Victory, at long last!

I don't know what exactly there is to say about our governor-elect that hasn't already been said. Pretty much everyone who reads this blog has been on the Tim Kaine bandwagon for just as long as I have, so I don't have really anything groundbreaking to add.

I do, however, want to take a step back and think about the Virginian political climate as a whole. The 2005 election makes it eight times in a row that Virginians have elected their governor from the opposite party of our nation's president. It's strange; we're quite the conservative state, but at the same time, we've never been interested in conserving the status quo set in place by the leader of the free world. I see two possible explanations for this trend, one of them flattering, and one of them... not so much.

On one hand, it's possible that the moderate voters of Virginia have a deep, complex understanding of the importance of checks and balances. To elect a Democratic governor with a Democrat already in the White House would give too much power to the liberal side of the spectrum -- so when Clinton is president, we elect George Allen and Jim Gilmore. Conversely, to elect a Republican in Virginia when there's a Republican head of state would give too much power to the conservatives. With George Bush in Washington, we elect Mark Warner and one Timothy Michael Kaine.

If we take this angle, then I have to say: I'm really impressed with how noble Virginians are. They're bringing justice to the state's political climate. After all, in a political culture that's split down the middle, it's only fair that the two parties share the power at all times.

Then again, if we interpret Virginian voters in a different way, it doesn't make us look so good. What if we're just really gullible people, and we're too susceptible to smear attacks against the presidency? What if we were brainwashed by anti-Democratic ads while the Clinton presidency was wrought with scandal, and then by anti-Republican ads after Bush took us to war? This isn't quite as noble as the first theory, is it? It means that we can't detach political issues on the local level from those on the national level, and we're letting relatively irrelevant factors bias our voting habits.

I don't know which of these theories to believe, but I do think there has to be some explanation for this trend. Eight times in a row! The last time we elected a governor from the president's side of the aisle was 1973, when Mills Godwin and Richard Nixon were both Republicans. It's incredible -- especially when you consider that we're a traditionally Republican state, but we've picked the Democrat five times out of the eight.

If you don't buy into this pattern, and you think it's all random noise, then maybe you see a realignment forming, and the Democrats' stronghold on the Virginia statehouse is emblematic of a liberal return to glory nationwide. That's possible too! Kilgore lost in Virginia, Doug Forrester lost in New Jersey, California rejected pretty much every idea Ahnold had to offer, and, by the way, our president's approval rating is sitting pretty at a staggering 37 percent.

Either way, this Kaine victory really gets me thinking. It has a lot of relevance in society as a whole, especially if it hurts the reputation of the Republicans currently in power in Washington. We'll see how that pans out.

On a less deep-in-thought and more woo-hoo-we-won note, I can't believe we pulled this one out! It's the first time I've been on the winning side since being old enough to vote, and it feels good. I've always been a bit of a pessimist, but Kaine's comeback this summer really made me a believer. (Not having Jerry Kilgore ruin the world for four years is a nice bonus too.)

In other news...

-I'm really, really praying that Manny doesn't get traded. The latest news I've heard is that he and Garret Anderson are both refusing to play a DH role. This means that Manny can't go to the Angels, since left field there is Anderson's for good. And if the Mets don't put Lastings Milledge on the table, there's pretty much no offer they can make that's worth our time. I don't want Mike Cameron in the outfield at Fenway... it makes me cringe just to think about it.

-The Observer finally started updating their website again. There's an NBA preview (I did the Eastern Conference half) in this week's sports section, plus an opinion piece on merging Tufts and Hopkins that I thought was worth a read and a chuckle or two.

-Tuesday's psych exam was a horrible test. I've read, reread, and re-reread the sections of the textbook we were tested on, and there were several test questions on material that's blatantly not in the book. Plus the test barely covered the dozens of pages of content the book had on neurotransmitters in the brain, which I of course studied for hours.

-Next week I get to start covering Division III college basketball for the Daily. Time to gear up for the 102nd season in the history of Jumbos basketball. How exciting.

That's all I have to say for now. This isn't exactly the best week for blogging for me... schoolwork is piling up. My psych reading's done, but I have a whole lot of research to do on what the writings of Rousseau, Aristotle, Hume, and Montesquieu have to say about national character and how it's formed. Then I'll follow that up with a study of the run-prevention tendencies of Brad Lidge, Joe Nathan and Trevor Hoffman. And perhaps a bit of reading about teenage girls in Hasidic Jewish societies?

And maybe some sleep, if there's time.