Yesterday, Republican Randy Forbes narrowly beat Democratic
Louise Lucas in a special election for Virginia's 4th
Congressional District. Predictably, the GOP is claiming
that this amounts to a "bellwether" victory for their
president and their party; as goes Virginia's fourth CD, so,
apparently, goes the nation. Also predictably, this is
mostly nonsense. There's no doubt that this was a win for
the GOP, which now holds a seat formerly occupied by the
late Norman Sisisky, a Democrat. And it's a setback for
Terry McAulliffe's Democratic National Committee, which is
pouring serious money into Virginia these days (and which
dispatched grassroots guru Donna Brazile to help out Lucas).