The 2005 Elections (And Terrorist News)

Lots to cover tonight, but before I get to any of it, I must make a correction. In my endorsement of Tim Kaine for governor of Virginia, I referred to Kaine as the state's attorney general. In fact, he is the state's lieutenant governor.

Now, of course, he'll be the governor. Viriginians elected him to the post yesterday in a tunning victory for the Democrats and in a major setback for George W. Bush, whose base has long cast a shadow in the state (think Falwell, Robertson, Oliver North, Cal Thomas, and other assorted right-wing wackjobs). The outgoing governor, Mark Warner, is suddenly a favorite for the Presidency in 2008, and Kaine proved a Catholic Democrat can win an election in a Protestant state talking about his faith. That was hardly the formula New Jersey's Jon Corzine needed to win the state's governorship, defeating Douglas Forrester more handily than I expected.

Does this portend a trend for the Democrats in 2006? Probably not, although I wouldn't rule out a Democratic party comeback for next year. No, these races were decided by local issues - mainly property taxes in New Jersey and government efficiency in Virginia. Similarly, major cities such as New York and Seattle returned their incumbent mayors to office (Mike Bloomberg of New York is the only high-profile Republican among them, and a fake Republican at that) because residents of these cities liked the way their cities were being run. The fact that Democrats won two major races doesn't portend a trend that favors Democrats any more than the presence of a black post-Boomer in the mayor's office in Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick (who was also re-elected yesterday), portends a trend of "hip-hop generation" politicians. Remember - Democrats won the Virginia and New Jersey governorships four years ago but lost big time in the 2002 and 2004 congressional races. But that doesn't mean history will repeat itself to the nth degree between now and 2008. (Intriguingly, though, all of Arnold Schwarzenegger's ballot initiatives in California were defeated. Merely local concerns, or . . . :-O )

Meanwhile the terrorist bombings at hotels in Amman, Jordan, show just how hard it is even for moderate Arab leaders like Jordan's King Adbullah II to curb terrorism. Jordan has been in the gunsights of al-Qaeda, particularly the Jordanian-born commando Abu Musab al-Zaqarwi, for helping to train Iraqi security forces; this terrorist attack was only the latest in a series of plots against Jordan, and it was merely the first one that succeeded. Since most of the world writes today's date in calendar shorthand in day/month order - i.e., "9/11" - some consider this a form of reverse symbolism, though it's probably no more than a coincidence.

But it is worth noting that it was four years ago today that Osama bin Laden boastingly admitted on videotape his role in planning the World Trade Center attacks. (The tape, made on November 9, 2001, was broadcast over a month later.)