I was quite surprised at the closeness of the margins in NYC; I thought the polls had been projecting a blowout for Mike. It got my hopes up for an hour or so.

although they are gratifying in a way...

The problem is the off-year election and its notoriously low and unrepresentative turnout. (In my polling place I was seemingly the first voter to show up, on that shift anyway, as the poll worker had to instruct his colleague how to fill out my card. And that was at about 2 PM.)

People tend not to show up, especially if they think the outcome is a forgone conclusion. I had trouble motivating my students. So the results are... interesting, to say the least.

I voted for Rev. Billy. How'd he do?

It has been more than 20 years since he was there. It is a real tragedy, NJ and VA voters just rejected fiscal responsibility. They have Republican borrow and spend. Services will be cut and interest on debt will go up both because of more borrowing and a reduced credit rating. It is a real tragedy for VA because it is one of the few states with a AAA credit rating.

Of course looking at last night, Jeralyn at Talkleft doesn't see this because she only has eyes for Palin :

Sarah Palin's candidate in NY lost, in a conservative district. I take that as a sign her endorsement hurts more than helps and that she's so last year. She's not even worth a separate post. I think she'll be a footnote in history.

So pay no attention to the fact that the sitting Democratic President campaigned hard for Corzine who lost in a Democratic state and one Obama comfortably won not too long ago.

a New Jerseyan. I do wish he'd stayed in the Senate where he was a quite dependable liberal vote -- and where the clubbiness of the Senate provides cover for the learning curve necessary to do well in coming to legislating with no prior experience at it. His stint at governor here confirms my belief that most people who do well, even extremely well, in other areas such as business, law, etc., are not necessarily going to be good at managing to actually govern -- there's all that political stuff that must be done both publicly and privately. There are exceptionsm, of course, but Jon Corzine was not one of those.

Damn. Now we'll have an open Senate seat as Lautenberg surely will not run again....

One thing I've finally learned is that there is no predictor of governing success that is quite as good as the person actually having governed or worked in some form of legislating or managing government agencies. (Look at Obama. BushBoy.) But they must go through elections, make promises to the public, and then be judged on how well they followed through on their fine words. Actions speak so much louder than those words.

I'd read that in Corzine's era Goldman Sachs was highly collaborative, while being competitive. Teamwork was prized. He was pushed out for not being, iirc, rabidly competitive. But my memory on this is a bit vague.

I'm sorry to see Christie in as our governor, he being the nice Bushie he is. BushBoy's nickname for him was "Big Boy."