The McLaughlin Group had a couple things that were truly new and interesting. One is that Russ Feingold might challenge Obama in the Democrat primaries. The other thing was that if Feingold or someone else who was a bit credible might file to challenge Obama in the primary, that it might open the door for a Hillary challenge. OK. Fair enough.

NPR had a great spot this afternoon about Pelosi announcing that she was going to try and keep her leadership role with the democratic minority. The report pointed out that it was mostly the blue dog democrats, the conservative democrats that were recruited to run against republicans in moderate republican districts, that lost the race, and those democrats remaining standing, were, as a group, the minority, but more liberal than the majority that has existed the last couple terms.

That means that any challenges from the right for party leadership, in the context of so called "republican wave" which swept the elections this week, was going to be on the short end of the stick when it came to voting for minority leader.

I think it's great that Nancy Pelosi is still going to continue. It gives the message that females can get knocked down and pick themselves up and keep going. And while demonization has become part and parcel of american politics, what the big money did to demonize Pelosi was dirty. As the first woman speaker of the house, who guided the House to pass some very cutting edge legislation, whether it all was perfect or not, she should get some credit - not the total stomping that she took.

The republicans' tenure is so fragile, and yet they act so arrogant, already. McLaughlin better be careful about getting swept up in this pseudo euphoria. He might lose credibility.