Is today a harbinger of elections to come? There are elections for statewide office in New Jersey and Virginia, a mayor's race in New York City, and a series of initiatives on the ballot in California. If current polls hold, Republicans will lose in all but New York City's mayoralty election.

Twelve years ago, New York City elected Republican Rudy Giuliani mayor of New York, Virginia elected Republican George Allen governor, and New Jersey elected Christine Todd Whitman governor. Mike Farris, then a folk hero of religious conservatives, did lose his bid for Virginia's lieutenant governor, but for the major offices Republicans posted a clean sweep in 1993. The '93 Republican storm foreshadowed the '94 Republican hurricane. Does an '05 Democrat victory mean bigger things for Democrats in '06? Probably. But they shouldn't count on a reverse repeat of 1994.

Between the '92 presidential election and the '94 elections, Democrats lost a senatorial runoff in Georgia; a Texas special election to replace outgoing U.S. senator (and incoming U.S. treasury secretary) Lloyd Bentsen; scores of officeholders, including two U.S. senators, to the Republican party due to Clinton-inspired defections; and all of the major regularly scheduled '93 off-year contests. Nothing so dramatic has occurred in the lead-up to 2006's elections. Today's elections might prove to be the first dark clouds in the GOP sky foreshadowing a huge storm. Or, they might prove to be like most off-year elections: local contests that have little bearing on people living outside of the states holding the elections.

[Sorry for the off-topic post, but I suspect that if I were to place this in an Alito thread down the page that no one would notice it. If you disagree, please move or remove it.]

From slate.com:

Found: Sam Alito finally turns in his thesis.
By Bruce Reed

Ivies: Sam Alito's runaway thesis surrendered to authorities in Princeton yesterday. According to the Daily Princetonian, Alito's adviser—Professor Emeritus Walter Murphy—has kept a copy of the thesis for the past 33 years and turned it over to the university on Monday. The senior thesis of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, '74, remains at large.

The full 134-page text of Alito's thesis will be released today, but The Prince excerpts the preface. In a prescient dig at careerist, middle-aged jurists who cloak their activism under the veil of judicial restraint, Alito refers to "the myth of the judge as automaton, a disinterested finder of law."

True to form, the preface hints at what Sam Alito '72 wanted to be when he grew up: "Writing a senior thesis about the Italian Constitutional Court is not as absurdly ambitious as writing one all about the United States Supreme Court." Obviously, Alito didn't want to reveal his secret desire to serve on the Supreme Court, so he channeled his absurd ambitions elsewhere.

Last year's White House spin: Foreign courts don't matter. Today's White House spin: Writing about an obscure foreign court is another sign of Alito's judicial modesty.

The day of his nomination, Judge Alito had to silence his own mother, who was showing reporters his childhood scrapbooks and describing her son as "very conservative" and anti-abortion. He may have a tougher time getting his thesis adviser to shut up.

Last week, Murphy praised Alito's nomination by expressing shock that such an intellectually challenged president could nominate such an intellectually gifted student. Yesterday, he told The Prince that "it's a gross insult" to lump Alito with Clarence Thomas. "Their IQs are so radically different," Murphy said. "We're not talking about someone in Sam's intellectual league."

Murphy says he has remained close to Alito over the years and offered a detailed account of his student's judicial philosophy. "He is much more an Anti-federalist where state and national authority clash," Murphy told The Prince. "We, however, agree on other important issues, such as finding no constitutional barrier to bans on late term abortions and requiring spousal and parental notification of impending abortions." The professor also said that he and Alito agree that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided.

Move over, James Dobson. It was bad enough when nominees gave a wink and a nod to fundamentalist pro-lifers. Now a Supreme Court nominee is quietly signaling he's a solid vote against abortion to elitist, liberal university professors.

The Senate Judiciary Committee should summon Prof. Murphy to testify—if only because, in contrast to Alito, they'll have no idea what he might say. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney can try to hide behind thesis adviser-advisee privilege, but they're not in Sam's intellectual league.

I have little doubt that if the party continues on the road it is currently on, the Democrats will seize the day in 2006 and 2008. But there are plenty of decidedly un-Bush like candidates in the GOP stables, and I still haven't completely given up on Bush to turn his Presidency around. The Alito nomination was heartening.

It is so true that people get the government they deserve.

As an example, in Caleeforniaa, the Governator supports four initiatives to help get his state out of the red and all four are voted down handily.

Where there is no fiscal or social common sense, chaos will prevail.

Can't say he didn't try.