Ground Game

Republicans yesterday managed to successfully hold two seats after special elections yesterday in VA-01 and OH-05. The fact that Ohio’s Bob Latta and Virginia’s Robert J. "Rob" Wittman held their party's seats isn’t the most stunning news.

However, liberal bloggers made a big push for the Ohio seat and are once again left discussing moral victories, rather than actual electoral ones. The bottom line: Republicans will spin this as a victory, but in reality, they essentially held par on 2006 numbers and had to spend valuable campaign cash to do so. Liberal bloggers will note a normally unnecessary cash influx from the GOP, but they were hoping for a true victory, rather than rationalizing defeat.

Daily Kos has perhaps the best progressive blogger analysis today:

Republicans beat us in the expectations game, got enough of their people out, and basically kept things even from 2006. They spent a shitload of money for an "expectations" game victory in what might have otherwise been a routine and uneventful hold. So well played to them. But the bottom line is that they held an R+10 seat. Funny that this is the sort of thing they're left "celebrating" these days.

Red State diarist Adam C also has a reasonable take from the right:

This combo of big wins seems to suggest that partisan R districts are holding up in a difficult environment where both parties and all parts of government are seen in a negative light. Note however that the NRCC and RNC had to get involved in OH-05 where they should not be needed. This takes money and time away from other tighter districts to spend on an R +10 area.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Singer tries spinning things a bit over at MyDD:

Simply put, regardless of the results of this election, the DCCC thoroughly outmaneuvered the NRCC.

But he quickly comes back with an update that puts things in a more rational context:

Update [2007-12-11 22:33:35 by Jonathan Singer]: To be clear, would I have liked to see a win? Yes. But the Republicans' victory was definitely a pyrrhic one, hurting them more in the long term than it helped them in the short run.