This is a Cator's special podcast. I'm Caleb Brown.

Victories for Republicans in New Jersey and Virginia may be a signal to Democrats to

temper their consideration of the President's policy goals, especially on health care, but was

election day 2009 a real victory for fiscal conservatives? John Samples, director of the Cato

Institute's Center for Representative Government, says maybe so, but maybe not.

New Jersey is a very strong Democratic State, True Blue, really, and I think for a Republican to win statewide office there

something remarkable has to happen. The remarkable thing that happened yesterday

I think was that independence moved strongly toward the Republican candidate.

They had been voting, they voted Democratic across the board in 2008.

Yesterday they didn't in Virginia or New Jersey.

And that may be the most crucial fact of yesterday's outcomes,

not the fact that a couple of Republican governors won.

This is how the Washington Post puts the McDonnell victory.

With his overwhelming victory, Robert F. McDonnell is being extolled as a new model for Republican success, a traditionally conservative candidate

who won a swing state by focusing almost exclusively on jobs, transportation, and other

kitchen table issues.

One of the things that Bob McDonnell did not talk about, nor did create deeds, was how they're going

to pay for their relatively lavish spending proposals.

So I can understand why Democrats would want to cast this whole experience yesterday as something that is not a victory for conservatism, not really a victory for Republicans, and it's just a blip on the radar.

In fact, no one who runs for public office today, you may have noticed either of two things, suggests serious cuts in government spending,

or suggest how they would pay for the breadth of the spending plans they have,

apart from planning to tax about maybe 1.5% of the population.

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