Its quite funny to hear that the right-wing pundits are gloating over the fall of the welfare-state in Sweden. As a norwegian (thats the next door country for you americans, we understand each others language) I have followed the electioncampaign closely. The main focus of the Moderat strategy has been to claim that the SoDem govmnt has *left* the path of the welfare-state in its original form. It has more or less stolen all SoDem attitudes to the role of the state, with an added twist of incentives from the state to stop unemployment and get the ones on welfare back into work.

In Norway and Sweden we practically speaking have no non-social democratic parties, and the society is basically one of consensus, not conflict, when it comes to large matters. Both in Sweden and in Norway, the unions are seen as pillars of societyworking hand in hand with both state and employers to ensure stability and growth. the shrill and hysterical tone of your maniacs over there would firmly put most right-wing bloggers in the category of people who write letters to the newspapers, but dont get them in print. (All this is slowly eroding on the social level, however, due to the recent wave of Islamophobia wich has come up from Denmark, but thats another story..)

From what I understand the Social Democrats have only been out of power 4 short times since 1917. The current span was several decades. It isn't that surprising that there'd be a change once in a while. The other party only edged them out by a few % and neither coalition garnered more than 50% of the vote.