Their math...

"Democrats face this terrible arithmetic in the Electoral College where if they don't carry any of the 11 Southern states [of the Old Confederacy] they need to win 70% of everything else," says Merle Black, an expert on Southern politics at Emory University.

...and ours.

"Republicans face this terrible arithmetic in the Electoral College where if they don't carry any of the 13 Northeastern states they need to win two-thirds of everything else," says Kevin Drum, an expert on simplistic arithmetic at the Washington Monthly.

While we're all busy figuring out what the key to victory is, remember to ignore any suggestion that we need to compromise our priniciples in pursuit of some kind of southern strategy. While a look at the map of Purple America reveals that there are still real opportunities for Democratic gains in the south, those aren't the only opportunities and there are some things we simply can't do in pursuit of votes.

One, for instance, would be to follow the advice that Bill Clinton apparently gave John Kerry to campaign in favor of the homophobic initiatives against marriage equality. You want proof we nominated the right guy? Kerry's rejection of that advice is all the proof I need (although hardly all the evidence there is). We knew all along that this election was going to be won in the margins, and sadly Bush was the one with a marginal victory. He got it, though, with votes we don't want, votes we can't afford to pay the price for.

Some people are moaning that it's unclear what Democrats stand for (if you're among them, Digby's list seems clear enough), it's perfectly apparent what the Republicans are about these days - hate and fear. How far can they get with that message? About as far as they've come. Have they got any more? Not that I can see. They've exposed themselves, and it's time for us to stay on the attack, because the battle never ends.

Drum is right...

Note to the media: it was a close election, just like it was four years ago. There were only a dozen swing states, and Republicans had no more chance of winning in California, New York, and Illinois than Democrats did in Georgia, Alabama, and Wyoming. A trivial swing of a hundred thousand votes in half a dozen states and you'd be writing pretentious thumbsuckers about how cultural issues were losing their ability to attract votes for Republicans. So knock it off, OK?

And while we're all entitled to our disappointment with Tuesday's results, there's just no time for despair. It was close. We're still right.

No surrender.