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Pawlenty had the MN House and half the federal delegation and most of the statewide offices. With his reelection, he lost the House, lost a winnable Senate seat, a House seat, and ALL the other GOP incumbents in statewide office and only barely won a plurality over a buffoonish opponent.

Carcieri never had a House majority. The legislature of RI has been, since the mid 1930s (with only a couple of occasions) Democrat. The best he could hope for is to whittle away some seats here and there, and he’s met with mild successes (a Newport seat that had been Dem for decades fell to the GOP with his help in a recent special). Although the Senate seat fell on his watch, the incumbent himself was to blame, as he was as far apart from Carcieri on the issues as to be to the left of many liberal Democrats. Had he moved rightward, he might’ve saved his seat.

Carcieri hasn’t gone out of his way to harm party interests or the Conservative cause, and just the other week, he decisively moved on the illegals issue that earned him the enmity of the panderers (a far more timid individual would’ve gone hat in hand to apologize, he told them to pound sand). In a state that is overwhelmingly Democrat, he has performed remarkably well, and stands to (if he leaves office on schedule in 2011) leave the state in GOP hands (depending upon the nominee). He’s an example of a private business leader who does a good job against the odds and gets little in return (especially scorn from the media for doing the right thing). This is the myth the Slick Willard supporters claim of their candidate when it’s really Carcieri that embodies that success, both in private AND in public. Means what he says, does what he says.