While the rest of the country was ousting Republican incumbents and handing governors' offices and statehouses to Democrats, Utah stood firmly behind its GOP candidates this week.

Now, with power shifted in Congress, giving the Democrats control of both houses and seriously curtailing the ambitions of most Utah's congressional delegation, the reaction in Utah is ... moderate, actually.

In fact, some people have found silver linings in Tuesday's broad upset of Republican hegemony -- and there are those who say the GOP has only itself to blame.

"I hope this is a wake-up call," said Gayle Ruzicka, president of the conservative Utah Eagle Forum. "As you get outside of Utah, with some of the Republicans who have been serving for a long time in Washington, this is a message for them that they need to start acting like Republicans."

She was particularly critical of enlarged federal spending during a time when the GOP controlled both Congress and the White House: "That's not a Republican principle."

And while Ruzicka voiced concern that a Democrat-controlled Congress could pass immigration legislation that conservatives don't like, she wasn't worried about issues such as abortion, stem cells and same-sex marriage.

"We have a president who would veto anything they tried to pass that got out of line," she said.

Marian Monnahan, chairwoman of the Utah County Republican Party, said that she is "disappointed, but you just have to take it in stride. The voters have spoken.

"That's the way it always goes, up and down and back and forth. I imagine in a few years it'll swing back."

Utah County Democratic Party Chairman Vaughn Cook said that he's "not hearing much wailing and gnashing" from Republicans, and his fellow Democrats are not necessarily jubilant.

"Democrats generally are giving a sigh of relief, hoping that the change in Washington will bring a little more sanity to what's going on back there," he said.

"Most people, I guess, are centrist Democrats. We see it as a good thing because it was out of control, and now maybe it will be more under control."

That assessment was echoed by Paul Mero, executive director of the conservative Sutherland Institute, a think tank in Salt Lake City.

"When it comes to party stuff, I think change is good," he said. "Systems need pushback. For many years, the United States Congress didn't have pushback.

"You're going to have forced debate. You won't have rubber stamping. ... It's going to force the Republicans to actually think again, and then the Democrats are going to have to respond. They're reactors."

One thing observers agree on is the ascendancy of U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, who is the only Democrat in Utah's five-member congressional delegation.

"You're going to see Jim Matheson become one of the most influential congressmen ever from this state," said Jeff Bell, communications director for the state Democratic Party.

There is influence lost in other areas, though. Both of Utah's senators are Republicans, and they were both in line for powerful committee chairmanships after 2008 if the GOP retained power.

Matt Waldrip, a senior at Brigham Young University, worked hard to help the Republicans retain that power. He helped organize almost 900 students from BYU and BYU-Idaho who traveled to 25 cities in 15 states.

They knocked on doors and made endless phone calls to turn out the vote, and the defeat hit those volunteers hard, Waldrip said -- especially seeing U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in line to be Speaker of the House.

"The initial reaction is, 'That's too bad. What a tragedy,' " he said. "I got several e-mails the day after saying, 'Wear black tomorrow.' ... Almost everybody I talked to today cursed Nancy Pelosi's name."

But, said Waldrip, this could actually boost the 2008 presidential prospects of Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican and a Mormon.

Many people, including many Republicans, had turned against the current GOP-dominated leadership because of disillusionment over the Iraq war, numerous congressional scandals and a sense that elected officials were callously out of touch.

"If that continued for the next two years, Americans would've been so fed up with Republicans, there's no way they would vote for a Republican for president," he said.