For one, of course, Gabrielle Gifford's aide, Ron Barber won her old seat. True the GOP tried to uncharitably boil it down to the Dems just winning their own seat, however this is in a district that was GOP leaning-more good news, it will be changing in the future to a more Democrat friendly constituency:
"Running in a district where Republicans benefit from a 26,000 voter registration advantage, Barber, a 66-year-old former Giffords aide who was also wounded in the shooting, ran as a moderate, never identifying himself as a Democrat in his commercials that rotated heavily on the TV airwaves here."
"The thrust of his campaign focused on hammering Kelly over entitlements, casting his Republican foe as a far-right conservative who wanted to phase out Social Security and Medicare. It was an attack that echoed the approach Democrats used with success in an upstate New York special House election last year, when the party launched a heavy assault on a Republican nominee over her support for Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan’s controversial budget proposal."
"Barber said Tuesday he believed the entitlements-focused message he used could serve as a template for Democratic candidates across the country."
“I think it’s been a lingering issue for a long time that’s become more focused in the last four months of this campaign, but I think it has national resonance as well,” he said.
Like the Wisconsin recall, this is a race where individual personalities and local political conditions mattered a lot, so the predictive value for November is uncertain. But it's one of the few pieces of good news Democrats have gotten in a couple of weeks, and (as in Wisconsin) 7 points is a bigger margin than strategists on both sides expected. So at the very least, it's not a bad sign for the message House Democratic strategists hope to use."
http://www.politico.com//blogs/burns-haberman/2012/06/barber-gives-dems-a-win-126029.html
This is why the GOP overdid the grand predictions after Wisconsin. Yes, it was a major hold for them-they didn't boil that down to merely holding on to a seat they already had then!-but clearly that wasn't final, categorical victory. There are lots of moments that seem conclusive and turn out to be just one battle in the larger war.
In North Dakota there were some very encouraging results at two bills on the ballot-to end the property tax and another "religious freedom" bill both went down to decisive defeat:
"The defeats are a blow to conservative leaders, who had hoped North Dakota would become the first state to repeal property taxes and the 28th to implement a religious freedom law. Both proposals attracted strong opposition from moderate and progressive groups statewide, with fears that the religious freedom proposal could legalize child abuse, domestic violence, ritual animal sacrifice and the marriage of 12-year-old girls."
Surely that can't be the case:
"The religious freedom referendum was pushed by the North Dakota Family Alliance and the state Catholic Conference, who said that the measure would protect religious groups from government mandates, including contraception insurance requirements. Opponents said the wording of the proposal could lead to people being able to say that child abuse, domestic violence, marriage to children and animal abuse were religious practices. Proponents dismissed those arguments and also said the measure would not cause Sharia law to be implemented."
It didn't call for Sharia law to be implemented? Well then they've won me over. Darn liberal media lying about this perfectly reasonable bill! Though even if the law did not cause Sharia law to be implemented-not that this was the criticism leveled against it-I expect it very well might provide for Muslims suspected of following Sharia law to be stoned.
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