It is refreshing to find that New York voters think for themselves.

Regardless of picking up two more seats, the Democrats need to put health care reform on the fast track. Nonsense for Reid to say it won't be wrapped up until next year. Nothing else will get done or even started until this is wrapped up.

In this environment, every vote counts, and Democrats just picked up two more that are likely to prove helpful.

Yes, two new Blue Dog-lites added to the heap that is Congress.

Ya but ya but...it was a referendum , I know cause my TEEVEE told me.

Prior to today, while ignoring the Congressional race where the Dem was expected to win, the media was all over the other Congressional race where a Republican or tea-bagger was expected to win. Today however, now that the New York tea bagger lost, the media (MSNBC included) acts as though both Congressional races never happened while telling us that the two gubanatorial races are a message to Obama.

Liberal media my ass.

Yes, two new Blue Dog-lites added to the heap that is Congress.

Actually Garamendi is well to the left of Tauscher.

Not only that, the Repub gubernatorial wins are extremely good news for John McCain.

Yes, two new Blue Dog-lites added to the heap that is Congress.

The candidate who won in California wasn't a blue dog, or even blue dog "lite". NY-23 was about the best you could hope for in a district that hasn't elected a Dem in over a hundred years.

Bottom line, in the elections that matter in terms of effect on Obama's power, Dems expanded an already large majority.

Remember the last REALLY BIG Republican governor win? California? "Governator?" Let's see how happy the residents of VA and NJ are in three years.

the Democrats need to put health care reform on the fast track. Nonsense for Reid to say it won't be wrapped up until next year. Nothing else will get done or even started until this is wrapped up.

I don't know. The energy bill, while starting to get watered down, is quietly making its way through Congress. If HCR drags on, one silver lining may be the fact many other initiatives are slipped by under the main stream media radar. Given the MSM propensity for skewing toward Republican obfuscation, that probably is a good thing. And its not like passing HCR immediately is going to help those who need it immediately. That said, it needs to pass pretty soon or risk being stripped of effective progressive measures or scuttled altogether.

fun watching the backwash of lies and smooth passive/aggressive corporate propaganda that gets reactively reported on the intertubes from the teevee and the villager dictates that "it's all good news for repugnants..."

the vertigo of insanity is almost like those carnival rides as a kid...

fun -- if nausea is fun...

and those god damn state-a-mainers... who knew they could focus their quiet hate on "those people"?

Obviously governors don't have a direct impact on the Congressional health care debate, but I think Steve is understating the chance that moderate Senate Dems get afraid of their own shadow and interpret this as some anti-Obama sentiment. That would be an absurd interpretation, of course, but I wish I could put that past them.

For Tempered Optimism: Owens sounds like a quasi Dem, but Garamendi from what I hear locally (not my CA district) is genuinely progressive, ran as such in a more conservative district, and won in in part because he played it straight. And SaintZak is right: health care now, not next year. But, when and if and in whatever form it passes, the Obama Administration must (as Howard Dean says) get some reform working fast, before the midterms, certainly before 2012 (!), or House Dems will lose in November (even if they won last night).

Democrats have not only managed to expand their House majority, they've also moved the caucus ever so slightly to the left.

You're letting your cheerleading get ahead of the facts. Garamendi pulls the caucus to the left, but that is more than offset by Owens blue-dog rightward pull.

According to all radio, teevee, newspaper sources today, Obama may as well resign and move to a deserted island. All of Tuesdays results were a sure sign of his, and his administration's, demise. After less than a year, his efforts have been a total failure. I can understand this kind of reporting down here in The New Republican Territory (also known as Texas), but nationally...either I'm wrong in accessing the results as nothing unusual & certainly not a declaration of Obama as a failure or, the reporting is correct and I live on a yet undiscovered backward planet (oh...maybe it's the planet of Replublicanus...my mistake).

Michael Steele was on Fuchs Noose doing what some called a Heisman pose because of republican wins in NJ and VA, totally ignoring the fact that dems won in the arena that really matters by electing 2 dems to the House. They refuse to admit that these wins are extremely important in that these districts have a historical record of electing republican candidates to Congress.

No state politician votes in Congress, and exit polls show that the votes for these governors are not a rejection of President Obama.

I've never seen a republican/conservative at the national level who ever let facts and clarity get in the way of spinning things to suit his/her purpose(s.)

Owens has stated he supports hcr with a public option. I made it a point to visit his web site and follow the local papers in NY-23. I donated to him only AFTER he stated his support for hcr w/ po.

The lesson of NY-23 is that moderate Republicans will split to the Democrats if the GOP goes to their crazy right. This has got to be good news for blue-dog democrats. Moderates of all types are more afraid of crazy wingnuts than they are of lefties. So a blue dog can tack a little more leftward these days without as much fear of losing the middle.

People are not done punishing the wingnuts, and the wingnuts are not done being crazy. Good times ahead.

Sure is quiet today on the local foaming at the mouth wingnut news media blog in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. I guess they are all searching for an opinion they can agree with, since they are incapable of forming their own. I did my normal daily parody and nary a word. I think I'll go rake some republican leaves from my estate and shred them for mulch, as I await arrival of my welfare check. Great work Mr Benen.

"his efforts have been a total failure."

Obama has destroyed America's reputation with the rest of the world.
Embarrassed the country by being awarded the Nobel peace prize.
Stopped defense spending on a cherished plane.
Keeps trying to reform America's health care system which most everyone inside America knows is No.1 (while the world ranks it No 37)

Rather than a deserted island, why don't you exile him to Canada, or some other country that would actually appreciate his multitudinous "failures".

Johnny Canuck - I do hope you realize my comments were a vain attempt at sarcasm.

Meanwhile, on NPR, your alleged liberal media, I listened to a half hour this morning and two different hourly newscasts, and there was a complete news blackout on the two house races. Didn't fit the narrative, I guess.

Anyone here any mention of the house races on NPR otherwise?

Nice Polite Republican radio doesn't report Republican failures. They don't want to upset the wackos GWB put on their board of directors.

[It is refreshing to find that New York voters think for themselves.

Posted by: EC Sedgwick on November 4, 2009 at 10:51 AM]

Just when I think upstaters are being bought and paid for by the money machine, we pull together to make a point like this. It renews my spirit and faith in upstate NY so I'll stay here for a little while longer. ;)

In rural areas there are very few empolyers who are large enough to offer health insurance and lots of self employed and micro businesses, I would imagine Owens would have support for broad Medicaid type insurance.

Johnny Canuck - I do hope you realize my comments were a vain attempt at sarcasm.
Posted by: whichwitch

Yes, I did. I'm not very good at the ironic/sarcastic type comments. I'm not too familiar with your past Presidents, but suspect Obama is in the top few for academic ability and thoughtfulness (Jefferson, John Q Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson). I don't understand why all these religious types aren't thanking God that the country has been put in such good hands to clean up the Bush/Cheney mess.
This is the first time in my adult life that I actually trust an American president, even if I don't agree with him.

Michael Steele repeated the Heisman pose on Morning Junk too, which was so silly even Mika Mouse buried her face in her hands. All this excitement from the Faux lite MSM about the "demise" of Obama and the Dems, even though Democrats now lead the House (259 to 176) and Senate (60* to 40). Even with the Repubs two Governorship wins last night, Dems still maintain a slight majority in Governships (26 to 24), with 1 one of the 24 Republican Govs being only a default position holder after Napolitano left AZ for D.C.