GOP in Bush League?

Reuters is reporting that the GOP defeats in the really off year elections held yesterday are a referendum of Bush's governance. Bush went to Virginia in an effort to shore up support for Jerry Kilgore. That Kilgore lost the governor's race in a solidly Red State may mean trouble ahead for the GOP.

Of some interest - maybe purely academic: Virginia had a Democratic governor, who is now replaced by a Democratic governor. But this fact is being lost in the ever-present search for spin.

Here's a bit from Reuters:

The loss in Virginia was a personal setback for Bush, who put his declining political capital on the line with an election-eve visit on behalf of Republican former attorney general Jerry Kilgore -- only to see him soundly defeated by Democratic Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine.

With Bush's popularity at the lowest level of his presidency, the results helped giddy Democrats claim momentum one year before elections to decide control of both chambers of the U.S. Congress and 36 governorships.

"Yesterday the election was a shot across the bow to George Bush," said New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, head of the Democratic Senate campaign committee, who called the results "a clear repudiation of Bush" and the Republican agenda.

Republicans cautioned against reading too much into the results, saying the elections produced no signs of widespread anti-incumbent sentiment. Redistricting initiatives that could have hurt incumbents in Ohio and California went down to defeat and no governors' offices changed parties.

The article has more 'fire and brimstone' declarations about the GOP's prospect in the mid-term elections, but let's not forget that much can change in a year.

The GOP loyalists are still saying that Bush can pull his second term out of the fire...But quite frankly, without Bush literally becoming a different person, I don't see this happening. The only press that the White House is getting can only be seen as negative by anyone remotely impartial. Without some sort of uber-dramatic sea-change in policy, and/or a dramatic event on the world stage, things look pretty bleak for Bush. But in the end, Bush will still be Bush - and that has to be a drag ;)

Now that doesn't mean that incumbent congressmen(congresspersons?) and senators will be swept aside in a Democratic tsunami in 2006, but it's most likely causing a lot of hand-wringing even at this early date.