Good news. In tonight's Special Elections (OH-5 and VA-1), our Republican candidate's won.

• Bob Latta wins Ohio's Fifth Congressional district by a margin of 56.05% to 43.77% with 79% reporting. (Via Ohio Secretary of State)
  
• Rob Wittman wins Virginia's First Congressional district comfortably, 62% to 36%. (As reported by the Associated Press via Daily Press)

Congratulations to both campaigns for playing hard and fair.

However, I want to focus a bit on the Ohio Special Election where I think there are a few lessons to note as we move forward toward 2008.

With the help and support from Redstate and Blogs for Victory, the Slatecard community raised nearly $2K ($1,908 from 21 supporters) for Ohio candidate Bob Latta. We're not saying that our fundraising was the deciding factor in this race. It wasn't. However, when our teammate needed some help, we showed up on the field and played ball. And we'll do so again next time.

Our record is 1-0 at the Slatecard community. Not a bad way to start.

(Note: Rob Wittman held a 4-1 fundraising advantage over his opponent and was expected to cruise to victory by those with intimate knowledge of the race. Had Wittman needed the support, we would have been there.)

On the Republican side of the race, the NRCC did a great job of flooding the airwaves and keeping conservative bloggers up-to-speed on what was happening on the ground. This is a strong sign of what we can expect in the Fall.

However, I think it is important to note that conservative voices in the blogosphere supporting Latta's candidacy were sparse.

But it wasn't from a lack of effectively trying on Latta's part and his campaign should get credit for their effort. In fact, Latta did reach out to the conservative blogosphere. He not only wrote a guest blog post at Redstate but he also created a special YouTube video to blogs asking for support.

So why the lack of support from the conservative blogosphere? I would argue that it's hard to pinpoint one particular reason but through my discussions among friends and allies, I think several issues contributed to the lack of support.

Those bloggers I have spoken to over the past few days noted the Club for Growth's efforts supporting another candidate in the GOP Primary as a reason to stay out. Others cite a lack of Ohio-based blogs to help feed up information to some of the national blogs (Matt Naugle and others can't do it alone at the Right Angle Blog). And then of course, there's just the general notion of timing -- POTUS '08, Holidays, etc. There's also an interesting comment thread at Redstate worth checking out which credits the fact that both of these seats were strong-conservative seats and few saw a need to jump in for a race we should win anyway.

That being said, a win is a win. And we'll take it. Collectively, we won tonight and we've learned a few lessons along the way which will better help the effort next time around.

And to be sure, the Democrats put a lot in to the race. And by "a lot," I mean the hundreds of thousands of dollars for false, misleading ads and the liberal blogs (using ActBlue) raised about $30K for the liberal opponent, Robin Weirauch. The Dems also sent their best pinch-hitter surrogates in to the race. The liberal blogs and Ohio Democratic politicos used words like "bellwether" to emphasize the importance of the race. (Read Matt Margolis' excellent post on the Democratic attitude toward this race for more.)

Cha-ching. Less money for them to spend elsewhere.

Reps-Elect Latta and Wittman: Congratulations.