The election is over — the confetti now scattered on the floor, balloons half-deflated and the party food stale — and Sen. Barack Obama is now our president-elect. So what’s left?This was a unique election year — nothing remotely close to it has ever happened before — and there are several factors and events we can both learn from and, perhaps, even laugh at. Polling: Polling this year was remarkably accurate. Sure, Obama’s margins shrunk nationally and in some battleground states like Virginia, but most analysts believed that would happen — This is still an ideologically divided country. Most of the tightening was because of an up-tick in support for Sen. John McCain, not because of any significant decrease for Obama. And Obama won just about every battleground state he was projected to – The electoral vote projections were impressive. The Bradley Effect: Ah yes, the wonderful theory that Obama’s poll numbers were artificially inflated by people who told pollsters they would vote for a black candidate only to enter the booth and vote for the white challenger.I can happily say there is simply no evidence to support presence of the Bradley Effect in the 2008 presidential election — and there isn’t a lot to prove it ever existed. Again, Obama did just about as well as polling projected, and in some battleground states like Indiana, he outperformed some projections.His margins were not built on just a large black and youth turnout. They were up marginally from 2004, according to most exit polls. Obama had to win white votes in rural counties.And he did just that — in rural Virginia and Indiana, Obama outperformed Sen. John Kerry’s showing in 2004, and he was able to draw significantly from McCain’s support in many of these once reliably red counties. Voter Fraud: Mickey Mouse didn’t show up to vote in Florida — imagine that. Much like the Bradley Effect, there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud.ACORN didn’t steal the election — it turned out to be a GOP attempt to undermine the results of a close election as was glaringly obvious from the outset.Fortunately, the election wasn’t close anyway. Democratic supermajority: Relax Republicans, the Democrats probably won’t get the filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the Senate. As of 6 p.m. Wednesday, the Democrats picked up at least five seats — boosting their number to a formidable 56. Reconciliation: McCain’s concession was gracious — far more so than his many darker and ungracious moments on the campaign trail. For that, he deserves credit.We’ll need good legislators like McCain in the future, but, hopefully its “McCain the Maverick” rather than “McCain the GOP Nominee” that returns to the Senate. There is a place for the old, bellicose and bipartisan McCain in the Senate. Many mainstream conservatives are cordial in defeat as well — even those who peddled some of the worst smears of the campaign have relatively genial words for our new president-elect. “I extend my congratulations mainly in the same sense that elderly British veterans of my acquaintance like to express their admiration of the marvelously innovative ways their Japanese captors found to torture them,” said National Review writer Mark Steyn.  ”The President-elect ran rings round our side, and found many novel ways to torture us.” It’s a start.But judging by some of the Facebook statuses I saw Tuesday night — the worst of which were, quite frankly, bizarre and hateful — some of us still have a way to go. The Rapture: To the best of my knowledge, no one has mysteriously and suddenly disappeared since Tuesday night.That means either we are all in for an eternity of pain and torment or that there are just some nutty people in this country.I’d bet on the latter. That crazy lady from Alaska: The “thrilla from Wasilla,” the mom, the governor, the energy expert — that last one was really a joke.Something tells me we haven’t seen the last of Gov. Sarah Palin. She may have cost McCain more votes than she gained him, but she’s now one of the most visible GOP faces in the country.But in the meantime, it’s back to Alaska for the defeated running mate. Joe the Plumber: Is it just me, or should McCain be embarrassed about this gimmick by now? —-Contact Nate Monroe at [email protected]