Democrats score in off-year elections

Well, well, well. Finally some good news for us liberal (= smart) thinkers.

I know that Tuesday's elections weren't for the White House or the Congress, but still, there were two governorships (New Jersey and Virginia) up for grabs, and one race was really close, but we won both.

Above all, Bush tried to help the Republican candidate by showing up Monday night in Virginia, and it totally backfired on him, since the guy lost anyway. And this will have repercussions next year during the midterm election races. Bush might be viewed as poison (just as Bill Clinton was after the Lewinsky debacle) instead of an advantage:

The loss in Virginia was a personal setback for Bush, who put his declining political capital on the line with an election-eve visit on behalf of Republican former attorney general Jerry Kilgore -- only to see him soundly defeated by Democratic Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine.

With Bush's popularity at the lowest level of his presidency, the results helped giddy Democrats claim momentum one year before elections to decide control of both chambers of the U.S. Congress and 36 governorships.
...
Kilgore's poor showing could give pause to Republicans considering calling on the president for help in the 2006 elections.

"I think it would have been closer if the president hadn't gone in there," Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean told reporters.

"It really is a disaster for Bush," said Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia, who called the results "the logical consequence of Bush's growing unpopularity."

"Virginia is Southern and conservative and that's the Republican base," Sabato said. "If they start losing their base, it's easy to imagine both houses of Congress going Democratic."

What a nice mental image :-)

Furthermore, all the ballot initiatives championed by the once-rising-star of the Republican party, Arnold Schwarzenegger, were defeated, hence (re)positioning California solidly on the Democratic side of the electoral spectrum and dimming the prospects of the Terminator to win a full term next year.

As for gay initiatives, it was a mixed bag. A state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage was approved in Texas, as expected, but an attempt to repeal an anti-discrimination law in Maine failed, and this was the only real contest that mattered (nobody thought Texas would endorse gay-rights at this juncture in time.) From MaineToday.com:

Maine voters decided Tuesday to keep the state's gay rights law on the books, making Maine the last New England state to bar discrimination based on sexual orientation.

All in all, a good showing for the Democrats everywhere. Now let's just hope this is a good omen for next year's midterm elections. Wouldn't it be nice to take back Congress and then impeach the lying scumbags in the White House?