I haven't followed specific races around the country - and heard just enough this morning to know that the Republicans took control of the House, and Democrats will retain control in the Senate.

In Illinois, specifically, in my area, Democrats lost the "Obama" seat, with Mark Kirk defeating Alexi Giannoulias, and they lost our House seat, with Adam Kinzinger defeating Debbie Halvorsen. The governor's race was still too close to call, with Pat Quinn, the Democratic incumbent, retaining a few thousand votes' edge over his very conservative downstate opponent Bill Brady.

Kirk is pretty moderate as Republicans go. I like him, actually, and I was never that impressed with Giannoulias. The problem I had with Kirk was that he's lined up as a good Republican, where the agenda is not so much accomplishing anything good for the country, but trying to make sure that the President fails in everything he attempts. That's what we've seen from the Republicans for two years, and that's what the next two years have in store. Now it will be that much easier to block anything he tries to do.

This election showed that if you shout something loud enough and often enough, people will believe it. We're easily led. There aren't a lot of us who can look at both sides of an issue. Things have to be black or white for most of us. The Tea Party and its wealthy backers did a great job of painting the Dems with a "black" brush (no racial commentary intended). The Dems did not do a good job of trumpeting their triumphs. For example, all I've heard about health care is that it's going to be so expensive, that it's going to be too much government involvement, and that it's going to force businesses to choose between the penalties and providing health care for their employees. And almost nothing from the Dems on the realities of the costs and the coverages.

People are angry, and justifiably so. But I feel that much of their anger is misplaced. They have focused it on government and taxes instead of on the entities that took away their jobs in the name of bigger profits. For example, I have a friend who blames the loss of his home building business in Florida on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I don't claim to know all the ins and outs of it, but I think there are a lot of factors involved in the luxury home building business in Florida. And in his loss of business, too. It isn't all because those buyers were defaulting on mortgages...though some may have done just that (though I doubt they were bothering with Freddie or Fannie)...but because demand has lessened because of the poor economy.

That goes back to the policies of the last administration, in my opinion. It goes back to those two wars we were paying for over much of the last eight years. It goes back to the rise in fuel prices during that time. A lot of other things, not all influenced by the government at all, also contributed.

So all we can do is hope - hope that the American people who saw fit to make such a statement against Obama's two years in office will take the bull by the horns, so to speak, and figure out a way to act that will make things better, not worse. Because I can't see government doing anything now to make things better. Lowering taxes on the already extremely wealthy won't help. Deregulating businesses that were already deregulated and showed what their short term profit motivation meant to this country won't do the trick.

I don't know what that way of acting is. But I thought Obama was on the right track with most of his programs. When he spent money on economic stimulus, at least it got spent here for the most part. What would have happened if they hadn't done that, we'll never know. But we might find out what the reversal of his direction does to this country, and I'm afraid it's going to be more of the same direction we were headed in, back in 2008.