and our home mortgage industry) and our concept of nationhood. I still don't understand how the Republican Party, having come to life to defeat the treasonous McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill in 2007 could nominate John McCain for president in 2008. Some people point to open primaries that allowed liberal Independents to select McCain; if that's so, the GOP has some work to do to tighten things up before 2012.

And then there's McCain himself. If he were busy forming an administration now, likely preparing to revive amnesty legislation (which Obama will do), preparing to claim "victory" in Iraq and "surge" into Afghanistan (which Obama will do), I'd be sharpening my mightier-than-the-sword pens. Better to wield them against the opposition, now forced, by its own overwhelming success from the White House to Capitol Hill, to produce more than words, more than visions.

It's the Obama-Pelosi-Reid era. It's showtime, the stakes are high and there's no net.