Midterm elections help Pelosi, hurt Rove

updated 5:54 p.m. ET Nov. 10, 2006

WASHINGTON - Combat boots trumped cowboy boots. The election produced winners and losers of all varieties, not all of them as obvious as the footwear of choice for the candidates whose Virginia battle sealed the Democrats' rise to power in both houses of Congress.

In the win column: YouTube, Giorgio Armani suits, racy fiction by public figures, San Francisco, Arctic caribou, Rahm Emanuel, lobbyists who abide by the law and immigrants who didn't.

Losers? How about gun control, Halliburton, the legend of Karl Rove, officials who know about secret prisons and might be forced to talk, and liberal bloggers who may find it harder to rage against the machine now that their side IS the machine on Capitol Hill?

Plus, a couple of senators who have the middle initial F, happen to speak French and put their feet in their mouths in English.

The mega trends are for all to see: Oil companies are likely to be losers, favorable royalty deals from the government at risk; and the poorest workers should win if Democrats raise the minimum wage as promised.

What's left of organized labor can't help but be pleased with seeing its traditional allies in control of Congress again, and prospects for legalizing the status of more immigrants brightened.

But the ups and the downs from Election Day go far beyond that, forming an eclectic scorecard of political, cultural and off-the-wall winners and losers:

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WINNERS: Videographers, certain to be a fixture at campaign events from now on, capturing miscues for massive exposure on YouTube and beyond. Virginia Sen. George Allen's "macaca" remark, an obscure racial slur directed at the rival campaign worker who was filming him, became the defining event of his losing campaign against Democrat Jim Webb, the man in combat boots.

LOSERS: Gun control advocates. Democrats see gun control as a radioactive issue for them in the past, have no taste for it now and wore their gun-owning credentials for all to see.

WINNERS: Howard Dean's reputation as a liberal loose cannon now takes a back seat to the success of his strategy of putting money into traditionally Republican states. Even more credit may go to Rep. Emanuel, D-Ill., who helped engineer the House takeover by raising record amounts of money and leaning on safe incumbents to share their wealth with needier candidates.

LOSERS: Rove, a man assigned almost mythical powers to produce victory for President Bush and Republicans, got his comeuppance. Elizabeth Dole, as head of the GOP Senate campaign, was outgunned in fundraising by the Democrats.

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