That's the conclusion of Bob Novak,a/k/a the Prince of Darkness, who writes:

[Obama] may have opened the door to enactment of the long-deferred liberal agenda, but he neither received a broad mandate from the public nor the needed large congressional majorities.

To bolster his statement about Congress, Novak cites the Democrats' failure to capture a filibuster-proof, sixty-seat Senate majority, and their inability to oust Republican Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Writing for the New York Post, former Phoenix reporter Seth Gitell does an excellent job analyzing the implications of Barack Obama's big win from a politico-racial perspective. There are several sharp insights in the piece, but one in particular--involving how Obama's victory affects our standing in the world--struck me as especially significant:

...Perhaps a bit much?

I hate to be a wet blanket, but asking the crowd to pray that they can follow Obama and create the Kingdom of God on earth seems excessive. So does putting an explicitly Christian gloss on the proceedings.

Also, as an aside, the retrospective-video thing currently underway at Grant Park looks an awful lot like what I remember from Deval Patrick's victory celebration in '06.

John McCain is ending the election on a low note. Here, via CNN, is the translated conclusion of a robocall that started going out to Spanish-language voters in Florida this afternoon:

Don't give Castro what he wants. Go vote right now for John McCain and avoid establishing in the United States political policies like those of Cuba.

Both CBS News and ABC News are currently leading their Web coverage with stories on polling-place problems. Here's a snippet of CBS's piece:

Reports are coming in from election protection groups suggesting that Virginia, a key battleground state, is having the most problems, with 20-plus cities and counties having serious problems: machines breaking down, substituted paper ballots being stuffed into suitcases, boxes and duffle bags (poll officials telling voters they will be counted later), unbearably long lines, frustrated voters walking away.

When last we left John McCain's running mate, she was accusing the media of violating her First Amendment rights.

Maybe it's the relief of getting to the end of the campaign, but today, Sarah Palin is in a more conciliatory mood today. From her post-voting remarks, via CNN.com's The Ticker:

Asked if she had any regrets about the campaign, Palin bemoaned “the state of journalism today.

I have a running argument with a friend about which anti-Obama attacks are racist. For example, I thought the McCain camp's Obama-disrespects-Palin ad played on toxic racist sentiments involving black men and white women. My friend didn't see it.

So I'd be interested to hear what readers think of Fox News's coverage of pro-Obama excitement in Kenya, his father's country of birth.

Got an e-mail this morning from none other than Newt Gingrich, who urged me to stick it to the media by going to the polls. Because, he explained, the media don't want conservatives to vote:

The latest tactic in this elite media campaign has been to declare the presidential race over in an effort to discourage some voters from going to the polls.

For months now, my colleague David Bernstein has been assuring me that Barack Obama's going to win the presidency by a wide margin tomorrow. But no matter what he says--and despite how promising the polls currently look--I can't help expecting the worst.

Sound familiar? If so, please join me in a little exercise.

For the past day or so, Fox News and the McCain campaign have been pushing the whole LA Times-Rashid Khalidi videotape story. In case you've missed it, the Times apparently has a videotape of Obama saying nice things about Khalidi, a former U. of Chicago professor who now teaches at Columbia, at a 2003 shindig. The Times has already written about Obama's relationship to Khalidi, a Palestinian-American who's been harshly critical of Israel.