Thats pretty big news taking New Jersey!

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans rolled to victory in Virginia and New Jersey governor's races on Tuesday in a sharp blow to Democrats that showed the limits of President Barack Obama's political clout.

After suffering a one-two punch in those two states, Democrats salvaged a victory over a conservative candidate in a congressional district in upstate New York in a race that exposed a split in the Republican Party.

Republican Bob McDonnell scored an easy victory over Democrat Creigh Deeds in Virginia. In New Jersey, Republican Chris Christie had a tougher time with incumbent Democratic Governor Jon Corzine but prevailed.

The victories buoyed Republican hopes that they had emerged from the political wilderness after losing control of the Congress in 2006 and the White House in 2008.

And it raised questions for Democrats as they try to protect strong majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate in 2010, amid concerns about the weak U.S. economy and their inability so far to reduce the country's unemployment rate, now at 9.8 percent.

"Losing Virginia in a landslide, his key swing state victory in 2008, plus the loss of New Jersey means a bad night for Obama," said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist. "Presidents have to take their lumps and Obama has just taken a big one."

The Virginia and New Jersey losses suggested Democrats have a challenge in trying to attract voters to the polls without Obama's name on the ticket. Democratic turnout suffered particularly in Virginia.

Some analysts wondered aloud whether some moderate Democratic members of Congress might look at the results and question whether expensive programs such as a broad overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system are politically palatable.

"It could have an effect that people in Congress say 'you know I'm not going to go along with some of Obama's stuff, I'm really scared, we've gotta be careful, we're going into 2010,'" said Democratic consultant James Carville on CNN.

A year ago, Obama became the first Democratic presidential nominee to win Virginia since 1964. Obama campaigned twice for Deeds but Democrats were unable to muster a large turnout the way they did a year ago despite holding the state for the last eight years.

Republicans had not won a statewide race in New Jersey since 1997. Obama won the state by 16 percentage points and traveled there to campaign three times for Corzine, a former Wall Street executive who pumped $23 million of his own money into the campaign.

OBAMA NOT WATCHING RESULTS

The president was described by the White House as not having watched the election returns, and spokesman Robert Gibbs earlier dismissed the potential impact of the governors' races on Democrats and the 2010 elections.

"These races turned on local and state issues and circumstances and on the candidates in each race –– and despite what some will certainly claim –– the results are not predictive of the future or reflective of the national mood or political environment," said Democratic Party chief Tim Kaine.

But the Republican Party was eager to blame the policies of Obama and the Democrats.  Continued...

We had a race here for the "county executive", which has LONG  been held by a tax & spend Democrat. . . he was beaten in an upset by a relative unknown who espoused less spending, etc. . .

see: Westchester County (NY), Spano, Astorino. . .

Hope & Change baby!

2010 is going to be Epic.

Locally, the headline read: Montville Voters Dump Democrats.  

Link

LOL, according to democrats whenever they lose it was because the election was based on local and state issues and was not a referendum on Odunga.

Whenever they win its a sweeping mandate in support of Odunga, hope and change.

Fucking idiots.

Corzine was an unpopular douchebag. Virginia has already been pretty Republican (Tossup as to who wins, look how close 2008 was) and had a weak Democratic candidate. The Conservative guy who was polling to win in NY lost. I don't see this as some major Republican victory. Sure it is good for them but it is hardly some unexpected upset.

I wanted the Conservative party guy to win (I could give two fucks about his views) since it would possibly open the door for more 3rd party/independents. That or causing the Republican party to further split into two parties; The Socialist American Jesus Party and a small government libertarian party (One that I would be happy to vote for in certain situations).

The Democrats were elected in 2006 and 2008 not because they are great but because the Republicans and Bush had been so awful that the pendulum of politics had to swing into their court. It will swing back and forth forever unless we ever get viable third parties.

Splitting the republican party will result in unbridled democrat control.  That's a fact.  Whatever your hate of the christian right is, they are a huge voting bloc.

I don't think it helped Corzine when he, refused to go on the largest radio station in the state.

Dumb move.

ETA:This was for the entire duration of his term.

101.5? Yeah that radio station and programming are one of the best political barometers that we have here.
Refusing to go on air with them, is a bad bad bad move. Even MacGreevy knew that.

two strains of a different disease as my history teacher says.,

Win. Win.................