Is that an L I saw this morning on President Bush’s forehead? OK, I haven’t laid eyes on the man yet this morning. But when you do, if you look closely, I think you may see that big L there too.

Over the past five years, conservatives have gotten used to thinking of President Bush as a Strong Leader. For liberals, he’s a Big Liar. But Tuesday night’s election results may give us a new L-word for the president, one that both camps can agree on: Loser.

With the exception of election-reform initiatives in Ohio, Democrats came out on top in pretty much every contest in the country last night, from California to Virginia. Yes, Mike Bloomberg won reelection as mayor in Democratic New York. But let’s be honest: Mike’s a Democrat. And by anything but New York City standards a fairly liberal one at that.

Some contests certainly had more national significance than others.

New Jersey, for instance, is basically a Democratic state these days. And a popular and self-financed statewide incumbent had to be the favorite in the race for governor. Sen. Jon Corzine needed to overcome a moderate anti-Democratic-corruption tide left over from the McGreevey fiasco, but a Democratic win was always the expected result.

The shellacking of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) also had in-state roots. California’s politics have been deeply idiosyncratic in recent years. And the Arnold phenomenon has never been part and parcel of the national Republican Party. If there are nationwide lessons out of the Golden State, it’s that unions, which have led the way in virtually destroying Arnold politically in little more than a year, still have sharp teeth.

The real bellwether Tuesday night, though, was Virginia, a tomato-red state that has trended Republican in recent years and hasn’t voted for a Democrat for president since 1964. The Democratic candidate for governor, Tim Kaine, didn’t have the magic of his mentor, Gov. Mark Warner (D). And Kaine opposes capital punishment in a very pro-death-penalty state. But he beat Republican Jerry Kilgore anyway.

What was most telling, of course, was that, far from being an asset, Bush seemed to be a distinct liability for Kilgore. And Kilgore seemed to know it. He blew off the president when he appeared in Norfolk two weeks ago — which was probably a good idea. Bush’s last-minute campaign swing into the Richmond on Monday evening looks as though it was the kiss of death for the Kilgore campaign.

If Bush hurts Republicans in a state like Virginia, a lot of Republicans running in 2006 must be rethinking their strategies.

Another small but telling result came in the mayor’s race in St. Paul, Minn. Last year, Democratic Mayor Randy Kelly crossed party lines to endorse Bush. That spurred a challenge from former City Council member Chris Coleman. Tuesday night, Coleman crushed Kelly by a whopping 69 percent to 31 percent. Everyone in the state seems to agree that it was the Bush endorsement that ended Kelly’s career.

In a sense, the surprise is that any of this is a surprise. Bush is now consistently polling in the middle 30s in national polls. That makes him an extremely unpopular president by any historical standard.

The most recent poll — out Monday from Pew — charts the president at an anemic 36 percent approval rating. That’s on top of a CBS poll that had him at 35 percent and an AP poll which had him at 37 percent. Other soundings have been higher. But no poll this month has put him above the 30s. And you have to go back to September to find a poll that puts him over 41 percent.

We’ve gotten used to thinking that Bush could walk on water politically. Because he’s had quite a run. The president wasn’t all that popular by the fall of 2002, but he led his party to stunning midterm elections victories. He was also a relatively unpopular incumbent last year, but he still got the job done.

Now, though, something has changed. Those weak poll numbers and all the indictments and high oil prices and bad news out of Iraq seem to have teeth down the ballot.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be watching for more signs of 2006 Republicans trying to put distance between themselves and the president. If the past is any guide, Bush will play even harder to his conservative core of support to weather the political storm. And if Democrats are smart they’ll be looking for ways to aggravate the cleavages between a president scurrying to his right-wing base and Republican moderates around the country running for cover.

Marshall is editor of talkingpointsmemo.com. His column appears in The Hill each week.
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