Even though White House press secretary Robert Gibbs insists the 2009 elections don’t mean anything, it is indeed possible to draw some lessons from Republican Bob McDonnell’s victory in Virginia and the defeat of Democrat Jon Corzine in New Jersey.

The odd-year elections - held in the first year of a presidency - have been meaningful over the last two decades. In 1993, New Jersey voters rejected tax-raising Democratic Gov. James Florio, despite the best efforts of Bill Clinton’s consultant James Carville - a harbinger of the losses congressional Democrats suffered the next year after they raised taxes and supported, unavailingly, massive health care proposals.