The Netroots Had Some Key Victories
[I]n the midst of a Democratic wave, the netroots candidates failed to  sweep, causing some pundits to claim that the netroots' influence  continues to be overstated: "The Netroots Election? Not So Fast,"  editorialized The Nation. When Rick Perlstein tried, in The New Republic, to claim the election as a netroots triumph, Ryan Lizza replied in the magazine's blog that in addition to having the netroots' support, winning candidates  also had the national Democratic party to thank, as it "dumped tons of  money, strategic advice, and fundraising assistance into their races."  What's the real takeaway? Of the 19 candidates that three of the biggest liberal blogs (Daily Kos, mydd.com and Swing  State Project) raised money for, eight of the candidates won. This  improves on the blogs' record from 2004, when Daily Kos picked out 16  campaigns to strongly support and raise money for, all of which lost.  This cycle, bloggers may have been most strongly linked to Lamont, but  they actually donated more money to Jim Webb of Virginia.

Democrats Won Because Their Candidates Were Conservative About Their Message
Washington will see an influx of unorthodox Democrats:  congressmen-elect Heath Shuler in North Carolina and Brad Ellsworth in  Indiana are pro-life and pro-gun. But liberals won in some relatively  conservative areas as well, and often after being largely ignored by  national Democratic strategists. In the House, they include Kentucky's John Yarmuth (who supports universal health care and affirmative action), New Hampshire's Carol Shea-Porter (she was once escorted out of a Bush event for wearing an anti-Bush t-shirt) and Dave Loebsack (an anti-war liberal academic) in Iowa. The same is true of the Senate,  where the new Democratic members include Vermont's Bernie Sanders, a  socialist.

Redistricting Minimized What Might Have Been A Truly Historic Shellacking
Republicans spent most of the year boasting about how the redistricting of the past decade had made them all but bulletproof.  Absent those new district lines, says the American Enterprise  Institute's Norm Ornstein, "it could easily have been 45 or more." And  there are other results that break with past patterns, Ornstein adds.  Democrats did not lose a single seat -- a feat the party had not  accomplished since 1922. Even in the Republican sweep of 1994, the  G.O.P. lost four of its open seats to Democrats. What's more, the wave  swept all the way down the ballot -- for instance, handing the New  Hampshire House to the Democrats for the first time since 1922.

It's The Dishonesty, Stupid
74% of voters surveyed in exit polls ranked corruption and ethics as important in determining their votes;  by comparison, 67% said that about Iraq. The lack of progress in Iraq  helped nationalize the elections, but multiple scandals (Abramoff,  Foley) appear to have driven home an urge for massive change.

The Base Turned Out, They Just Got Beat
[T]he White House's political director Sara Taylor, the difference  between base turnout in 2002 and 2006 is within the margin of error.  And independent exit polls show the same percentages of voters who  called themselves "evangelicals," "white born-again Christians,"  "weekly church-goers," "Republicans" and "conservatives" as in 2006 as  in 2004. "The base turned out," says Taylor, "but independents made up  a larger share of the electorate and they broke very heavily  Democratic."

My favorite debunked myth is the one about the influence of the grassroots and how we've used the web to make our voices heard. I'm tremendously enthusiastic about what we're building, and can't wait to see the impact that we'll have in two years -- and in the time in between. Additionally, while I'm nervously  anxious about seeing the results of our newly elected Congressional majority (given the mess that Republicans  left behind), as a Democratic Party supporter you just gotta feel good about the opportunities before us and the possibility of a permanent Democratic majority.