IMO, the people aren't in any mood to pull together, because they just plain can't do it. The cultural divide is very real. While I believe this election will end up being the high water mark for the Republican party and it's grip on governance, unless the progressive left starts fighting and pushing back at the Republican right--which it hasn't done up to this point--I might even be wrong about that.

Look. The evangelical Christians might be 25% of the electorate in Ohio, but they are in a distinct minority. If it were not for 9/11, the "war on terror", the Iraq war, and the fear mongering about cultural issues, there is no way the Christian right, even in the south, would have been much of a factor this year.

The number of religious Americans are rapidly declining, not increasing. The cultural issues the Republicans used to drive a wedge between the baby boomers and their aging parents, don't resonate with the upcoming generation AT ALL. The anti-gay movement will be reversed in time, because the voters coming of age right now find the whole anti-gay thing to be abhorrent.

The anger among youth at their dispossession by both parties is definitely palpable on the street. They have no faith in either political party. Same is true of moderates and progressives from both parties (what few there are left in the Republican ranks that haven't been successfully driven out in the Rove pogroms that is).

The number of registered independent voters grows with each election, whether they swingers between the parties, or actually registered as indies. In this election in particular, the numbers already show that more and more moderates of both parties, young people, and independents either swung to Kerry in the last couple weeks, or they didn't vote in this election at all.

The Democratic Leadership Council certainly has no mandate, that's fer sure! Be prepared for those heads to start rolling...as soon as the party bosses wake up and smell the coffee.

There is also an uprising building in the labor movement right now, that has been gaining steam since the Clinton sell out years. The oil wars are ready to explode...the anti-globalist youth movement is ready to hit the streets, and will likely make Seattle look like a cake walk.