It's more the message of last night's election that is positive. I think Reid + Heller hopefully being able to sway a few on the other side + Obama not vetoing a bill is slightly better than the alternative in the sausage-making part of getting something done, but the election in general has to make the smarter conservatives start to rethink being the lapdogs of southern religious fundamentalists at this point.
That is no longer a winning team. While high minority turnout is probably good for something like passing legalized marijuana, it's not good for passing gay marriage as blacks are possibly the most homophobic of all groups, Hispanics are highly Catholic, yet we still had stand alone bills legalizing gay marriage pass. The country is changing, and the old social conservative base is dying off, literally, every day. Fox has changed their talking points from "we are a Conservative country," to "we are a center-right country," but I'm not sure that is even true at this point.
When you lose a totally winnable election to a black man in a horrible economy it's time to rethink your battles, and a lot of why they lost last night was social issues. You had almost every exit poll in swing states saying Romney would handle the economy better by like 50-47 margins, yet they lost. That's hard to do, almost impossible in a bad economy. Yet they lost, convincingly. It's hard to disprove the adage, "it's the economy, stupid," yet they found a way to do it.
If there is a take-away from last night it's that doing the bidding of religious conservatives is a recipe for disaster going forward. They lost on abortion and a bunch of social issues. They lost every demographic except middle-aged to old white men. They may have won old white women too, but who cares, half will be dead in 4 years "Get out of people bedrooms, bodies, and personal life" was the message from last night. "We think you possibly may be better on the economy, but it isn't worth putting up with all the bullshit."
The country will just get more secular, it isn't going the other way. Poker doesn't have anywhere near the movement of gay marriage or pro-legalization of weed, but it also isn't hated with nearly the venom those things are hated with by the religious conservatives. And if you're going to pick your battles going forward, a guy from a slightly conservative area who is afraid to go home and be pro-choice might be able to go home and support poker and be electable. They aren't that far off, they don't need the dude from rural Mississippi or Louisiana to agree to it. They need the fiscal conservative guy from Colorado or Virgina to agree with it, and after last night, I think that is more likely than before. They aren't going to wholesale change overnight on social issues, they still need to pay lip service to the religious conservatives, but poker is way more palatable to your average church goer than endorsing same sex marriage. Last night set a tone that the country is now different more than any election before it. If they regroup and come to the conclusion they simply had the wrong candidate and throw another clown in 4 years with the same policies at an electorate that is growing 2% more minority every election and think they have a chance, then they are simply stupid beyond words. Whoever runs R in '16 will be facing an electorate that is 30+% minority. Bush in '04 faced 23%, won 40+% of the Hispanic vote, and won by 2.5%. Obama will win by that last night. Republicans have to quit alienating people over Focus on the Family nonsense if they ever want a shot again.
Statements like these by whack-jobs trying to appease fundamentalists have cost the Republicans dearly.