"We did not elect him to bring us more of the same--more dominance of our national policy by the military industrial complex, the Big Banks, Big Pharma, Big Insurance and Big Oil."

You nailed it there. You could build a third party around that. 2010 is likely to be another throw the bums out election - unfortunate for the majority party but not necessarily for the American people. We may need several throw the bums out elections before we get to that change we can believe in.

of course the youth vote was missing. Obama was not on the ticket and the candidates he endorsed were not exciting whatsoever to young people.

Let's not read too much into this. My favorite NBA team has won their first four games straight, but I'm not betting on them to beat the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals just yet.

A wake up call moment.

The message I take from tonight, with Corzine losing and Bloomberg's close call, is that it is not a good thing to be associated with Wall Street/the oligarchy right now. This was not some referendum on Obama nor does it represent a GOP renessaince (as the TV talking heads seem to be trying to spin tonight)...this was a referendum on the powers to be who put corporations, and their CEO's, ahead of the American people. You stand with the obscenely rich SOB's who aren't satisfied with what they have and somehow feel entitled to it all...you will be voted out. Have pitchforks will travel!!!

Raise taxes on the Wall Street types, ease back on what the rest of us have to pay and get Americans back to work in good paying jobs or you will be history, end of story...and, pun intended, you can take that to the bank(s).

"Larry Summers and Tim Geithner and even Rahm Emanuel, have been so inside the Wall Street game for so long that they have no idea of the level of anger directed at the capitalists who have managed to scam a few trillion out of the public coffers with phrases like "without the banks, we would have no economy"."

Ya think?

I find it interesting that Mr. Taplin seems to fall into the category of wishful thinkers who believe that Obama is somehow not "one of them" meaning Geithner, Summers and Emmanuel. Let me be the first to burst your bubble Mr. Taplin: Obama IS one of them!

He too has been so submerged for so long in the bullshit elitist atmosphere of money and influence that he not only is one of them but he is the number one one of them. He has sold out the nation's common people and not because his evil advisors have tricked our good President into doing bad things. He knew and knows exactly what he did and he has no more problem with it than those creeps he has hired to help him.

The big losers tonight? The political center and far right wing, aka 'the powers to be'. Nobody who is part of the status quo is safe in their office right now...the barbarians are at the gate.

The American people, said in the words of Dave Wyndorf, time to kill this game and are willing to search and destroy.

Space Lord Mother Mother...HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

8-)

Actually, the way it should be reported is, the Hoffman defeat in NY-23 is the most significant development of the evening. While the R's defeats are noteworthy the R's have held the statehouses in NJ and VA repeatedly, and recently, in the past. NY-23 was a seat that was one of the safest of the safe seats for the R's, for 100 years in fact. That was the biggest stunner in terms of being an upset tonight. But of course the press will talk about NJ and VA and try to explain some how why the results are a negative message about Obama and the D's.

It's the 3 am phone call for both parties, for different reasons.

Tonight's message is that the Republican base is still somewhat bamboozleable if there's no Republican moderate in the mix and the Democratic candidate has a flaw that can be attacked.

The Passionate Democrats, though--the ideologicaly driven Green-leaners--not so much. They're really peeved about the Captains of Industry snuffling at the trough a year into this thing. And when you take a bunch of passionate, do the right thing types and underwhelm them, the silence is deafening.

So yeah, this is a beer moment for Obama and Axelrod.

In NJ and VA it was a status quo election because these exact results have been happening there for decades now.

What that means is that the only talked about revolutionary party is the republican party, the democrats being the status quo party.

There is an opening for the Independent parties to take advantage of.

Jonathan, much as I might prefer to accept your interpretation of last night's results over some others being freely offered, do you have any data to support your argument on what last night meant?

Yahoo's home page now links to Politico's election night summary. It quotes numerous spinners on both sides without citing a single piece of data--exit polls, pre-Election polls, statements by non-spinner voters, whatever--to support the opinions its authors express. I'd expect better from John Harris, one of the co-authors of the piece.

All this is pretty funny since it really wasn't the banks that were bailed out. The people who were bailed out were the bondholders, who had their interests protected by the federal government. A modern financial institution is really just a collection of contracts with a pretty logo; the Federal government has, time and again, favored certain kinds of contracts over other kinds.

And the favoritism is an outgrowth of a longtime Wall Street preference and bias toward the fixed income securities markets, at the expense of equity.

I've learned something in the past year: bondholders have better lobbyists than stockholders.

I'd argue that the Wall Street bailout was Obama's finest moment. True, many hate the idea that these greedy financial corporations were propped up with taxpayer dollars. But at least Obama looked like a decisive leader during the bailout. Post-bailout, Obama has looked weak and ineffectual. His inability to set a clear path toward health care reform and rein in the Democratic party has hurt him. Combine this with a confusing policy in Afghanistan and no strong agenda in other areas and he starts to look like a lightweight. I love his intelligence and his values, but the guy is starting to drift. He's got to get focused or his Presidency is headed the way of the Carter Presidency. Best intentions . . . no results . . . no second term.