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.

Mark Sanford's win is GOP's loss

Despite the optimistic polling, it's not that shocking South Carolina's own Appalachian Trail hiker won the special election yesterday. What's more surprising is how close the votes were. Sure 54% to 45% ordinarily sounds like a big win but if you look at the actual totals Sanford only won by 12,838 votes. Granted a special election draws a lot fewer voters but compared to the guy he's replacing, who won by 62% to 35% just last year, it doesn't look as impressive.

As satisfying as watching the cons deal with an upset would have been been, on a practical level, this was the best outcome for Democrats. There were already signs that Colbert Busch was going to piss off liberals and progs with her "moderate centrism." Indeed she would have little choice but to Blue Dog it to satisfy her constituents. Meanwhile, all indications point to Sanford's gain becoming Boehner's bane.

This quote from Congressman elect Sanford's good buddy in the state Senate portends trouble in Capitol City:

“Sorry, NRCC. We won anyway,” he tweeted shortly after the election was called.

This outcome is essentially a draw. While it's a horrible outcome for good governance, all we did was trade one GOP clown for another. But Sanford is a much bigger showboating, bumbling, hapless sad sack. Willing to predict he's going to become the gift that keeps on giving for lefty bloggers, liberal pundits and the perpetually bored insider media.