Last night, as I watched the election results fall into place, I felt something very different than the euphoria that I had experienced in 2004, 2002, or even 2000, when Florida was “uncalled” for Gore and landed in Bush’s column.  In each of those elections, I was elated — my team had won, was coming to power, and would presumably do things that were good for the country once in power.  I saw that same elation in Democrats back in 2006 and 2008.  But last night, and today, were different.  Instead of jubilant, I feel almost…subdued.  At first I thought it was just me.  Maybe I am lacking fiber in my diet, I reasoned.  But this bittersweet sentiment — a combination of exhaustion, disappointment, and quiet assent, seems to be permeating the right side of the blogosphere.  Geraghty is feelin’ the blues. So is Ace. And so are many of our readers, as well as conservatives throughout the blogosphere.  What gives?

First, I think that one of the main culprits is whoever sold the conservative masses on this bill of goods that we were somehow going to experience an 1894-style re-aligning election.  Come Election Eve, pretty much everyone was assuming that their own estimates were on the low end of the spectrum of possibilities.  There were supposedly tons of House seats that no one had polled that were going to flip to the GOP.  Barney Frank was going to go down.  So was Harry Reid.  The GOP was going to dominate the country, win both houses of Congress, and usher in the next phase of American politics.  In short, conservatives were hoping for a true revolution, similar to the New Deal or the Reagan Revolution.

But that didn’t materialize.  What we saw instead was a return to normalcy, which, incidentally, was a phrase used by Warren G. Harding’s campaign to describe the end of the Wilsonian interregnum that interrupted the McKinley-TR-Taft-Harding-Coolidge-Hoover era.  What we saw last night was a return to the pre-10/06 map.  Pennsylvania and Wisconsin became light blue again, with Republicans narrowly winning Senate seats in each (something that is to be expected in light blue states during GOP years).  Ohio and Florida became red again, but not so red that Republicans can take them for granted.  Republicans won a huge number of Rust Belt seats, just as they lost scores of Rust Belt seats in 2006.  New Hampshire resumed its status as the West Berlin of the Northeast, a bastion of freedom surrounded by social democracies.  Illinois once again has one moderate Republican senator, but is still basically blue.  The South is back to its ruby red hue.  California maintains its status as the nation’s circus.  And the Rocky Mountain West continues to flirt with the Democrats, just as it did during the early and middle 2000s when it would frequently disappoint the GOP in statewide elections.  It’s as if the past four years were a political phase the country was going through.  Well, now everything’s back to normal.

But that’s just it.  Republicans didn’t want a return to normalcy.  They wanted the Tea Party Revolution.  They wanted Buck to win, Angle to take down Reid, Whitman and Fiorina to come from behind in California, Raese to take the Byrd seat, Miller to be Alaska’s first anti-pork senator, and Christine O’Donnell to make a surprise upset in Delaware.  They wanted to know that Obama would be beaten by ANY Republican in 2012.  They envisioned the repeal of the 16th Amendment in 2013, along with the repeal of ObamaCare.  They wanted a sea change in the way Americans thought about government and interacted with government.

Instead, they got essentially an apology note from Americans for the past 48 months.  And conservatives find this frustrating, because the visions of revolution that danced in their heads are dashed.  If Pennsylvania will only vote statewide for a Republican for national office by a couple of percentage points in a year like THIS, then how are we to expect it to vote for the GOP presidential ticket in 2012?  What about Ohio?  Kasich barely pulled it out.  Could Obama win there again?  Ditto Florida.  Just look at Scott’s razor thin margin.  It’s still a swing state.  And then there’s the West.  Is Colorado the new New Jersey, a perpetual tease for the GOP?

These questions aren’t nearly as pressing as they initially appear to be.  Of course Pennsylvania and Wisconsin could vote GOP in 2012.  Even for a down-the-line conservative, a la Pat Toomey.  But it’s going to be close, and the conservative candidate will have to be carefully selected, and we still won’t know the result until 2 am on Election Night, and conservatives wanted to hear none of that.  They were ready to go for broke and nominate someone who made Sarah Palin seem milquetoast.  Now, about 24 hours after the House was called for the GOP, Pawlenty seems a smarter pick than Palin.

Republicans wanted 100 House seats and got 60.  They wanted 10 Senate seats and got 6.  They wanted a revolution and got a return to normalcy.  And, like John Boehner’s victory speech last night, there seems to be little joy in their collective demeanor despite winning more House seats than in any election since 1946.  The GOP was stoic and sober in victory this year.  But there is plenty of reason for sunny optimism.  The emerging Democratic majority has been destroyed.  Republicans regained pretty much all the ground they lost over the past four years.  And we’re back to our rightful status as a center-right country.  That’s not nothing.