Better than the Republican Revolution ever did

Bowers:

Democrats now have 233 seats in the 110th congress, more than Republicans have had since 1952. the Republican "revolution" never secured this large a majority in the House. We beat them. We did better than they ever did. So much for the vaunted Republican political machine, which recorded record voter contacts, record fundraising, and record early voting this cycle. With their best effort, we beat them harder than they ever beat us. With FL-13, we could make our total in the House 234.

And...

You want to know why pundits will continue to call this a conservative victory? Because so many politicians and media types have spent so long sucking up to conservative institutions--K Street and the Republican Noise Machine--that turning back now and calling this election cycle a progressive victory would means years, if not decades, of wasted investment. People who owe their access and their careers to conservative institutions are not about to throw everything away because one of measly election. We will only achieve a progressive America when politicians and media types are spending more time sucking up to progressive institutions--academia, unions, even the blogosphere--than they are to conservative institutions. Quite frankly, it is a miracle that we managed a progressive majority with the institutional forces lined up against us. That miracle was found in people-power.

This is a key point. The American people have the ability to figure things out for themselves. There may be institutional forces lined up against us, there may be right-wing punditry dominating the political scene, there may be scads of money from the national Republican party, there may be dirty tricks and scheduling elections on Mexican holidays, but the American people can see through all of that. As long as you give them a real choice. That's why the netroots-endorsed candidates did so well in 2006, right down to Ciro Rodriguez. They offered a choice.

Of course, the Republican Party's implosion didn't hurt either.