The Beginning of Hope

If you don't live in Virginia or New Jersey, you may not have caught the ray of hope that is beginning to dawn on the conservative horizon. Both states have off-year gubernatorial elections. And voters in both states so far are throwing their support to conservatives.

In Virginia, the glimmer paved the way for state Sen. Creigh Deeds, a conservative Democrat, to leave two liberal opponents stumbling in the dark as he raced past them in the primary this week -- despite being outspent, outgunned, out-endorsed and outnamed. Deeds captured 50 percent of the vote while Terry McAuliffe, a longtime Democratic Party operative, got 26 percent and the early favorite Brian Moran pulled in nearly 24 percent.

You may be familiar with McAuliffe. He's the one who engineered the Clinton coffees at the White House and the "renting out" of the Lincoln bedroom. McAuliffe, who had chaired Hillary's presidential campaign, came to the Virginia race late. In fact, he reportedly wanted to run for governor in Florida until he found out he had to live there seven years first. Despite his late entrance, he raised millions more than his opponents -- much of it from Hollywood -- and had several in-person endorsements from President Clinton.

Moran, who ran to the left of McAuliffe, comes from a prominent political family and has served in the state assembly. He also got the endorsement of the Kennedy clan. He was seen as the golden candidate until McAuliffe's candidacy bumped him off course.

But in the end, Virginia Democrats set their hopes on the conservative -- the one candidate who would not agree with President Obama on many of his policies. They told the Clintons, the Kennedys and even Hollywood, "No thanks." They proved Virginia is not as purple as the liberals would like you to believe.

Meanwhile in New Jersey, Republican challenger Chris Christie is coming on strong against incumbent Jon Corzine with taxes, particularly property taxes, and the economy playing as the biggest issues. Some pundits see President Obama as Corzine's only hope to retain his seat. But will the president risk his cache by campaigning for an incumbent who could lose?

Hope is dawning. And we're not even through the first six months of the Democratic reign.