I feel like a real party pooper not weighing in and inveighing about the election results more than I have. But this damned cold is one of the worst I have ever had, and between the medicines and the cold I just can't think clearly, and when I can't think I can't write.

While I think the Republicans had grown fat and corrupt and lost sight of what they once were (principles and ethics stand out), I don't think this election was lost because of any one overarching cause, because if you total up CNN's numbers -- "42 percent said corruption and ethics; 40 percent, terrorism; 39 percent, the economy; 37 percent, Iraq; 36 percent, values; and 29 percent, illegal immigration" -- any one of them could have made the difference.

If I did have to go with one cause, Mark Tapscott put it quite well:

"When Republicans worry more about staying in government than about limiting government, they get thrown out of government."

I suppose it says a lot about the arrogance of power, and human nature. But like I say, there were a lot of things on voters' minds. More than any other cause, the moribund Republican Party lost because the Democrats for once ran solid, genuinely moderate candidates. James Webb and Joe Sestak are two good examples. For the first time in recent history, the Republicans could no longer rely on the opposition acting like a bunch of loonies in in some ZombieTime post. They had to show something tangible, and all they did was to try to distance themselves from an unpopular president, while running on a record of supporting him. Everyone could see through the lip service that was paid to "small government" and "fiscal restraint" too.

As to "values," I'm not the right guy to ask (because the word places me in a bit of a conflict of interest). We're all human, and we all have things we call values. Some wear their values on their sleeves while others keep them in the closet. While I can't imagine any rational person judging the Republican Party because a single congressman talked dirty to teens, that and the Haggard affair hardly endeared the party to people who've long wanted to give Falwell and company Barry Goldwater's long promised kick in the ass.

Whether the Republicans are viewed from a libertarian perspective, an economic conservative perspective, or a social conservative perspective, they failed.

I mean, the best I could come up with was "Hold your nose and vote Republican!"

While that can hardly be called a winning slogan, as it turned out, I had such a terrible cold that I didn't need to hold my nose. But I thought about the Republicans when I was forced to stand in a long line in the drugstore, which no longer sells my favorite sudafed-containing combination cold medicines. There were too many of them, and now that the pharmacists have to keep Sudafed behind the counter, the only sudafed product they want to stock is Sudafed itself. And that they give only after you stand in line, show ID, watch them waste time filling out a form for you to sign. All the regular cold medicines which used to work now don't. They have a product called phenylephrine -- and it sucks:

Bad news for allergy and cold sufferers - researchers in Florida say the over-the-counter nasal decongestant that's replacing Sudafed on many drugstore shelves is ineffective.

The compound phenylephrine, marketed by Pfizer Inc. as Sudafed PE, isn't sufficiently absorbed into the bloodstream to make it an effective oral medication, according to Leslie Hendeles and Randy C. Hatton, pharmacists at the University of Florida.

The researchers recently raised the issue in a pharmaceutical journal because they are concerned that people will buy a medication that doesn't work - not realizing that a better drug is available a few feet away - if they ask for it.

A Pfizer spokesman said the new drug is effective and that consumers can ask for the original Sudafed if they want it.

The problem arose this year after the Food and Drug Administration acted on complaints that criminals were buying bulk quantities of Sudafed tablets and generic look-alikes for their key ingredient, a compound known as pseudephedrine.

The ordinary consumers are the ones being screwed by this nonsense; you can rest assured the meth cookers will find another way.

The federal government continues to make the lives of ordinary citizens harder with bureaucratic laws which reach out and touch everyone. It's easy to blame Republicans, as they've been in power for so long.

But does anyone think the Democrats won't do the same thing? The Talent-Feinstein Combat Meth Act was passed by a overwhelming majority, and the last time I looked, Dianne Feinstein wasn't a Republican.

I know, it's just a little thing. But the founders of this country envisioned a federal government with limited powers, which wouldn't get involved with these "little things." Ordinary people were never supposed to encounter the federal government in the daily lives. Now it regulates their cars, their toilets, their schools, their land, and even their runny noses.

I wonder how many voters would have just liked to vote to cut the whole federal government down to size. We won't know, because that wasn't on CNN's list of voter concerns.

But if we assume that cutting government was a concern to at least some voters, what were they supposed to do?

I held my nose, and a lot of good that did me.

(Besides, thanks to the Republican and Democratic sudafedayeen, I'm too stopped up to care.)