Former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton was watching TV outside the big GOP soiree in Bellevue as national Republican losses kept tallying up.

He said the U.S. House was clearly lost, but he was holding out hope that Republicans could still hold a slim majority in the Senate. But he knew McGavick would not be part of that, which he said was "of particular regret to me" because he thought he'd be a great senator. And he doesn't think McGavick could have done anything different.

"I don't think he left many votes on the table," Gorton said.

Asked what was pushing the national wave, Gorton said, "You can put it in shorthand and say the conduct of the war has a lot to do with it." And he expressed some frustration that the Bush Administration had not done more to change the course in post-war Iraq.

"Like most other Republicans now, I would have gotten rid of the secretary of defense a long time ago. It was his strategy. He messed up.''