Tails Don't Wag Dogs

All the usual media opinionators, bloviators, and blowhards are salivating at the prospect of spending countless hours this evening microscopically examining two gubernatorial and one U.S. House of Representatives election in a vain effort to foretell President Obama's political future. They might as well read tea leaves, chicken entrails or Tarot cards.

Having lived for years in New Jersey and Virginia, neither one is a reliable political weather vane, especially in these dire years of economic collapse, ill advised foreign wars, and media-driven political polarization.

State issues rather than national issues will drive the voters to the polls. Unless pompous panels of radio and tv pontificators provide solid evidence to the contrary, my belief remains that all politics is local, especially in off-year elections.

Will wait until Wednesday morning for conclusive results. My own interest is focused on the Congressional seat in Watertown, New York, where an estimated $3 million has been spent to date (look for a higher final total) in a market with little in the way of mass media to warrant these costs.

A number of underemployed folks like former Gov. Sarah Palin, lackadaisical former presidential candidate Sen. Fred Thompson, and a few overpaid media jackals with personal axes to grind are frantically stirring the political pot up by the Canadian border as if Noc. 3 is judgment day. Either way, the outcomes will be interesting, but not necessarily telling.