Even for a nation that is, by now, used to drinking in political news through a fire hose, election night on Tuesday could be a difficult one to absorb.

More than 500 House, Senate and governor’s races will be decided, if not by the end of the night, then over the course of the nail-biting days ahead as write-in ballots are counted and recounts are requested.

Beyond the individual results, the nation will be looking at the returns for answers to bigger questions: Was this election about President Obama? How powerful a phenomenon is the Tea Party movement? How will the new Congress address the still-weak economy? What will it mean for the crop of likely 2012 Republican presidential candidates? Did anonymous campaign money sway the outcome?

Democrats made their last-minute appeals Monday. Michelle Obama headed to Las Vegas and Philadelphia as Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. traveled to Vermont and former President Bill Clinton raced up and down the East Coast. Mr. Obama hunkered down in the White House, conducting a few radio interviews and bracing for a rebuke that most pundits predict could be historic in its breadth.

On the eve of an election that could make him speaker of the House, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the minority leader, rallied Republicans in Cincinnati, praising as “patriots” the voters who have the “audacity to speak up in defense of freedom, the Constitution and the values of limited government,” according to excerpts released by his office.

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(Source: NY Times)