Reading the tea leaves

Well we had a bunch of elections yesterday. In the little corners of the world that I follow, outside of NJ's folly, it was a pretty good day for Democrats. Whole lot of progressives in small towns were elected. The tea party guy in Alamaba was trounced by the establishment GOPer in a primary. Minimum wage was raised to $8.25 in New Jersey and to $15 in a suburb of Seattle which apparently is good news for workers at Sea Tac. Portland, Maine legalized marijuana. Of course, there's always something weird.  Six counties in Colorada voted to secede from something. Not clear on what the long term plan was if they actually succeeded.

You already know about all the big races. Only nailbiter left is the AG in Virginia which I'm hearing may be headed for a recount.What does it all mean? My magic 8 ball says "repy hazy, ask again later" but there's plenty of tea leaf readers on the internets who are willing to tell you exactly what to think about it.

For myself, I agree with Ed Kilgore. Let's not get caught up in the expectations game. Otherwise, the only really shocking results was 31% of self-described liberals voted for Christie? The same Governor Blowhard who vetoed or otherwise tried to crush, every progressive gain that managed to pass through the NJ legislature despite his relentless thuggery? WTF were you so-called liberals thinking?

But to end on a brighter note, and you probably have to live here to realize just how huge this was -- way to go Watauga Dems. Some of you may have seen their story on Maddow. They overcame the dirtiest of voter suppression trickery from an absolutely malevolent local election board and won it all. They give me hope for the future.