Sure, if you live in New Jersey or Virginia you might've thought the gubernatorial campaigns in those two states were mostly about taxes and jobs (and weight), but that is wrong. These were shadow reelection campaigns for Barack Obama, and he lost both of them, because he is a failure.

Republican Bob McDonnell won in Virginia by a huge margin against Democrat Creigh Deeds, who was a white, conservative Democrat from southern Virginia, thus ensuring that not a single member of the coalition that won VA for Obama in 2008 would turn out to vote.

In Jersey, Republican Chris Christie squeaked by incumbent Jon Corzine. Corzine's was the campaign Obama belatedly lent his support to, once Corzine's double-digit polling deficit shrank to a couple points. This campaign was entirely about property taxes, basically, and so a Republican who campaigned entirely on cutting proptery taxes won.

Once again, gubernatorial elections have almost nothing to do with national politics. They are not House and Senate races. Meanwhile, in the nation's only two House races yesterday, Democrats won. They won handily in a California race that no one paid attention to, because a safe Democratic seat staying Democratic is not as newsworthy as a safe Republican seat that almost went to a Republican until national movement conservatives freaked out and excommunicated Dede Scozzafava from the Church of Teabagging. And then a Democrat won in New York's 23rd. He won a seat that's been a gimme for Republicans since a 1992 redistricting. (Before it was redistricted, this area of the state has been Republican since the 19th century. In 2002 the Republican ran unopposed.)

Please keep in mind that Obama picked up a new Democratic vote in the House of Representatives while you read some analysis piece on how Obama has just been crushed, politically.

As we said before, the special election in New York's 23rd was the only race yesterday that had anything to do with national politics, because movement conservatives inserted themselves into the race and promptly lost. In what could easily actually be a preview of next year's midterms, teabaggers and the conservative Club for Growth and Sarah Palin all threw their support behind a candidate they found more acceptable than the Republican, and their guy lost. As activists from out of town flooded the district, shouting nonsense about ACORN and waving "Don't Tread on Me" flags, imagining they'd already won, the Democrat turned out the vote and rode to victory on the back of union support and the president's popularity in the region.

And look at that: unions and GOTV made the difference! Hell, some of that might've won New York for Bill Thompson, even without Obama's support!

Here is the real lesson about and for Obama, though, and it touches on every single race yesterday: in 2008, Obama borrowed Howard Dean's 50-state strategy for the Democrats—open and staff DNC offices in every state to organize and run campaigns at every level—and applied it to the presidential primaries and general elections. He raised a ridiculous amount of money and compiled an amazing email list and organized a huge number of volunteers and won the presidency.

After the election, Obama turned those campaign resources into Organizing For America, "a grassroots network wielding some 13 million email addresses to mobilize former volunteers on behalf of the administration's agenda." And then they folded it into the DNC and they didn't do anything with it for months. And then it turned out that this massive organization couldn't be utilized to do much besides fundraise and canvass, and furthermore its ties to the DNC and the White House mean it can't actually be used to push progressive causes, which are the causes that this massive volunteer army cares about.

This means, basically, that the DNC has neutered Obama's progressive volunteer army and that massive volunteer army has consumed the DNC. The whole operation is now a 2012 reelection campaign already in progress, and if you are a local Democrat looking for organizing and canvassing and fundraising support of the kind Howard Dean promised to create for you back when he was in charge, you are shit out of luck.

This is the most worrying indicator for 2010. They need to fix this.

Thanks to his brilliant campaign maneuvering, Bloomberg earned a landslide just-over-50% victory over Bill Thompson, a local man who is notable for not being Mike Bloomberg.

It was a slimy, scorched earth campaign. Bloomberg didn't campaign for a third term of Mike Bloomberg, he campaigned on the utter pointlessness of bothering to show up to vote for anyone else. Bloomberg won 50,342 more votes than Bill Thompson. Again, we remind you, because no one else bothers to: every night, 40,000 people sleep in New York city homeless shelters. (At the peak of the '80s homelessness crisis, that number was 29,000. It was around 30,000 when Bloomberg began his first term. Thousands more sleep on the streets.)

All the papers have done the math, pointing out that Bloomberg spent $151.27 on each vote. That's not really accurate. He spent that $100 million convincing people not to vote. And it worked.

To sum up our feelings this morning: fuck the New York Democratic Party, fuck Christine Quinn, fuck Barack Obama, fuck Valerie Jarrett, fuck Anthony Weiner, hard, and, in closing, fuck Howard Wolfson and his fucking Cosby sweaters and his fucking boring taste in fucking terrible indie music. (And fuck Jimmy Fallon.)

A few observations: Cookie was a surprisingly popular guess. Proving that common sense sometimes trumps insidery media knowledge. Ditto for Conde collapsing its three bridal titles. Another popular guess was Men's Vogue, but since that folded a freaking year ago, it was not a winner.

And now your Conde Nast Death Pool winner: Commenter TheUptightMidwesterner!

Congratulations on your accurate death forecasting. Nick Denton will be glad to hear that he's not on the hook for breakfast. Email me and I will put you in touch with Pareene, and we will...work something out.

Ms. Nielsen runs a porn site called GodsGirls, and no, it doesn't prominently feature BARELY LEGAL CHOIR CHICKS, though surely, there's one out there that does. GodsGirls is an "alt-porn" site (read: tattooed, pierced hipsters, often with asymmetrical and/or dyed hair, nekkid) that also has a social networking component to it! Genius. Per the site's FAQ:

"What the fuck is this site?"

godsgirls.com is an alt porn/alt erotica site with a lot of really really amazing, 100 percent exclusive pictures that you can't see anywhere else. the ladies are very lovely and some of them have tattoos and piercings and rebellious haircuts. it also features a community set up to act as a place for the wonderful sort of people who might subscribe to this site to get to know one another and exchange telephone numbers and jokes and funny websites and maybe even get married and have a family and then we could run a sweet commercial featuring happy love connections made between site members like the ones you see for jdate or eharmony or whatever. wouldn't that be fantastic? or you can just talk about boobs and politics because meeting people from the internet is dangerous and scary.

Yes! Like J-Date, except for non-denominational fans of pierced people porn. Like-minded folks, as it goes. And why do we think Ms. Nielsen won? Let's turn to her Twitter—which sounds naughty, but it isn't!—as pointed out to us by our friend Igor at (the mildly NSFW) Driven By Boredom:

Sure sounds like a winner to me. Also: the winner's from San Gabriel, which is where Nielsen supposedly hails from.

Notably, Nielsen's last Tweet came in around fourteen hours ago, which doesn't look to be the typical output by her. If you won the lottery, you think you'd be on Twitter today? Sorry Evan and Biz, but your consolation prize is that you've had your first life-changing lottery winner liveblog! Maybe she'll throw you a buck.

In the event this does turn out to be true, we wish America's Newest Multimillionare a fruitful life henceforth with all the cold, hard cash she's gonna have. Of course, for her sake, we (A) hope she's right and (B) gets someone good to tell her what to do with it in lieu of circumventing the common ruin a windfall of money can bring. In the mean time, all of you hardworking, morally rigid suckers can get back to work (and dreaming). Today, the universe apparently enjoys the business of naked girls more than whatever you do. Sorry.

Update: Well, we had a question, we got an answer: she didn't win. Tragedy and the power of social networking! We were rooting for her, too. The universe isn't down with porn enough to merit giving one of its burgeoning businesswomen a windfall of cash, it appears. On the plus side, we've narrowed down the field of possible Mega Millions winners by one. Someone in San Gabriel: you still have a chance!

[Note: Results are from 1592 total votes in two polls; we started a new poll after we added Miami and New Orleans to the list. This placed Miami and New Orleans at a disadvantage, so they can claim moral victory. Although they wouldn't have won anyhow. Results rounded to nearest percentage point.]


New York: 32%
Chicago: 16%
Washington, DC: 16%
Detroit: 9%
Los Angeles: 6%
New Orleans: 6%
San Francisco: 5%
Boston: 5%
Las Vegas: 2%
Miami: 3%

Joseph Brooks won the Oscar for "Best Song" in 1977, and proceeded to use that credential to help him lure starry-eyed young women to his apartment, where he got them drunk and raped them under the guise of "auditioning" them for a part that would launch their careers. He was allegedly assisted by his "42-year-old female personal assistant, Shawni Lucier"—when you add the "F," that spells Lucifer!

The pair would put ads on Craigslist and talent sites saying that an award-winning composer was looking for a pretty 18-22 year old girl to help with her career. In reality, cops say, Brooks had the rapes meticulously planned out.

Brooks primarily targeted victims from Washington state and Oregon — including former "American Idol" contestant Loretta Spruell, of Seattle — so they would be tired from traveling by the time they arrived in New York, authorities said. He allegedly hoped that would leave them without the energy to put up a fight.

Lucifer the assistant would pick the girls up at the airport, reassure them, and drive them over to Brooks' place, where he would spring his trap:

Once Brooks had his prey inside his apartment, he used the oldest trick in the book, cops said. He allegedly told the women they were trying out for the role of a prostitute, and the scene they were depicting involved drinking glasses of wine "repeatedly and quickly."...

Brooks then turned into a monster, urging them to take off their clothes and ultimately forcing himself on them, authorities said.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.
Brooks is facing 82 counts of rape, sexual assault, and other charges, and he says he's innocent. Anyone who could make that song is predictably despicable.
[NYP. Pic: AP]

Best Play- God of Carnage
Best Musical- Billy Elliot, The Musical
Best Revival of a Play- The Norman Conquests
Best Revival of a Musical- Hair
Best Actor in a Play- Geoffrey Rush, Exit the King
Best Actress in a Play- Marcia Gay Harden, God of Carnage
Best Actor in a Musical- David Alvarez, Trent Kowalik, Kiril Kulish (Three actors all playing the same character) Billy Elliot, The Musical
Best Actress in a Musical- Alice Ripley, Next to Normal
Best Featured Actor in a Play- Roger Robinson, Joe Turner's Come and Gone
Best Featured Actress in a Play- Angela Lansbury, Blithe Spirit
Best Featured Actor in a Musical- Gregory Jbara, Billy Elliot, The Musical
Best Featured Actress in a Musical- Karen Olivo, West Side Story
Best Director of a Play- Matthew Marchus, God of Carnage
Best Director of a Musical- Stephen Daldry, Billy Elliot, The Musical
Best Choreography- Peter Darling, Billy Elliot The Musical
Best Book of a Musical- Billy Elliot, The Musical
Best Original Score- Next to Normal

The above are the winners of the major categories. For the complete list of all the winners at the 2009 Tony Awards, visit the LA Times blog "The Envelope."

And if you happened to miss it, the onstage beheading of Bret Michaels was a golden moment.

As you recall: "Rush Limbaugh with a chained Princess Leia (Sarah Palin) and Michael Steele as C3P0." Winning idea by commenter saythatscool, congratulations! Your prize is a feeling of artistic and cultural satisfaction.

At left you see the early stages of the Rush-as-Jabba-the-Hut painting in progress, which the intrepid artist went ahead and started even before voting had concluded. This vivid tableau narrowly edged out "Rahm Emanuel, riding either a white Siberian tiger or an oversized grey wolf, leaping across a mountain of giant pancakes." Coming in third, with 26% of the vote, was "Rachel Maddow riding a be-saddled Keith Olbermann into battle with a lance and pancake shield against a comparably-though-perhaps-differently-armored Limbaugh riding Hannity."


The good news is that Dan Lacey has vowed to paint all of your finalist suggestions. We'll keep you appraised. Below, an earlier (scrapped) version of the winning Rush painting, which was also nice:

Winner: Wired. A deserving one! Wired is, it's safe to say, the most fully developed and cerebral magazine of the bunch. It's been thin lately, but it obviously has plenty of fans. And we'll be buying ten subscriptions and handing them out to you. Stay tuned.

Runner-up: Portfolio. A thoroughly respectable showing! Especially considering the amount of trash talk directed at Fort Polio around here. It does have some great content every once in a while. But the money Conde spends to put this magazine out may prove to be its downfall.

The Tie: Bon Appetit and Gourmet. Two separate food magazines, with different approaches, both of which are losing advertising at an alarming rate, separated by just six votes. We wondered: does Conde need two food magazines? Answer: no. Combined, they would have won this poll running away. Deciding which title to keep was just as hard for you as it would be at 4 Times Square.

The Dregs: Allure, Teen Vogue, Cookie. None of these got a lot of support, but we're guessing your demographics and their demographics aren't the best match. So call it even. Ironically, Cookie, which came in last, is perhaps the most promising start-up at Conde Nast, business-wise.

The Real Loser: Details. It didn't come in last. But around here—considering our audience—Details really should have been able to pull at least 10% or so — or at least beat out Teen Vogue. The fact that it didn't is an ominous sign.

The pirates are leaving the ship tonight under cover of darkness. With millions!

The pirates aboard the Faina would not reveal how much they had netted in ransom - originally they were asking for more than $20 million. According to businessmen on shore, the ransom was around $3 million and the money was dropped by parachute from a small plane, which seems to be the new way to deliver pirate booty. Last month, a huge Saudi oil tanker that had been hijacked was freed in a similar way.

This breaking news was right on the front page of the New York Times' website, naturally, because the media loves pirates, and you can't get much cooler of a byline than Mogadishu (or "Nairobi," if you're the white guy on the story. Must stay far away). So now there are a bunch of millionaire pirates running around with new stolen machine guns. What pirate war? [NYT]

Just a few of our winners:

• Netflix: Profit was up 45% in the fourth quarter.
• McDonald's: Opening 650 new restaurants.
• Spam: Parent company Hormel is "Enjoying Growth in a Slowing Economy!"
• Wal-Mart: Hey they're not doing too bad at all!
• Campbell Soup: They're a blue chip stock!

Anecdotal evidence also indicates that Crystal meth dealers and Online porn are doing just as well as expected. [Previously]

"It’s an honor and a fulfillment of all my lifelong dreams. To be considered only for my looks; I'd like to thank my Mom and Dad for the excellent genes and the lovely ladies of Penguin for recognizing my hotness."

Matt gracefully declined our offer of a pin-up photo shoot with our photog Nikola. Perhaps it was something I said:

I wanted to talk you into doing a really fun photoshoot... You wouldn't have to take your shirt off or anything (unless you wanted to.)

Anyway, congratulations!

[Trendhunter via Adrants]