Thomas Paine once said: "These are the times that try Republicans' souls."

Or at least he said something like that. I might have butchered the quote a bit, but that's nothing compared to the thrashing the Democrats administered to the Republican Party in Tuesday's election.

And so, as the GOP engages in much reflection and soul-searching in the coming days, I will take the opportunity to muse on the massacre that was Election Day.

Predictions that the gubernatorial race between Gov. Jim Doyle and U.S. Rep. Mark Green would be a down-to-the-wire affair were greatly exaggerated. In fact, Mr. Green fared considerably poorer than the illustrious Scott McCallum, who only lost to Mr. Doyle by four percentage points in 2002.

In defense of Mr. Green's poor showing, he was running as a Republican in a horrible year to be one and faced an opponent with better name recognition and more money. The feeling here, however, is that Mr. Green could have overcome these disadvantages — Mr. Doyle's approval ratings have never been high — if he could have advanced a more specific vision for the state. He complained about taxes, but Mr. Doyle kept his word and didn't raise them during his first term to make up for the budget deficit. Mr. Doyle even passed property tax limits that, while not as strong as some would have liked, had enough teeth to please many people.

Though Mr. Doyle probably gets too much credit for "fixing" the budget mess — in truth, the structural deficit remains quite high — Mr. Green never articulated how he would solve the problem. If anything, he only pledged to make the deficit slightly worse by proposing small tax exemptions like the one-day school supplies tax freeze.

Mr. Green also lost politically to Mr. Doyle, whose hardball campaign tactics were effective. In particular, Mr. Green was never able to shake the "Extreme Green" moniker the governor anointed to him. No question, Mr. Green was on the wrong side of the embryonic stem-cell research debate, and it cost him dearly.

Considering the Doyle Administration's proclivity for awarding state contracts to campaign donors, Mr. Green should have been able to hammer the governor for the ethical breaches in the state government. And he tried, but Mr. Doyle got equal play with the issue by accusing Mr. Green of using "dirty money" from his congressional account. To be sure, Mr. Doyle's rigging of the State Elections Board decision involving that money — the governor's attorneys told board members to reach a decision based not on state law but on political considerations — was partisanship at its very worst. But though unethical, it was effective.

Kudos to J.B. Van Hollen, who, in defeating Doyle posse-member Kathleen Falk for the attorney general position, became just about the only Republican in the state with reason to smile Wednesday. Mr. Van Hollen stayed consistent with his message throughout the campaign, something Ms. Falk wasn't necessarily able to do. Ms. Falk also didn't help herself with an overtly negative campaign, which started when she highlighted Peg Lautenschlager's DUI in the primary and continued through her Willie Horton-esque ads in the general election. Ms. Falk isn't a bad Dane County executive, but voters have spoken in both the 2002 Democratic gubernatorial primary and now this election, and the verdict is that she's not a statewide office-caliber candidate.

Are we ever going to have an election where a media organization doesn't jump the gun and announce its exit poll results before checking to see if they are accurate or not? This year's offender was Milwaukee's WTMJ-TV, who announced Mr. Doyle and Ms. Falk as winners almost immediately after the polls closed. They were right on with one of them, of course, but WTMJ's credibility went the way of Rick Santorum by carelessly announcing the attorney general race.

You do have feel bad for guys like State Treasurer Jack Voight, who unceremoniously lost to Democrat Dawn Sass. I can't claim to know a lot about what the state treasurer does, but I'm certain neither can 99 percent of voters. So Mr. Voight is basically out of a job because people didn't like how the war in Iraq was going. Ms. Sass has promised to be a more active treasurer than Mr. Voight, but let's not kid ourselves into thinking that's why she won.

One guy you certainly can't feel sorry for is Virginia Sen. George Allen, who has only himself to blame for his razor-thin loss to Jim Webb. Republicans can take some solace in the fact Mr. Allen self-destructed before he had a chance to run for the White House in 2008, however. In that sense, he still has a ways to go before rivaling the foot-in-mouth maneuver of John Kerry.

And so, 12 years after the Contract with America, Mr. Allen and his GOP friends' time has officially expired in Congress. It's hard to say they didn't deserve it. Now, with guys like Joe Lieberman (triumphing over the Angry Left and Ned Lamont) and Heath Shuler (triumphing over the legacy of his NFL career) bringing moderate voices to the Democratic side, let's hope the Republicans respond in kind and make a move toward the middle themselves.

If they don't, 2008 could bring just as much Paine for the GOP as Tuesday did.

Ryan Masse ([email protected]) is the editorial board chairman of The Badger Herald.