Last night, the House Democrats had a historic win, picking up four seats. Now that we’ve had a little time to reflect (but not enough time for much sleep ), I think some lessons are clear:

– We recruited great candidates–folks who might not have been willing to run with a “D” after their name even a few years ago. Joe Bouchard and Bobby Mathieson had long and distinguished careers (in the Navy and as a police officer, respectively) before they ever considered offering themselves for public office. Paul Nichols is a successful attorney who wouldn’t have had to take on this challenge. Margi Vanderhye has worked on important issues like transportation and education for more than two decades.

– There’s no substitute for hard work. Margi Vanderhye knocked on more than 11,000 doors. Although Chap Petersen is the one in the newspaper holding up a pair of shoes with a hole in the sole, Margi could have held up any of the THREE pairs she wore out going door to door.

– We had the resources. Special shout-out to Ward Armstrong and Brian Moran, who raised buckets of money and who challenged all of us in the Caucus to do some heavy lifting as well. We had the resources to make last-minute TV buys where they were needed.

– Voters really want common-sense solutions. All four of our candidates are anxious to roll up their sleeves and get to work for the people of Virginia.

As Yogi Berra once said on a day when he was being honored in Yankee Stadium, “I’d like to thank everyone who made this day necessary.” Exactly.

Now I’m going to take a nap. With results not coming in until nearly 1, there was not a lot of sleep last night!

UPDATE: I am not forgetting Joe Morrissey, who will also join the House in January. But his race was essentially over the night he won the primary.  The four who won last night really came through a crucible.

–

 . . . This year we’re working through 7 PM November 6 to rid the House of malign spirits.

From this morning’s Washington Post:

“Incumbents who lose narrowly might be more bipartisan when they come back to Richmond, said Warner, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate.”

I think the way it works is that if incumbents lose, they’re not going to be coming back to Richmond.

From this week’s   New Yorker:

“In late September, Mitt Romney spoke before an audience in a banquet room in Santa Clara, California, within walking distance of high-tech firms like Yahoo, Nortel, and A.M.D. Wearing a blue suit and tie, a gold watch on his wrist, and product in his hair, he never moved from center stage, where an American flag helped frame him for his camera shots. He held a microphone with four fingertips and a thumb and rotated his torso a hundred and eighty degrees every five seconds or so, like a human garden sprinkler.”

Five years ago today, a plane crashed in northern Minnesota. Paul Wellstone, his wife Sheila, and their daughter Marcia tragically lost their lives.

It’s a day of special poignancy for our family. My daughter Sara was in Minnesota working for the Wellstone campaign.

I didn’t always always agree with Paul Wellstone (heck, I’m not sure PAUL even agreed with all his own votes.) But I learned some powerful lessons from him:

1. You can’t separate your life from your politics. “Never separate the life you live from the words you speak,” he said.

2. Sometimes you have to make the tough votes. Paul was locked in a difficult re-election campaign when he cast a vote against the war in Iraq. People said it would destroy his political viability. Just the opposite was true.

3. He never forgot who elected him. As Garrison Keillor said, “Paul Wellstone identified passionately with people at the bottom, people in trouble, people in the rough. He was an old-fashioned Democrat who felt more at home with the rank and file than with the rich and famous.”

4. You can build bridges with people who don’t agree with you. As part of his work on what has become known as the Paul Wellstone Mental Health Act, Paul learned that Sen. Pete Domenici also had a family member who had struggled with mental illness. The two of them, who agreed on very little else, teamed up to press for expanded coverage for mental health. (Note to those in Congress: Now would be a good time to pass that bill.)

UPDATE: The New York Times tells the story of a time when Wellstone called Domenici’s office. An aide asked what the call was about. Wellstone answered, “Mental health! What the hell else do we agree on?”

5. You can’t work for any change if you can’t get elected. Paul Wellstone was a master of the nuts-and-bolts of politics. Sen. Amy Klobuchar says he even taught her which bus routes in Minneapolis had the most riders. From the famous Paul Wellstone green bus to his intensive focus on Get Out the Vote efforts, Paul knew that winning elections is hard work.

He was filled with boundless optimism, good humor, and a sense that politics could really be about things that matter. We need more of that.

Because it’s always fun to quote Garrison Keillor:

There is a natural division of labor in politics: The Republicans fuss about the sanctity of marriage and getting God back in the schools and the Democrats about healthcare and the $8 billion that vanished in Iraq, and so far the Republicans are doing a better job. God is in the schools, the same as He is in Nebraska or even in Dallas, and marriage looks to be doing OK, since the White House is not in charge of it. Meanwhile, the Pentagon and the Justice Department are investigating fraud in Iraq, one grain of sand at a time, and we are likely to have answers in a decade or two.

Apparently, there’s a dearth of clever blog names.

Good thing we locked up 7 West early.

. . . I think the Republicans just jumped the shark.

Gail Collins in this morning’s New York Times: “If the Republican presidential candidates go any farther right, they’ll be opening their town meetings by biting the heads off squirrels.”