It’s the morning after and the political junkies across the country are wiping sleep from their bloodshot eyes, sipping on that cup of coffee, and hoping that the caffeine kicks in soon so that they can go about their day.

To many of us, election night is better than the Super Bowl or any game seven.

There are a few things to take away from the 2010 election. Yes, I have to comment on the media coverage, too. And, there are awards at the end!

Hundreds of people followed me on Twitter last night and thousands more read the commentaries on this website about the elections over the last few weeks. A few years ago a friend said this about me, “You know more about politics and elections than anyone who follows or works in politics in Montana and the Rocky Mountain West.” I said, “That and a dollar will get me a cup of coffee.”

Or I can just Tweet about it and write commentaries on this website!

Late last night I sent a few congratulatory e-mails around the country to friends who had won races. One person who had crushed her opponent in a highly Democratic district replied, “I learned from the best.” That was nice…

Armed with a few glasses of Merlot and some food, I watched the races until about 1:00 a.m. and here are some observations:

Things that made me happy:

– Seeing Lisa Murkowski (R) doing so well in Alaska as a write-in candidate. This may take another month to finally have a winner. I wanted to see Lisa shove that race and the tea party candidate down Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee’s throat.

-Seeing many folks not falling for the Tea Party candidate hogwash and understanding that center-right is probably the best way to win elections, not far right or far left.

Things that made me sad:

-Seeing Ike Skelton (D) lose his house race in Missouri. Skelton built Whiteman AFB and Fort Leonard Wood into great military installations. The folks there will miss his 17 term clout…the same way the folks in Great Falls are missing Conrad Burns’ clout in the military and defense world.

National:

The GOP must understand that this process to take control of the House and Senate is a six-year process. A SIX-YEAR process. It’s not one or two elections; it takes three elections to make progress.

Just about everyone predicted the GOP would take control of the U.S. House and they did. I predicted a pick-up of 51 seats. Currently, they have 58.

In the U.S. Senate, I predicted the GOP would pick up six seats. Currently, they are picking up six seats.

I predicted the Montana At-Large House race (Rehberg) would be called between 9:15-9:45. It was called at 9:00 p.m.

I am not at all impressed with the leaders of the House GOP. Boehner, Cantor, and Bachman are just not that intelligent. Boehner was sobbing last night. He and Cantor are wimps. They will probably screw this up. Of course, I am not all that impressed with leaders of the House Democrats either.

State:

The Montana GOP did well. Congratulations. The employees and board members there should keep their jobs for a little longer. They need to remember that this was just practice for the election of 2012. They need to beef up for the real test in 2012.

As for the Montana Democrats, it may be time to hire some folks who know something about politics (before the big election of 2012). Maybe they can hire someone from the local newspaper…

The Roy Brown (R) Kendall Van Dyk (D) race has Van Dyk winning by 16 votes. There will probably be a recount. BTW, there were 30 write-in votes in that race. If the Democrats have one thing to be proud of, it will be taking out Brown who ran for Governor.

I was three of four on the ballot measures in Montana:

Constitutional Convention Call No. 2 (CC-2): I did not want to see a constitutional convention and neither did the voters by 58-41%.

Constitutional Initiative 105 (CI-105): I voted for this to prevent more taxes and so did the voters by 72-27%.

Initiative No. 161 (I-161): The Outfitter ballot measure. I voted against I-161. The “For” Votes won 53-41%.

Initiative No. 164 (I-164): The payday loan issue. I voted for I-164 and so did the voters 71-28%.

State-wide and PSC:

I endorsed Denny Rehberg. He clobbered Dennis McDonald. The Democrats again put forth their best candidate (former Democratic Party chair) and he lost by 27 points. Rehberg won all but three of Montana’s 56 counties. Rehberg even won Missoula County…

Rehberg can run for whatever seat he wants in 2012. It does not appear that anyone can stop him…

A little note to the Rehberg campaign and the Montana GOP: You can mail my consultant and opposition research checks to my home address…make sure it has at least three zeros to the left of the decimal point.

Supreme Court:

I endorsed Nels Swandal over Beth Baker. Baker, the Helena insider, won the race by about four points.

Public Service Commission:

I endorsed Travis Kavulla for PSC District #1. He won by 27 points in a slaughter. The GOP now controls the PSC. I expect great things from Kavulla.

Local:

In the local county-wide races, both the candidates (Commissioner/Sheriff) I endorsed lost. Cascade County government is pretty screwed up and it appears it still will be for the next few years.

The Media Coverage:

-Sometimes you have to wonder what the heck the media are doing. The coverage pretty much sucked last night in Montana. Nobody cares what the count for a state-wide race is in one county. The local newspaper can run that in their next day newspaper.

The folks who try to cover the elections must hire someone (if only for one or two nights) to guide them through the evening and get them to report on important stuff.

-Fox News was OK, but CNN had better graphics. Fox News has more attractive commentators…

Awards:

-The Missoulian and Bozeman Chronicle get a high-five for using Twitter throughout the night…although Tweeting about pizza in the newsroom just made me hungry.

-A thumbs-down goes to candidates who did not use social networking sites to get out their message.

–Yellowstone County gets a star for their posting of election results quickly on the web for all to see. (Cascade County should dust off a computer and try to copy Yellowstone)

-Secretary of State Linda McCulloch gets a star for a great website to track races.

-High-fives should go to all the candidates who ran. I appreciate your decision to put your name on the ballot.

-A Star is awarded to the 55.9% of the voters who voted. Shame on the 44% who were lazy.