Neither Kilgore nor Forrester did themselves any favors. A presidential election can’t really be compared to an off-year gubernatorial race, but if you look at both of these races, who was really going to rally around either candidate? GOTV works when you have someone to get people excited about, issues to rally around. In the presidential race people felt there was something at stake, that–well, at least on the right–the guy at the head of the ticket had something to offer–a determination to fight terorism, an understanding of the problem of a legislating judiciary, etc… Forrester offered mud in the campaign’s final days and I suspect Kilgore’s taxing issues left the non-ideologically inclined wondering, how much worse off would we be if we just kept the same party there? All in all, not surprising. But disappointing. Disappointing that the Republican candidates were somewhat lame (more than “somewhat” in New Jersey). Disappointing that the conventional wisdom on the Bush administration for a while now will be something like the Googlebombed Google “failure” read. This too will pass, however, I’m fairly certain. Still, the champagne popping is all on the Left tonight on the East Coast, anyway. (I don’t have high expectations in Cali, but I’ll hold onto hope on parental notification until it’s over.) Republicans are more scotch tonight.