Politics - VA not feeling blue any longer

The gubernatorial results were as good as Republicans could have hoped. McDonnell won handily, a staggering 27 point change from when Virginia voted for Obama. Blue state New Jersey voted out an incumbent Democrat who outspent his opponent 5 to 1 and had Obama coming to campaign with him in the final week. The New York district race went to the Democrat, which will allow some room for the Democrats to spin, but they do so at the risk of looking foolish as Tim Kaine did this morning on CNN. He basically chalked Virginia and New Jersey up as flukes and focused on the tiny race with many unusual circumstances. One message that he had is certainly true. Hard core conservatives are not satisfied with the party and could cause the party trouble. He made more of this than it is, but it is true. To his point, though, it's not social conservatives that are fed up with Republicans, it's fiscal conservatives, such as myself, that find the party to be disingenuous and disappointing. Still, this race did not have a primary and was filled with bizarre circumstances that led to a Democrat being elected. This may happen here and there where a fiscally conservative Republican runs as a third party and allows a Democrat to be elected, but it's unlikely it will happen in large scale as Kaine implied. If a conservative loses in the primary, he will likely end it there. In this case, there was no primary and people were upset with the choice that was made for them. I wouldn't extrapolate too many problems for the Republican party from this one election result. The governor's races, however, do tell a story.
In Virginia, it appears the state has buyer's remorse. The change was overwhelming. More importantly, it wasn't that McDonnell was a good candidate and Deeds was a poor one. There were three major races in Virginia and the Republican won by about the same margin in each. This was a case of the state preferring Republicans heavily over Democrats. Virginia is a fiscally responsible state and seems to have grown weary quickly of Obama's lose spending. Also, while Warner was very much liked and respected as governor and paved the way for Kaine to succeed him as another Democratic governor, I think Virginia is not quite as happy with Kaine. Warner stayed out of national politics for the most part and was not a talking head for the DNC. Kaine is just the opposite. He is closely tied to Obama and the national party (he's the DNC chair after all) and I don't think Virginia liked that too much. We are okay with a moderate Democrat, but you can't be the DNC chair and be a moderate Democrat. I think many believe that he betrayed some of his more moderate positions for power within the party. That did not help the Democrats in this election either.
I know a lot less about New Jersey. However, a Republican heavily outspent and working against Obama campaigning for his opponent winning by 5 points in a blue state seems to tell a lot about the mood of the country. Coupled with the Virginia results, I think and hope that it is going to make it tough for moderate Democrats to help the liberals shove through universal health care by the process of reconciliation, particularly ones facing re-election in 2010. After all, they'd like to keep their jobs.