I have to admit, I was very disappointed in the election results last Tuesday night. I went to bed thinking how bad the final counts would be, and when I woke up the next morning, the results were even worse.

However, when looking closely at the final figures, listening to several commentaries, and reading what many columnists had to say about the election, I started feeling slightly more optimistic.

First of all, many of the races were extremely close. In 18 of the House races that the Democrats won, the vote spread was 8,000 votes or fewer. In one district, the spread was only 200 votes.

In those 18 races won by Democrats, 13 beat out Republican incumbents. The new liberal-leading Democrat majority certainly shouldn’t count Tuesday as a sweeping mandate.

Also, many of the Democrat wins were by conservative-leaning Democrats, especially in the Midwestern states. I am hoping that they will not blindly follow the liberal left’s post-election plans for big government, big spending, tax increases and unending Congressional "oversight" investigations.

If they do go along, then the Republicans should be back in control of both houses in two years.

Let’s face it, the Republican Party lost its way. That is what really cost it the election and not because the Democrats had a better vision for the country. Far from it.

Actually, it will be interesting to finally see what their plan for leading the country is.

The real reason why the Republicans lost the election is that they strayed from the conservative values and voter base that got them elected in the first place. They took this block for granted, and this act backfired on them severely.

We conservatives have been stabbed in the back far too many times. Columnist John Hawkins pointed out the many times this has happened.[an error occurred while processing this directive]