To be honest about this election cycle one has to understand that:
1) New Jersey is a blue, blue state that isn't bloody likely to turn GOP.
2)Kilgore in VA ran a mind numbingly bad campaign. I mean c'mon, his competitor was part of an administration that cried wolf that the state was going bankrupt unless taxes where hiked and then the day after the hike said "oops, I guess we have a surplus after all..oh well, we'll put the money to good use somehow." Not to mention the hair brain Hitler death penalty ads. Kilgore's loss though had nothing to do with the GOP nationally. It had to do with Kilgore. The other two GOP candidates running statewide with Kilgore seem to have won. (A next pick up of one for the GOP in VA BTW. You won't see the media talking about that much).
3) The CA ballot issues...you think the union is going to lose in CA?
4) The ballot defeat in OH stung the Dems a lot more than any of the other defeats in other states stung the GOP. The media is spinning wildly.
5) In the end, 2005 was a "All Politics is Local" year. Extrapolating nationaly from these races makes as much sense as calculating Texas sales tax on groceries you are buying in Arizona.
re 1.) No, NJ is not a blue, blue state. Bush cut into the D's % there big time in 2004. Gore won by 16%, Kerry won by 6%. It is a blue state, no doubt, and the fact that we lost alone might not have bothered me.
However, the fact that we lost bigger then we were suppose to, that does concern me.
re 2.) You are right about Virginia, Kilgore ran the worst campaign I could think of. That said, again, in and of it's self it might not bother me, but the trend, again losing more then we were suppose to lose by, concerns me.
re 3.) If they don't lose pretty soon, California will fall into the atlantic, economically speaking. The current situation is completely unsustainable. You would think that those same folks who voted to recall Davis would have figured that out by now.
re 4.) You are right about that, I did probably underestimate the significance of that one.
re 5.) To an extent, yes. But again, the trend is not good. In 2001, we lost VA by less then we were suppose to, and won NY when we weren't suppose to.
It seems to me that the trend against us is not a Democratic phantom that it might have been. I'm not saying doom and gloom, but I'm saying give it some careful, thoughtful decision. We need to get back on offense, and we arn't right now.