There are three races being watched very closely for their portent for next year's elections and control of Congress--The Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races and district 23 in upstate New York. I've commented on a couple of these races, and at this point I think its safe to say that Republicans will take Virginia and the congressional seat in New York. New Jersey will probably stay in Democrat hands for no other reason that its unlikely that the margin of victory for the Republican is large enough to overcome Democrat vote fraud.

Nevertheless, a near loss is just about as good as a win if you are looking at these races as bellwethers. Of course now the spin starts--the outcome of the races means everything or it means nothing.

"I don't think they say anything," Curtis Gans, director of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate at American University, said of off-year elections. "The sample is too small and the issues are local."

Clearly Mr Gans hasn't been paying attention. Local issues are a phenomenon of economic prosperity. In the economic and political environment we are in today, there simply are no local issues. Everywhere I go, everybody one talks about one thing--the economy. Secondarily they are worried about what Congress is doing about health-care (and that includes working Democrats, i.e people with jobs where productivity matters...)

NY-23 should be particular worrisome to both Democrats and RINOs because that particular situation is clearly not an anti-incumbent sentiment, but the embrace of a "right-wing lunatic" like Hoffman, the Conservative Party nominee.

Reaganism like Communism, just doesn't want to go quietly into that good night.