In what I consider an early sign of optimism over the Coakley-Brown election results, CNN's commentators don't look happy right now. They are talking about early signs showing a Republican victory, while a stressed-out looking Paul Begala carries on about how Ted Kennedy would have won big. (So does that mean that if Brown wins, it's only because he cheated a dead man out of his throne?)

On Fox they're saying early returns show 51-48 for Brown.

Still too early to tell.

MORE: At 8:29, Drudge shows the following vote count:

D: 0,067,506.

I'm not live blogging anything, btw. Just being my usual passive-aggressive self by doing whatever I want.

(How could I live-blog a dead man's seat anyway?)
R: 0,071,914

MORE: Continuing the death theme, Stephen Green is talking about Judgment Day in "Massachusetttes." And martinis with caffeinated vodka, which ought to wake the dead. (Via Glenn Reynolds.)

And on Fox News, I heard about a leaked memo from a Coakley staffer saying that she was blaming President Obama for her troubles.

AND MORE (08:37): Brown's numbers are inching up according to Drudge:

RESULTS:
SCOTT BROWN (R) 53%
MARTHA COAKLEY (D) 46%

R: 0,169,808
D: 0,145,733

(At 8:40 they're looking sour and have changed the subject to Haiti. Not that I blame them.)

MORE (8:48): With 29% in, Brown is ahead 53-47. (Fox.)

Unless Boston comes up with a huge Coakley landslide, at this point I'd say Brown has it.

AND MORE (8:51): A Fox commentator is calling it for Brown. They are saying the Boston votes did not turn out for Coakley.

CNN (and Yahoo) are saying it's too early.

Drudge has these numbers:

R: 0,441,124
D: 0,392,078

MORE: At 8:54, things look glum at CNN (headline is "REPUBLICANS HOLDING STEADY LEAD"), and they're asking worried questions about what will happen to health care.

Well, I'd say my chances for survival might have just improved.

At 8:58, Wolf Blitzer says it's too early to call, but John King is all but talking about why Scott Brown won.

MORE (09:02): Via Glenn Reynolds, Professor William Jacobson (who has been all over this race from day one) is live-blogging, with live feeds here.

MORE: Latest from Drudge:

RESULTS:
SCOTT BROWN (R) 53%
MARTHA COAKLEY (D) 46%

R: 0,638,823
D: 0,563,214

By the way, I'm now hearing a lot of talk about "all the Democrats who voted for Brown."

The Republican Party might want to find out why.

Geez, what if it turned out the American people actually like Republicans who are fiscally conservative but not socially conservative?

MORE: The steady lead holds at 53-46% with 66% of the vote in.

Hannity says it's about time to call it for Brown, while CNN's Wolf Blitzer (saying it's now 70% in) says it's more and more difficult to see how Coakley can narrow it, and the Dems should be gearing for "a huge upset."

Yeah, I think they saw this coming.

Brown's lead is clearly insurmountable.

MORE (9:23): It is over. Drudge reports that,

COAKLEY JUST CONCEDED BY TELEPHONE TO BROWN

CNN and Fox have both now called it for Brown.

MORE: It's a little eerie that Brown defeated Coakley by the same margin that Obama defeated McCain nationally, but what a difference a year makes.

And in Massachusetts, last year's presidential vote was 62% Obama, 36% McCain. Which means that Brown won the support of many Obama voters.

MORE: Willie Brown (on Sean Hannity's Fox show) says that he doesn't think that this will mean Obama losing the White House. I think that Obama's best hope of continuing in office is for the GOP to take back the house in November. That way he can feign to the center, claim they are obstructing him, and appeal to America's natural inclination to favor gridlock.

MORE: I watched Martha Coakley's concession speech, and now I am watching Scott Brown's acceptance victory speech. She seemed like vintage Mondale-Ferarro, while Brown has that -- dare I say it? -- Kennedyesque charm. Charisma, even. Tired as people are of Obama, I think the GOP is nonetheless lucky he didn't run as a Democrat.

MORE: According to a report Wolf Blitzer just read, Democratic Senator Jim Webb is saying that the Democrats should suspend voting on health care until Brown is seated.

AND MORE: It hasn't taken certain conservatives long to demand that Scott Brown's feet be held to the fire on social issues. (Don't expect me to link conservative bloggers in a critical manner; I am not trying to start arguments so much as spot issues.)

Would they have rather had a candidate to their liking and have him lose?

LINGERING QUESTION: What might it take to persuade ideologues that ordinary voters are not obsessed with whether a candidate passes ideological litmus tests? I don't agree with Scott Brown on everything, and I suspect that many of his voters don't either. So what is it that makes some people who disagree with him feel that they have more of a right to hold his feet to the fire on their issues?

It's obvious, for example, that people on both sides of the abortion issue voted for him, as did people on both sides of the (complicated) gay marriage issue. Regardless of Brown's opinions on these issues, do those who disagree with him have more say-so than those who agree with him? Or those who might disagree with him but don't think it's a big deal?

If some voters "count" more than others, how might this be explained to the voters who don't count as much? If self-appointed activist types think that they should count more than regular voters, then I would expect regular voters to be at least as annoyed with activists as the activists are with regular voters.

Not that the activists would care.....

ADDITIONAL NOTE: I say the above as someone with decided libertarian views, but who is not so arrogant as to presume that the politicians I vote for will necessarily share my principles. What I cannot understand is what gives others -- especially social conservatives -- the right to demand that their principles should be heard above and beyond mine.

I don't think ordinary voters like it any more than I do.

MORE: Finally, Tim Cavanaugh (after calling Libertarian Joe Kennedy "the Ralph Nader of the right, the guy you're supposed to blame while paying too much for mandatory weekly rectal probes") speculated that any votes Kennedy got would be mainly because of his name:

The Brown campaign, meanwhile, seems to understand the mathematical certainty that more people will vote for Kennedy because they think he's one of the Kennedys than because he's a Libertarian.

But wait! Here it says, "Independent Joseph L. Kennedy received 1 percent."

Hmmph.

You'd think that if the Libertarians could go to the trouble of getting the right name for their candidate, the media could get their party name right.

Oh, well.