Talking heads everywhere are telling you what yesterday’s election results mean.  Clearly you need one more source.

In some sense they mean little more than the obvious: that the states of New Jersey and Virginia sided with Republicans based on the issues in their respective states.  Certainly the corruption from top to bottom of the New Jersey Democratic Party and the tax raising ways of Corzine, along with fears that Creigh Deeds would raise taxes in Virginia, played an important part in the defeat of both.  But was there also an anti-Obama sentiment?

It’s hard to say the extent to which there was anti-Obama sentiment, if at all.  Most voters didn’t admit to casting a vote influenced by Obama in either direction, but that doesn’t mean that those who disapprove of the President weren’t more motivated than his supporters.  It’s quite likely that they were, and it’s hard not to consider that opposition to ever expanding government in Washington could have driven extra turnout from conservatives and small government independents, who went heavily for Republicans.

The economy was a key issue in every race, and the takeaway lesson for Democrats going into 2010 is that they are in trouble if it doesn’t improve.

But enough of the two party battles, what about the intra-Republican dispute in NY-23?  While RINO’s and their self-serving cheerleaders on the left will be emboldened by Hoffman’s loss, the race is hardly an indictment of conservative candidates.  Hoffman not only got 45% of the vote in a district carried by Obama in 2008, but he did it while battling both major parties with limited resources for most of the race.  Moreover, the fact that Scozzafava was still on the ballot with the Republican label may well have been the deciding factor. She received more votes than make up the gap between Hoffman and Owens, and that’s before counting the absentee ballots, many of which were mailed while she was still a viable candidate.

For the national Republican establishment, this is no vindication of their strategy.  In the end they spent almost $1 million on a candidate that endorsed the Democrat.  That is an inexcusable embarrassment.  The best lesson they can take away is: there’s a reason you hold primaries.  If there had been a Republican primary, Hoffman would have defeated the union loving, stimulus supporting, health care nationalizing Scozzafava and then had the Republican party behind him, rather than against him, in his race against Doug Owens.  The outcome likely would have been in his favor.

For conservatives, the lesson here is that third parties are not viable.  Yes, this was a rare case and it could have worked in NY-23.  But elsewhere, particularly at the national level, it’s simply a bad idea no matter what.  Conservatives have to continue working to restore the Republican Party as the home of small government voters.  For those who would stand in our way and think the “big tent” moderate Republican Party we have now is the way to go, I’ll leave you with this election night statistic:  In Virginia, 36% of voters identified themselves as Republican, while 39% said there are conservative.

Further reading: Matt Latimer on The Right and Wrong Lessons from Tuesday’s elections, and Michelle Malkin on The GOP elite’s $1 million object lesson — and the message of NY-23

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