Former John Locke Foundation Headliner John Gizzi offers his take on the latest election returns across the country:
It was a pretty lousy day indeed for the the GOP—from losing the mayoralty of Waterbury, Conn., to failing to decisively win control of the state senate in Virginia, in spite of a wealth of fresh opportunities. At press time, the Old Dominion senate was tied with 20 seats for each major party. However, in the Frederick County district, should the 86-vote lead of former U.S. Army Ranger and detective Bryce Reeves over Democratic Sen. R. Edward Houck hold up, the senate will be 21-to-19 Republican. …
… It really was no surprise that liberal Democrat Ed Lee, who became acting mayor of San Francisco when incumbent Democrat Gavin Newsom was elected lieutenant governor last year, easily won a full term Tuesday. The news is that Lee is spelling out the debt his city is wallowing in and proposing not-so-liberal solutions to cut spending and deal with the problem of city employees’ pensions. As State Republican Chairman Tom DeBeccaro put it, “While Oakland protests, San Francisco goes understated. Mayor Lee, using simple math, has plainly stated San Francisco’s budgetary and pension problems and gone about proposing solutions. Apparently, normally liberal San Francisco has gone with math over mass protest.” …
… If there was any state in the union in which Republicans had an evening that could truly be called sweet, it was in Mississippi. Not only did Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant sweep the governorship, but the GOP won all statewide offices save that of attorney general (Democrat Jim Hood was reelected). Republicans also extended their majority in the state senate and won 63 seats out of 122 in the state house—putting the house in their hands for the the first time since Reconstruction.
