Barack Obama may have won Virginia in '08, but the Democrats failed to take Richmond yesterday.
This is a lesson for the "Party of Hope": the GOP may have taken a beating this past year but it is not down for the count.
The Old Dominion was a shoo-in for Bob McDonnell thanks to a lackluster campaign by a lackluster candidate. Where was the energized youth movement that carried Obama to victory? Standing in the unemployment line, probably.
New Jersey was the big win, though. Even Obama's direct support couldn't save Jon Corzine. To be fair, a resurrected John Kennedy couldn't save Corzine. The people of New Jersey, tired of high taxes and corruption, had had enough.
Obama's liberal agenda took another beating as Maine voted to repeal a law legalizing same-sex marriage. Gay marriage has lost now in all 31 states that have put it to a popular vote. The leftist courts overstepped their boundaries by implementing their laws, but yesterday's vote proved that the people aren't afraid to put judges back in their place.
The GOP is not down for the count. Yesterday's mid-term elections served as a warning that 2012 will not be a cakewalk.
A little pretentious? Maybe.
Virginia almost always votes one way for the presidency and the opposite for governor. The last two elections being prime examples of such "tradition" (when Bush won Va. so did Democrat Tim Kaine).
As for New Jersey, come on. Corzine was a former investment banker (CEO of Goldman Sachs) and was voted in with promises of fixing the state's economic disparity. His loss was more of a mandate against his government than anything.
Losing in Maine means that Democracy works.
What most of "opinionated" journalists like to spin is that these elections were an evaluation of the president, rather than the people that were actually doing the job. Really, his Liberal agenda lost? Last year California voted for Prop 8, and elected Obama. Paradoxical, but yes, religious folks really don't want equality...
Unfortunately, neither of the big two parties is nearing a swan song. That means that those of us dissatisfied with both of them face a choice of voting our conscience for a candidate unlikely to garner significant number of votes or to vote for the "lesser of the two evils" coming from the two biggies. It appears that the independents were what constituted success for NY district 23 and New Jersey elections. VA was never much of a contest in this election.
The real shame for our nation is the continued dictatorship of the majority in denying full citizenship rights for our fellow citizens who are gay. This is an atrocity and we can only hope that the shrinking majorities seen in each of the elections that have been held foreshadow the day when a majority of us will reverse this wrong doing.
Sounds like Republicans whistling past the graveyard to me. The NY debacle clearly shows that conservatives do not have enough local support nationwide to win national elections. They NEED the Moderate wing of the party to win.
If the right wing Republicans keep forcing the moderates out of the party they'll do one of two things: either vote Democratic or form their own party. If they vote Democratic, that's the end of the Republican party's ability to win national elections.
If they form their own party, the Republicans will become a weak fringe party, and the new one will gain center-right votes to become what the Republicans really ought to be if they want to win.
Virginia almost always votes one way for the presidency and the opposite for governor. The last two elections being prime examples of such "tradition" (when Bush won Va. so did Democrat Tim Kaine).
As for New Jersey, come on. Corzine was a former investment banker (CEO of Goldman Sachs) and was voted in with promises of fixing the state's economic disparity. His loss was more of a mandate against his government than anything.
Losing in Maine means that Democracy works.
What most of "opinionated" journalists like to spin is that these elections were an evaluation of the president, rather than the people that were actually doing the job. Really, his Liberal agenda lost? Last year California voted for Prop 8, and elected Obama. Paradoxical, but yes, religious folks really don't want equality...