Boehner now has the toughest job in Washington

It would be easy to cast President Obama and the Democrats as the big losers after Tuesday's election results. But there's a flip side to what happened on Election Day: Presumptive House Speaker John Boehner now has the toughest job in Washington.

That's because the epic wave of voter discontent enabling the GOP to regain majority control of the House and make serious inroads in the Senate wasn't an endorsement of Republican policies. Rather, Tuesday's votes were largely a referendum against Washington and the politics of the status quo. While the GOP benefited from widespread disillusion, voters remain just as unhappy with Republicans as they are with Democrats, telling exit-poll interviewers that they view both parties with almost equal disgust.

[Photos: Emotional Boehner addresses supporters]

Many Republicans acknowledged the electorate's dour outlook in their victory speeches Tuesday night. "We make a great mistake if we believe tonight these results are somehow an embrace of the Republican Party," Marco Rubio, a tea party favorite who won Florida's closely watched Senate race, said Tuesday night. "What they are is a second chance -- a second chance for Republicans to be what they said were going to be not so long ago."

In Washington, Boehner took the stage at a House GOP watch party where the mood was notably less celebratory than it's been during election-night festivities in years past. "This is not a time for celebration," Boehner somberly warned. "This is a time to roll up our sleeves and go to work." He called the election results "a repudiation of Washington, a repudiation of big government and a repudiation of politicians who refuse to listen to the people."

You can watch Boehner's remarks here:

One reason for Boehner's somber message: The problems that moved the voting tide to Republicans aren't going away. According to exit polls, voters were driven by worries about the economy, anxiety about rising unemployment numbers and a general fear that the nation won't pull itself out of the hole anytime soon. But not unlike the pressure that Obama began feeling shortly after he was sworn in two years ago, voters are now putting their expectations on Republicans to fix the country's problems.

But it won't be easy. While Republicans took back control of the House, the party's governing majority isn't big enough to constitute a clear policy mandate. Republicans and Democrats now face a choice of either finding areas of compromise -- or sticking with the stalemate that has soured voters on Washington.

Boehner and many Republicans floated some conciliatory messages toward Democrats on Tuesday night, but many factions of the party, including those closely aligned with the tea party, remained defiant. Two leading tea party leaders -- Sarah Palin and South Carolina GOP Sen. Jim DeMint -- insisted that the election results were more an argument against compromise than a case for working with Democrats. "The GOP has to understand, that machine has to understand, we are not sending Republicans … to D.C. to sing Kumbaya with Obama," Palin told conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham. "We're sending them to stop Obama!"

[Related: Obama calls Boehner to offer congrats]

That message may resonate with Republicans fired up after the party's 2010 victory, but it won't help with voters more broadly disillusioned with Washington. They are expecting Republicans to deliver on their promises to improve the economy and change Washington in the aftermath of a nasty election season. And they will be looking to Boehner to lead the new batch of House Republicans down a path of workable consensus.

(Photo of Boehner: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Other popular Yahoo! stories:
• Calif. voters reject measure to legalize marijuana
• Bizarre interview by MSNBC host goes viral
• Former athletes bid for political office