Bull Moose has a nice “Kosenfreude” piece up, which makes a lot of sense right up until this point:

The central reason that the Democrats have achieved their major triumph is that they captured the center that was abandoned by the GOP.

What? Say again?

Conservatives have a looooong laundry-list of complaints against this President and the late unlamented Republican Congress. Are these complaints still somehow dwarfed by a justified sense of abandonment from the center?

I really don’t think so. This GOP-is-hostage-to-right-wing-lunacy school of thought usually results from a commentator’s frustration that the Republicans in D.C. haven’t yet completely thrown their social-conservative wing over the side. So long as Republicans oppose abortion and gay marriage and cloning, they will have “abandoned” all those poor moderates out there, even if 98% of everything else Republicans do these days drives their own base nuts.

And just how many moderates are out there, stranded by their obnoxiously right-wing party? Not enough to save the Chafees and Johnsons of the world, that much was clear last night. If the voters themselves are abandoning the GOP’s wets and weak sisters, why shouldn’t the party itself follow suit?