Tomorrow is Election Day somewhere

There are three races to watch tomorrow. Mainly two gubernatorial contests in Virginia and New Jersey in addition to a special election for a congressional seat in New York.

That race in New York has generated some publicity this past weekend as the original GOP candidate, Dede Scozzafava, withdrew from the race and endorsed Bill Ownens, Democratic candidate in that race. Scozzafava has a lot of GOP money behind her but the third party candidate Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman really galvanized conservatives or in fact, "The Tea Party" movement. Needless to say Scozzafava (a member of the NY State Assembly) may have won herself a few enemies amongst Republicans whether conservative or not.

Who knows how that race will turn out tomorrow. One Governor's race may be won in Virginia but there's less certainty about New Jersey. Like in NY there are three candidate's vying for that state's governorship. There is a third party candidate and he's expected to pull some votes away from the upstart Republican, Chris Christie.

The incumbent, Jon Corzine, already has the advantage of incumbency but there is a good chance that people have a bitter taste in their mouth about him. If that's true then the third party candidacy may not be a big problem for New Jersey voters.

BTW, the video above is from last week's Hannity. A focus group of mostly New Jersey Democrats talking about their upcoming gubernatorial election. A lot of interesting comments to be had there.

If you want to know why I'm paying attention, let's just say that these elections might be a barometer of sorts for the upcoming midterm elections next year. These three races will be touted as a referendum on President Obama. Of course if that's to be beleived we'll know for sure in November 2010.

Also another race of interest is in Atlanta. The bits and pieces of news from the city that's home to Morehouse College and Spelman College is that a credible white could be elected mayor of the city too busy to hate this year. Blacks are struggling to get behind a black candidate so that they may feel like they remain in control of a city that has had a black mayor since the early 70s.

(Can anyone say Maynard Jackson!?!?)

Anyway the race angle is somewhat shocking. It might be something I would expect from Chicago. For example concern over losing the Cook County Board Presidency has caused a group of Black ministers to convalesce around incumbent Todd Stroger. Stroger is already a weak candidate thanks to a number of factors mainly how he got in and his high sales tax.

The Black ministers' concern is over the plethora of other Blacks running for Todd Stroger's job next year with Dorothy Brown, Ald. Toni Preckwinkle, and Congressman Danny Davis (who also just so happen to have recently filed papers to run for re-election to his 7th Congressional Seat). Them in addition to Terry O'Brien from the Water Reclamation District who is Irish. Concern 4 Blacks in this race could split the Black vote and allow a white man to get elected county board president.

Unfortunately in their case they may have picked a losing horse. All the same, whether the eventual nominee is an Irish white man or any of the black candidates or even the Republican, any or most of them could be an improvement over Stroger. But only after Nov. 2010 will we know for sure!