The election wasn't a blow-out but the Republicans and the Tea Party did very well. It would have been nice to control both Houses of Congress and it is possible that the primary victory of weak Tea Party candidates over stronger establishment Republicans cost the Republicans the Senate. On the other hand, if the Republican leaders learn that big-government Republicans are no longer welcome then it is worth the short-term loss.
Here in Ohio it was a blow-out. Four years ago, after eight years of the mediocre Taft and some major scandals, the Democrats took most of the state offices. This time the Republicans won every state-wide race plus every congressional race. Most of these were won by margins of 15%.
The biggest loser was the unions, especially SEIU. Governor Strickland was a strong supporter of the unions to the point that his appointees may have been breaking the law in pushing school districts to use union labor. Strickland was also an opponent of charter schools even though he is childless. He relied exclusively on the teacher's union for information about them.
SEIU started running ads against Kasich in August and they were nasty, sometimes saying that he only wanted to become governor so that he could send Ohio jobs overseas.
Since there is no way that the unions could be any more anti-Kasich, that gives him the option of layoffs of state workers to help balance the Ohio budget.
Assuming that Kasich does a competent job as governor and that Obama is reelected in 2012, expect Kasich to be a top choice in 2016 for the White House.
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