1.  Republicans win two congressional elections in Louisiana. 

Newt Gingrich wrote, "In this winter of Republican discontent, last week offered three welcome signs of spring."

The former Speaker of the House was referring to Senator Saxby Chambliss' landside re-election in Georgia and the victory of two Republican congressional candidates in Louisiana in races that were delayed by Hurricane Gustav.  The Bayou State is now represented in the House by six Republicans and one Democrat.

In the 4th District, where Congressman Jim McCrery is retiring, the results were:
John Fleming (R)                         44,501 (48.07%)
Paul Carmouche (D)                     44,151 (47.69%)
Chester "Catfish" Kelley (I)           3,245 (  3.51%)
Gerard Brown (I)                          675 (    .73%)

In the 2nd District, which is 63.7% African American, a nine-term Democratic Congressman was defeated by a Republican, who is an immigrant from Vietnam.  The results were:

Anh "Joseph" Cao (R)                      33,132 (49.54%)
William Jefferson (D)                       31,318 (46.83%)
Malik Rahim (Green)                         1,883 (  2.82%)
Gregory Kahn (Libertarian)                    549 (    .82%)

Governor Bobby Jindal campaigned heavily for both Fleming and Cao and appears to deserve some credit for their victories.  Louisiana now has a governor of Indian descent and a congressman of Vietnamese descent.

2.  Minnesota Senate race still undecided. 

It appears that it will be a long time before the outcome of the race is determined between Republican Senator Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken.

Coleman eked out a 215-vote victory on November 4.  After a statewide recount of all ballots, his margin of victory shrank slightly to 192 votes:
Norm Coleman (R)             1,208,939
Al Franken (D)             1,208,747

However, Franken has challenged how 2,222 of these ballots were counted and Coleman has challenged the counting of 2,250 ballots.  The State Canvassing Board, consisting of the Democratic Secretary of State and four state judges, will meet on December 19 to examine each of these 4,472 ballots.

Further complicating the process is the apparent disappearance of 133 ballots that were counted on November 4 but now cannot be found, and the discovery of 171 absentee ballots that were erroneously rejected by election officials.  The Franken campaign claims that there may be as many as 1,000 other absentee ballots waiting to be counted.

Whatever is decided by the State Canvassing Board can be appealed to state courts.  Regardless of the outcome, the U.S. Senate is the final judge of its own elections.  Senators could choose to recount the ballots themselves or the Democratic majority might vote to seat Franken.

It is even possible the Senate might order another election in Minnesota. 

This happened once before in New Hampshire following the 1974 elections, in which Democrat John Durkin lost to Republican Louis Wyman by 355 votes.  After several inconclusive recounts, the Senate ordered a new election in September 1975, in which Durkin defeated Wyman, this time by about 29,000 votes.