Republicans did good? They won Virginia, which historically goes against the party in power (that's the reason they've had a Democratic governor the past 12 years). New Jersey, the state with the highest property taxes, a Governor mired in corruption and with the stench of Wall Street coming off of him, polling at sub-40% approval, barely goes Republican (Christie will barely hit the 50% mark, if at all).

But never mind that. THE REPUBLICANS FINALLY WON SOMETHING! The ONLY explanation is that voters in local races are FED UP with Obama.

How's that NY-23 race going for you guys? That seat that's gone Republican every years since around the time of the Civil War? What's that? The Taliban wing of the GOP pushed the locally selected Republican candidate out, in favor of a third party candidate who did not live in the district, and couldn't answer a single question about what was near and dear to the voters of the district he wanted to represent, how did that turn out?

The Democrat is winning? You gave up a seat that your party has safely held for more than half of our country's history, and you think you should be celebrating?

Good luck in 2010. I'm a liberal, but I don't like one-party rule.

this just shows that the GOP as a party needs to push further rightward. they must purge all moderates and RINO's from the party. this is a vindication of the palinist wing! rightward ho!

Republicans will claim this is a referendum on Obama, but of course it won't be a sign from the people that they want more liberal Republicans like Christie.

Sshhh....
Corzine is thanking his losing team.

Digitalstrange: soy_bomb: This just proves that Republicans are a regional party catering to Southern mouth breathers.

In New Jersey?


Obviously a Confederate stronghold.

Pretty classy concession speech.

/and that's all I have to say about that

soy_bomb: JerseyTim: Republicans will claim this is a referendum on Obama, but of course it won't be a sign from the people that they want more liberal Republicans like Christie.


I don't know why anyone would think about Obama in relation to this race...

Corzine ran a filthy, cynical campaign. He was polling in the 30s before the election. There was no one who went to the polls with Obama in mind. New Jersey voters care about one thing and one thing only: property taxes.

Do we have a trifecta in play?

haplo53: Fark It: How's that NY-23 race going for you guys?

Something tells me that if the Democrat wins it won't be considered a referendum on right-wing nutbar politics the way the other races are considered referendums on Obama/Democrats. In fact if the Democrat wins you probably won't hear much about it at all, because it won't fit the insta-narrative being pushed right now.

No shiat. CNN has been pushing this narrative. I had to turn it off after Anderson Cooper basically started to lick Ari Fleischer's taint. Mumbly McOldmanpants and Token started to take him to task for claiming that the GOP hardliners pushing out the Republican in NY23 wasn't about social issues, that it was economic, and good for the party.

Think about it. If the numbers for Maine hold up, we'll have the first victory for gay rights by popular vote, EVER, and the GOP will lose a seat they've held safely for almost 150 years, despite the outside influence of arch-conservative GOP politicians and their anti-equality allies.

This was hardly a victory for the GOP.

tenpoundsofcheese: 3. How did NJ end up with such high property taxes? Did it just magically happen?

Progressive values.

I want to cockpunch Subby, and whichever silly admin picked this headline.

/Suck it, libs!
//WHERE IS YOUR FSM NOW?!

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A few hours ago the liberal media was saying we wouldn't know the winner until tomorrow, bwahahahaha! Corzine has already given his concession, and Christie is expected to speak in a few minutes.

I hope Christie stays true to his anti-corruption background as governor. He may not be my party, but he's my governor and I hope he does well.

gilgamesh23: Corzine was pretty meh, anyway. Though he did have some political courage and got rid of capital punishment which is a huge plus for me.

Because New Jersey was killing prisoners left and right before Corzine took office, right? ROFL

tenpoundsofcheese: Fark It: Republicans did good? They won Virginia, which historically goes against the party in power (that's the reason they've had a Democratic governor the past 12 years). New Jersey, the state with the highest property taxes, a Governor mired in corruption and with the stench of Wall Street coming off of him, polling at sub-40% approval, barely goes Republican (Christie will barely hit the 50% mark, if at all).
.

1. Obama won Virginia by 4-5 points and now 1 year later the gov loses by 20. That is a real swing.
2. I don't think clinton hit the 50% mark for one of his terms so I wouldn't hold that against Christie either.
3. How did NJ end up with such high property taxes? Did it just magically happen?

Obama was not running to be Governor of Virginia.

Here is the problem with using the results from New Jersey or Virginia tonight to judge the status of the national political environment. It's not so much that the races are "meaningless" in the abstract, but that ticket-splitting is so common in gubernatorial races that the noise swamps the signal....

...Public Policy Polling thinks that, in both New Jersey and Virginia, about 15 percent of Obama voters (the ones who bother to turn out) will vote Republican for governor, whereas about 5 percent of McCain voters will vote Democratic for governor. Those percentages, coupled with depressed turnout among their base, will almost certainly cost the Democrats Virginia and possibly New Jersey. But they're also well within the range of "normal" given the local circumstances intrinsic to gubernatorial campaigns -- similar, for instance, to what happened in Washington State last year.

To be clear, the fact that gubernatorial races are not a reliable benchmark does not mean the Democrats are not in trouble in 2010 -- whoa, too many double negatives there -- nor that Democrats might not have done better if Obama's approval rating was 62 percent instead of 52 percent. It just means that New Jersey and Virginia don't have particularly much informational value -- we won't become very much smarter about the future based on what happens there. To the extent that we do learn something, it will probably be hints about turnout, motivation and enthusiasm, rather than something about the electorate's policy preferences.
...

This isn't good news for Obama or Democrats in 2010, but it's not bad news wither. It's NOT news.

Democrats can try to hide if they want. But this is a reaction to their over reaching and there is no mistaking it. It is going to get worse if Pelosi and Reid continue.

This is not a referendum on the President, he can hardly get a word in edgewise, it is all about Pelosi and Reid. He is going to have to cut them loose just as they have cut him loose.