Off Off Analysis

Since this is an Off Off Year election, I offer a quick Off Off Analysis.

The first thing I think we all need to realize is that the situation for the Republicans was so awful in 2008 that there was little reason to think it could get much worse.  It had to get better for them.  In the stock market, they call it the Dead Cat Bounce.  As in, even a dead cat bounces when dropped from high enough.

Thus, I think it's inevitable, but silly to over-interpret the victories by Republicans in narrowly held states like the Virginia governor race.  Deeds was long thought to be not such a great candidate on the Democrats' side, and thus the "intensity" was higher on the Republicans' side.  So the Republican wins.  The New Jersey governor's race was, I think, more meaningful and encouraging to the Reps.  But we could come back with counterexamples, such as the CA 10th district, where the Great Republican Upset just didn't come close to materializing.  And, of course, there's NY 23, where Republican party dynamics have been shaken, but the result is the election of a Democrat in a seat that has been held by the Reps since the 1870s.

So, just like sports teams never are as good as they look when on a winning streak, nor as bad as they look on a losing streak, the Dems' advantage over the Reps that gave us the 60/40 senate and the current House is not as large as that "winning streak" - based largely on the bad economy and Bush-hatred - would imply.

The result in Maine on Question 1 is very disappointing of course.  While there are no moral victories, the race is getting closer and closer.  Same sex marriage has won.  The only question is whether that win will come 2 years from now or 20.  How many more years must we wait for generational change, or will enough people be actually persuaded to move that issue now?  In Washington, where the question was not explicitly over same sex marriage, but in reality was, there was a narrow victory.  (The Washington measure assured full state rights to unmarried domestic partners, obviously mainly targeted at same-sex couples.)