Hello and welcome to this late political gab fest for Thursday, November 5th.

I'm John Dickerson in Washington with David Plotz, and Emily Bazelon is in a closet somewhere.

We're taping the show on Wednesday.

It's our special after the election.

Emily is in a closet show. And before we get...

What closet are you in, Emily? I am in a dressing room in Newman Marcus because I got off

the train in Boston. I just had to find the first quiet place. I could. You're like Gab Fest Superman. You go

into the nearest available phone booth. It's probably bigger there than our normal recording studio. But before we get started on our first three topics, David has a quick announcement.

Tuesday, November 10th, this coming Tuesday, Slate's third live Gab Fest for the first anniversary of President Obama's election. We'll be at 6th and I

historic synagogue in Washington at 7 p.m. We look forward to seeing you there. You can get your

tickets at 6th and I.org. And it's going to be a great night. So please come on out and

see us and talk to us. So moving quickly to our first topic, which is the election of 2009, we had two Republican

victories in New Jersey and in Virginia.

Virginia wasn't much of a surprise, but New Jersey was, at least according to some polls

neck and neck until the end.

Republicans won in both of those states.

And then a closely watched

congressional election, special election in the 23rd District of New York, the northernmost

district in the state of New York, in which the Democrat prevailed over the independent

conservative, and that was closely watched because it was a battleground in the fight

within the Republican Party.

Emily, your reaction to any and all of this?

...