I’m reminded of the scene in Citizen Kane, when Kane loses the election at the last minute and his editors pick between the two headlines. One reads “Victory” and the other says “Fraud at Polls!”. The lefty blogs got very excited about some early exit polling data, and the stock market did too. Now the market will be roaring up, while there’s as much conspiracy theory as you like on the left about what happened between the exit polls and the poll results, and how exactly Florida boosted its turnout by over 29%, had more registrations in poorer and African-American precincts and still went further into the Bush camp. And Ohio, still run by Diebold? I must admit to being pretty baffled. Apparently tons of new voters got riled up about the evils of the Administration, registered to vote and then went in and voted in record numbers….for Bush.

But given that the outcome is set, and that the Senate got much more conservative (with at least two real wingnuts added), the die is more or less cast for the next four years.

For the health care system, this prods us towards the “no change leading to big disaster/crisis/reform” scenario that I’ve hinted at in the past. All indicators are starting to flash orange, and no legislative solutions will come out in the next four years, although they may take another run at malpractice. I think that the 2008-2012 health care crisis election is now a likelihood, depending on the timing of the next recession.

In the meanwhile, there’ll be plenty to write about; just not how Kerry’s plan was shot down in flames by a do-nothing Congress.

I’m off to a corner to cry quietly….