Happiest Win Of the Night: Bernie Sanders

Wow. With the unprecedented, humungous amount of money multi-multi millionaire Rich Tarrant - who did not even claim to reside in Vermont until he wanted to run - it was a delight to see Independent and one-time Socialist Bernie Sanders take the seat of the departing Jim Jeffords.

I've talked with a few of Bernie's staff; all of them deserve a huge amount of credit. While Tarrant ran some of the nastiest ads I've ever seen here, the Sanders crew remained a class act pretty much throughout.

While Jeffords has been all but forgotten in the media, Jim showed himself to be a gentleman and a true Vermonter in May, 2001 when he decided the extremist bent of the Bush-Cheney Republicans did not represent the needs of moderate GOPers so he booked.

It's also predicted that Peter Welch has pulled ahead - he sure wasn't always there - of former Vermont National Guard's Martha Rainville. Peter has proven himself (and again, almost no nasty ads) while Rainville could only point at rather weak accomplishments.