Re: :)
What's interesting is that Democrats and the media seem to view a 60-seat majority as the "norm" for Democrats. The largest Republican majority I could find back to about 1940 was 55 seats. There were several occasions where the Democrats held more than 60 seats, particularly during the Johnson administration.
Scott Brown won Ted Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts. He did it running as a conservative. That says something important.
When Coakley won the primary, she assumed the rest would just be a formality and she could go home and read a book. Unfortunately, there are far too many states and Congressional districts where that's mostly true.