To say Tuesday night was an ugly night for the Democrats would be an understatement. On the national level it was the red sea enveloping the election map as Republicans came to their senses, weeded out the wacko Tea Party extremists in primaries and concentrated on winnable races with moderate Republicans.

The Republicans gained additional seats in Congress, but also took control of the Senate as well. For the first time since 2006, the Republicans now have a majority in both Houses. Senator Mitch McConnell (Kentucky-R) not only won his reelection, but is now the Senate Majority Leader. The Republicans now also have a majority of state governors after Tuesday night. Like I said, it was an ugly night for the Dems.

It ain’t hard to teach national politics to a high school civics class. Take a ruler from North Dakota to Texas and draw a straight line. If it’s cow country, it’s red. Next, look at the Confederate states, they’re red also (Florida and Virginia are swing states). If they’re rednecks, they’re probably a red state.

The Northeast and Pacific Coasts are blue like the oceans.

Remember the Presidential election comes down to about twelve swing states. The other 38 states are already a done deal for the red or blue team.

If you thought President Obama had a rough first six years in office, ya ain’t seen nothing yet. Between Fox News and AM hate radio they blamed Obama for anything and everything. Ebola virus – Obama’s fault. Unemployment rate declining, while many Americans are still in poverty – Obama’s fault. ISIS gaining power in the Middle East – Obama’s fault. Earthquake in Napa - Obama’s fault.

Here’s my predictions for the next two years: Obamacare (AKA: the Affordable Care Act) will be under siege. A woman’s right to choose will be limited in numerous states. Wall Street and corporations will demand deregulation. Illegal immigrants can kiss off any “path to citizenship.” Millionaires and billionaires will be getting larger tax cuts. Those at the bottom end of the spectrum will be getting even larger social services (welfare, food stamps, etc.) cuts. More and more of the unfunded mandates from the federal and state governments will be crammed down to the local counties and cities with no financial remuneration forthcoming.

Here in California, Democrats swept all state offices, which was a given with the voter demographics. Governor Jerry Brown gets a fourth term in office. If certain folks want minimum wage increases in California, look no further than your Democratic Governor, Democratic Senate and Democratic Assembly to pass laws.

On the local level there were some clear winners.

Frank Jager won his Eureka Mayor reelection and Marian Brady won her Eureka City Council Ward 1 seat by an even greater percentage (they both ran unopposed).

Natalie Arroyo easily won over Chet Albin (62-38%) for the Eureka City Council Ward 5 seat. Congratulations, Natalie. I predict that Natalie, like most electeds, will govern towards the center. The exception was Larry Glass and look what the voters told him four years later … bye-bye. A thank you to Chet for serving over after Lance Madsen passed. My hope is that Chet continues his hard work in revitalizing the port and bringing in cruise ships with passengers spending their dollars here in Humboldt County.

For Eureka City Council Ward 3, Mike Newman holds a slim 104 vote margin over Kim Bergel. Thadeus Greenson of the North Coast Journal wrote a great article on the math involved for Bergel to make up the margin with the remaining votes outstanding. Not mathematically impossible, considering there may be over 1,000 Eureka ballots still to be counted.

Let’s remember the formula X – Y / 2 = Z, where “X” is the total number of uncounted votes, “Y” is the current margin of votes and “Z” is the number of votes to keep your opponent at to win. Say there are 1,000 Eureka votes outstanding: 1,000 – 104 = 896 / 2 = 448.

Bergel would need to hold Newman to 448 votes (to her 552) to tie or 55.2%. The larger the total number of Eureka votes uncounted, the higher mathematical chance Bergel has to win. The lower number of Eureka votes uncounted, the higher mathematical chance Newman has to win. I’m predicting a low double digits or even a single digit win for the eventual winner.

Think about it … last night makes Councilmember Melinda Ciarabellini the potential swing vote for the City of Eureka.

Over in Arcata, Paul Pitino won the two-year term on City Council, while Sofia Pereira and Mark Wheetley easily cruised to four-year term victories on City Council. Congratulations to all of you and thank you to Alex Stillman and Shane Brinton for your years of service. Remember, on a typical vote only 49% of the constituents dislike you.

Measure R, the minimum wage increase went down in flames losing 62-38%. This one kind of shocked me as there are more employees than employers. However, as the message got out there that this was a poorly written initiative, more and more people came to the realization that this was the Unfair Wage Act.

News flash: Kim Starr and her merry band of anarchists and radicals are not running the City of Eureka. A hat was passed Tuesday night and bus fare to Arcata has been raised for them. They can sit on the Arcata Plaza with their megaphone and bang their pots and pans all day long. They would fit in just fine with the other Plazoids. That’s where I’d recommend they try their Minimum Wage Act next.

On that note, I spoke with three of Arcata’s electeds and proposed the question: Since Arcata is the progressive city, why don’t you lead the charge to raise the minimum wage to $12 per hour across the board, regardless of the number of employees, in the City of Arcata? All three looked at me and gave a version of this answer: “No thank you. We may be progressive, but we’re not stupid. We are perfectly fine having the City of Eureka being the high cost place to do business.”

Measure Q, the extension of the City of Eureka’s half-cent sales tax, passed by 66-34 percent. Who can tell me if this was a 5, 10 or 20 year extension of 2010’s Measure O?

Measure S (School Bond for Eureka City Schools) required a 55% + 1 supermajority vote to win and as of last night they were sitting at 55.79%. This will be a nail-biter over the next four weeks as the rest of the 8,500 late County ballots are counted. Remember, the trend is your friend and the late votes trended for Measure S.

A campaign is a wave. I sat in on the first Measure S meeting. Gregg Gardiner, a personal friend of mine, agreed to chair this campaign. He had a 15-page manifesto for his campaign theme. Told him he had to boil this down to a few bullet points. I recommend that he get the sharpest political mind in Humboldt County to assist the campaign. Between Richard Marks coordinating the data and Gregg being a creative marketer (loved those small billboards outside of each school detailing what that specific school would get if Measure S passed), they took what I thought was an uphill climb to an election night (tentative) victory.

Measure Z, Humboldt County’s additional half-cent sales tax (countywide) passed by a 55-45 percent margin. Most people I spoke with in the City of Eureka were voting against this Measure as they couldn’t see a benefit to them.

Three tax measures appear to have won Tuesday night in Eureka.

What’s next? On the national level the Democrats will be campaigning for the first female President in U.S. history. I can get excited about Elizabeth Warren. Hillary Clinton? Meh, more of the same old — take care of Wall Street and let Main Street fend for themselves. Hopefully the Republicans have figured out enough to leave the clown cars (2012 Republican presidential candidates) behind. The weird thing is that a poll was conducted three weeks ago and the leading Republican candidate was … Mitt Romney. Even stranger is his biggest base of support … the Democrats.

Here at the local level, insiders are already looking forward to the 2016 Humboldt County Supervisor’s race. I pity the fool that runs against Rex Bohn in the First District. For Estelle Fennel, we are working on a 200+ newly registered voting block for her Second District reelection. I’m sure our local Democratic Central Committee will be campaigning hard “to elect Democrats” (Estelle) and not supporting the non-Dems in 2016.

I don’t want to hear any more about low voter registration and low voter turnout. Elections go to those that show up and vote (and actively campaign), not those who complain anonymously on blogs.

The pot calling the kettle black

“First, the ‘anonymous’ person’s opinion is totally worthless and should NEVER be included as if it has some validity.”

This is an actual quote from “Joe Blow Report” … an anonymous blogger.