Right Turn: Fueled by anger at President Obama and disappointment with the economic recovery, Republicans took control of the Senate in midterm elections yesterday, picking up seven seats. It will be the first time they’ve held the Senate majority since 2006.

  The Democrats basically helped the Republicans by keeping President Obama off the campaign trail in what amounted to a tacit admission that the Republicans are right about the president.

  In the House, Republicans gained at least nine seats, giving them a minimum of 245 and their biggest majority since the Truman administration.

The Republican sweep puts both the White House and the Republican majority on the spot. After six years of being the party of “no” that blocked Obama, they have to show what they’ll do with the power to say “yes.” Obama must decide whether to work with them or pose himself in opposition to tee up a Presidential run by … let’s say … Hillary Clinton.
Election Notes: The Senate race in Louisiana is going to a runoff.
> Republican Thom Tillis unseated democratic incumbent Sen. Kay Hagan in North Carolina.
>Iowa State Sen. Jodi Ernst won the Senate seat on her credentials of castrating pigs and a promise to cut pork.
> Repubicans won at least 24 of 36 races for governor. Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who served as a Republican, failed in his bid to come back as a Democrat. In Texas, Democrat Wendy Davis, who vaulted to national fame wearing pink running shoes while filibustering an abortion measure, was soundly defeated in her run for governor.
> Sheila Kuehl, who played Zelda in the 1960s television series Dobie Gillis, beat Bobby Shriver of the political Shriver family for a seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.
> Clay Aiken, the American Idol singer who ran for a House seat in North Carolina, was defeated.
The Issues: A measure to approve medical marijuana failed in Florida, but Alaska, Oregon and Washington, DC loosened their marijuana laws.
>Four states, Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska and South Dakota, passed measures to raise the minimum wage, but not dramatically. The highest would be Alaska, which would $9.75 in 2016.
>In Washington State, voters approved expanded background checks for all gun sales and transactions, including private transfers.
World: A Christian couple in Pakistan was beaten to death by an angry mob after being accused of desecrating a copy of the Koran. Their bodies were burned in the brick kiln where they worked.
> Pro-Russian separatists in rebel areas have sworn in new political leaders who, the government in Kiev says, were illegally elected,. Worried about renewed military moves by the rebels, the Ukraine government is moving troops east to defend a string of cities.
The Sports Page: Minnesota Viking running back Adrian Peterson avoided jail by taking a plea agreement and admitting he beat his four-year-old son with a switch. Peterson had been charged with a felony.
Sex and Money: The talk of Wall Street, where money, lunch, and sex dominate the conversation, is the nasty and increasingly lurid divorce of Sage Kelly, the managing director at Jefferies & Company. Kelly’s wife Christina said in a court filing that her husband abused “alcohol, cocaine, mushrooms, Special-K, heroin.” Oh, do go on …. “Sage — during a night of debauchery — instigated a sexual encounter in which he had sexual intercourse with the girlfriend of a client, Marc Beer, and Marc had sexual intercourse with me.” Evidently just being rich is boring.

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