It's much ado about three Republican Party setbacks

Life is unfair, as President Bush is finding, and politics are even unfairer.
He is taking part of the blame for a Republican loss in the Virginia governor's race and suffering collateral damage from a Republican loss in the New Jersey governor's race and the loss of GOP-backed initiatives in California.
Factually, you can argue -- as the White House heatedly does -- that these losses were largely due to local factors, but politically these losses have combined to give Bush a faint radioactive glow among Republican candidates looking ahead to 2006.
In California, the fading political fortunes of GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's four initiatives and effective campaigns by the powerful public employee unions defeated the governor's initiatives.
In Democratic New Jersey, generously funded Democratic Sen. John Corzine handily beat his Republican opponent.
Tight race
In Republican-leaning Virginia, Democratic Lt. Gov. Timothy Kaine beat Republican Jerry Kilgore by five points in a race that was too close to call going into Election Day. The state's enormously popular but term-limited governor, Democrat Mark Warner, stumped heavily for Kaine while Kilgore's campaign was marred by unnecessarily harsh attack ads that backfired.
Kilgore declined a joint appearance with Bush last month but gratefully accepted the president's appearance at an election-eve rally. Bush advisers knew he would be blamed for a Kilgore loss, but the president couldn't be seen as cutting loose a loyal Republican in what then seemed a toss-up race.
Veteran politicos know that Election Day next November is several lifetimes away. Still, on the day after, demoralized congressional Republicans didn't exactly rally around their beleaguered leader while Democrats crowed that Tuesday was a referendum on Bush and that Bush lost. It's not fair, but it is politics.
Scripps Howard News Service