History
What does it tell you about a political party if in a year of epic disaster for their opponents the best they can hope for is a 51-49 majority in the Senate?
Far be it from me to defend the Democrats, who don't really deserve defending, but Kaus is being disingenuous, here. The Democrats had 17 senate seats up for election this year, the GOP just 15. I can't find the article at the moment, but the New York Times reported late last week that no party has ever recaptured the Senate from this large a deficit when it had more seats to defend. So if the Dems were to accomplish that this year, it would certainly be significant.