“Win” or “Lose”?

I recently had a discussion on Facebook with a self-described conservative who shares the Right Wing conventional wisdom that passing HCR is “suicide” for the Democrats.  I ask him what would constitute “victory” in his mind for the mid-term elections and he replied, nothing less than a “fiscally conservative” majority in Congress.  To his credit, he did not buy into the ludicrous idea that Republicans can win enough seats to repeal HCR.  Along the same lines, Nate Silver has a good analysis of the history of mid-term elections, the ideological makeup of the current Congress, and how it might shift based on the election results.  Of course, keep ion mind that ANY Democratic losses in November will inevitably be described by the MSM, to say nothing of the Right Wing Howler Monkey Media Chorus, as an irredeemable defeat, “Waterloo,” etc. etc.