Here’s my analysis of yesterday’s results. More voters voting Republican was the key reason McDonnell and Christie won.

You might say this is a less than ingenious analysis. But I’m not sure it’s much worse than the constant refrain I keep hearing that independents breaking decisively for the Republicans was the key factor in their victories. I mean, no kidding.

We live in a political world in which the two major parties claim a lower share of the total electorate but maintain a tighter and more intense partisan affiliation for those who consider themselves Republicans or Democrats. After all, if you kept identifying as a “Republican” over the last three years, rather than drift into independent-hood as many others did, you’re really, really Republican. What that means is that except in areas where party registration is overwhelmingly imbalanced, taking the better part of the non-affiliated voters (and what that means can be pretty squishy) is almost always what makes the Republican or Democrat win. Because they’re the people who are up for grabs. By definition.

TPM Reader BR reminds us that unlike Charlie Crist’s, Carly Fiorina’s campaign has been so abysmal, that a little tea bagging from Jim DeMint may just be a matter of putting her campaign out of its misery …

Just thought I’d drop a quick note on your coverage of the supposed “tea bagging” of Carly Fiorina in California. The reality out here is that Fiorina has run a debacle of a shadow campaign — among other things, her website was an absolute joke, she seems to have lied about HP’s business dealings with Iran, and (along with gubernatorial hopeful and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman) she seems to have had trouble in the past finding time to, you know, vote.

So while Sen. DeMint may have “deHots” for Chuck DeVore, this isn’t a situation where you have a moderate Republican getting shunted aside for a wing-nutter. It’s more akin to having an unqualified, underprepared-and-possibly-scandal-tainted Republican getting shunted aside for a wing-nutter. Such is the state of the GOP in this state.

Jack Bonner hired American University Professor James Thurber as an “independent ethics advisor” to counsel him on ethics matters after his firm was caught sending out numerous forged letters for lobbying clients. Now the advisor is running ads praising Bonner’s illustrious deeds.