As happy as all of us here are tonight, there is even better news that I think has been mentioned in passing, but which might portend bigger things a year from now.
How Republicans will frame this: Democrats HELD both NJ and VA, nothing changed. What's the big deal. In fact, we picked up a Lt. Gov. in VA! No national indicator.
NJ was more or less expected, but was supposed to be narrower (predictions of a 5-8 point lead, maybe) -- instead Corzine blew Forrester right out of the water early on and can be counted to pull out a double-digit win. GREAT! I was starting to fear New Jersey might be trending Republican, but it is good to see it is not so.
Virginia -- I came into the night cautiously expecting a narrow Kilgore win (although I was strongly supporting Kaine, I expected VA to revert to its red roots). Imagine my surprise when Kaine pulls out a 5-6 POINT WIN! This is major, folks. Yes, we kept a Democratic governor's seat Dem, but look at the margin -- in VIRGINIA of all places, where we should supposedly not be able to win, we won by six points. Completely unbelievable. This will be hard to spin as anything but bad news for Republicans. 2006 starts to look better and better.