Partisanship! Don't you hate it? Jon Stewart and David Broder do! And so do a lot of other people. But who is actually causing all of this partisanship? We decided to take a look at every Senate race in the United States since 1980, which we are arbitrarily defining as the beginning of the modern political era.

Why the Senate? Well, for one thing, Senate races are statewide elections, meaning their results are unlikely to be skewed by legislative gerrymandering. For another, a full third of the Senate is on the ballot every two years, and the results of those races are a better indicator of a national mood [...]

There will be plenty of political eulogies forthcoming on behalf of Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Anyone Who Cared About the Influence of Money in Politics and Oh Sure, Civil Liberties, Too). This won't be one, precisely—or at least not a eulogy on behalf of his politics. If you were forced to adopt the standard pose of a central-casting "secular progressive," sure, you'd admit Feingold's defeat hurts more than most of the others dealt out last night by the hydra-headed beast that was Congressional Bloodbath XXVII: The Inchoate Reckoning. (Republicans won the anti-banker vote? [Whistles, moves on.])

But let's think about Feingold for a moment, instead of ourselves.