Following last Tuesday�s �stunning� election victories in two Gubernatorial contests, the Democrats came to the sudden conclusion that they are now the �in-crowd� in Washington (which is a lot like being the most popular kid in band). When asked what ideas exactly the American people were so amazed about, Charles Schumer informed us that those ideas will be rolled out sometime in the beginning of 2006.

Democrats can�t just come out and say they want to raise your taxes, abort your babies, embarrass the military, take your guns, and ban religion. This is why they need a few months to figure out how to convince you that they don�t want to do what they really want to do, which is to raise your taxes, abort your babies , embarrass the military etc. etc. etc.

Which brings us to the two elections that, if you follow the mainstream media, swept the nation and showed us who is really in charge: the Democrats! (And in case you were wondering, an October 11 poll gives the Democrats in Congress an approval rating of 33%, several points below President Bush. So yeah, they are definitely sweeping the nation.)

The first shocker was that Doug Forrester, the Republican, did not beat popular Democratic Senator Jon Corzine in liberal New Jersey. Moving along. In Virginia, Lt. Governor Tim Kaine won a race with the help of the very popular outgoing Democratic Governor Mark Warner over a Republican candidate who couldn�t seem to stop tripping over himself. Republicans won the other two statewide races - Lt. Governor and Attorney General.

In any event, state races are very poor indicators on how people vote in elections for the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Presidency. So I ask, what do Hawaii, Vermont, Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut, New York, and California have in common? For one, they are all very liberal. Out of the 14 Senate seats that these states combine for, all 14 are held by Democrats, when counting Jim Jeffords who caucuses with that party. This group includes some of the most liberal members of the Senate including Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and the Berkeley Babies in that mix. All seven states overwhelmingly voted for Bill Clinton in 1996, Al Gore in 2000, and John Kerry in 2004.

Second, and stay with me here, all seven states have Republican Governors. So the theory that these two races, where the incumbent party held on to both seats, is indicative of a major change for 2006 is a bit of a stretch. State policies and national policies are two completely different animals. Governors don�t have any say in the Iraq War, or federal taxes, or Social Security. So Governor�s elections, and many other state e lections as well, are very poor indicators of the national mood.

Meanwhile, generally conservative states such as Arizona, North Carolina, and Tennessee have the opposite scenario: Two Republican Senators each with a Democratic Governor. My new home state, Tennessee, elected Democrat Phil Bredesen just two years after it prevented their former Senator, Al Gore, from becoming President by voting for George W. Bush. They would also vote for Bush in the following election, after Bredesen became Governor.

The misoverexaggeration of the recent election will do little to actually convince the American public that they support liberal policies on a large scale. The current strategy is to point at the two victories and repeat ad nauseam that they have popular ideas, yet never share them with anyone. This may work well enough to win some people over in tight races, but eventually you have to let someone, somewhere, know where you stand on things. If the Democrats had winning i deas that led to these two victories they would not need to wait until 2006 to tell us what those ideas were.

But I�m guessing their new, and improved, platform will look something like this: they will support �family medical decisions� (partial birth abortion), privacy rights (abortions for pre-teens),  middle-class tax cuts (free money for non-taxpayers), access to marriage (gay marriage), and withdrawal of the troops (surrender-on-demand). These aren�t new ideas. Just new packaging.