Two weeks after the chaos of Election Day has faded, Politico reports that Florida Representative Allen West has finally conceded his Congressional race to opponent Patrick Murphy. Murphy holds a 1,904-vote lead at the moment, which is just a tiny fraction above the 0.5 percent gap that would trigger an automatic recount of every vote. Allen has refused to give up the fight, but after a partial recount of early voting only widened Murphy's lead, it was clear that a long costly legal fight was West's only hope to retain his seat. And not a very good hope at that.

West and his campaign had accused election officials of several irregularities, including possibly double counting some of Murphy's votes, but all of his avenues of protest have proved fruitless so far. So one of the more "colorful" Congressional careers will come to an end after just one term. For now, at least. It's hard to believe a relatively young politician who thinks most Democrats are Communists is going to simply go away after just one loss. Where's the fun in that?

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Dashiell Bennett