It's hard to draw conclusions from off-year elections held in a couple of Eastern Seaboard states. But clearly the White House isn't smiling over the results of the gubernatorial elections Tuesday in Virginia and New Jersey.
Republicans won not only the governorship, but the separate contests for lieutenant governor and attorney general in Virginia. There were plenty of issues dividing the candidates there, but a CNN exit poll indicated voters were evenly divided regarding the Democratic president's performance to date.
The CNN poll of New Jersey voters showed Obama with 58 percent support, but that was not enough to put incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine, for whom the president campaigned several times, over the top.
And in New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent running on the Republican line, handed Big Apple Democrats their fifth straight defeat.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele overstated when he declared that Tuesday's result "sends a clear signal that voters have had enough of the president's liberal agenda." But the results ought to serve as a cautionary note to the president and his fellow Democrats in Washington about the danger of abandoning bipartisanship in pursuit of instant victory on issues like health reform and cap-and-trade.
Americans are tired of Democrats and Republicans fighting for total victory. Obama's election and inauguration brought hope to most of us that the nation had found someone who understood this, but there's been a steady slip back toward bipartisan fighting.
The country as a whole wants Obama to succeed, but it also has serious reservations about the government taking over functions traditionally performed by the private sector, and the trillions being expended on bailouts, economic stimuli, entitlement programs and a possible expansion of the war in the Middle East.
Some of those reservations were no doubt reflected in Tuesday's election results, and if the president fails to heed that message, the results could be worse for Democrats in 2010.
