What does it all mean?

It sends a clear signal that voters have had enough of the president's liberal agenda

Michael Steele

It should come as no surprise that that's how the leader of the RNC is spinning the GOP's victories on November 4th. It's perhaps somewhat surprising that he didn't throw in a "baby," or any of the numerous rhetorical devices he uses to remind people that he's black. But I digress

It's easy to spin the results of last night's election as a referendum on Obama, and a few of yesterday's headlines did just that

GOP victories send message to Democrats

Los Angeles Times

Contests serve as warning to Democrats

Washington Post

GOP Victories Offer A Warning To Democrats

NPR

One Year Later, Big Test for Big Government

MSNBC

Oddly enough, (given its recent track record of selling its centrist bias as a lack of bias) CNN is the only news outlet that seems to be answering the question with a clear "no"

So what's the deal with last night's results?

History, for one. Neither Virginia nor New Jersey has elected a governor of the same party as the sitting President in recent years. In Virginia the trend goes back to 1973. In the New York 23rd, history tells a different story. Democrats have been locked out of representing that area of New York since the Civil War.

Dede Scozzafava was all set to take the seat without breaking a sweat until the Tea Party fuckwads and their cheerleaders amongst the big names in the National Conservative Movement decided that their tent wasn't big enough for her, because she didn't play along with their vilification of everything Obama. They instead backed Conservative Doug Hoffman who doesn't live in the district and doesn't know anything about what's important to voters in the district, who voted for Obama last year

While Michael Steele was busy declaring total victory in two races that anyone who knew which political party the President belonged to could have predicted, his inability to lead his party dealt him a loss that broke a streak more than a century long. That the early word on the 2010 strategy for the GOP isn't looking all that different from their brilliant gambit in the New York 23rd should be all the more telling.

Of course, that doesn't tell the whole story either. As Nate Silver wrote, this election was an affirmation of Tip O' Neil's axiom that all politics is local.

Which isn't to say that Progressives shouldn't feel a sense of urgency. The economy is beginning to recover, but job numbers are still lagging. If we want to keep the ball rolling on healthcare and climate change-- if we want to, indeed, continue to move the country in the right direction on any front at all-- those numbers need to rebound. If that means pushing through a second, all-infrastructure stimulus with 50 votes in the Senate and provoking further rage in the short term from the teabaggers who hate us already? So be it.

Write your representatives. Tell them it's time to put Americans back to work. There's no shortage of things to get done.