Bashir Hypes Dem 'Gains' in Miss., But GOP Kept Governorship, Likely to Have Gained House

The Election 2011 day-after spin is as laughable as it is predictable on MSNBC.Take network anchor Martin Bashir, who said on his eponymous program today that it was "a big night for Democrats in Mississippi, Ohio, and around the country" last night.

Yet Republicans kept the governor's mansion in Mississippi by a landslide, and may well have captured control of the state House of Representatives. At best Republicans and Democrats will have an even split in the lower chamber, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

And let's not forget the legislative elections in the Old Dominion.

The GOP appears to have gained gained a 2/3rds supermajority in Virginia's House of Delegates. In the Virginia Senate, pending the results of a recount, the evenly-split chamber will be in Republican control with Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling (R) breaking the tie in favor of the GOP. This is just three years after Democrats crowed about Virginia voting for a Democrat for president for the first time since 1964.

But of course Bashir was selective in the issues he hyped, noting the defeat of the personhood amendment in the Magnolia State as well as the defeat of Issue 2 in Ohio, a measure to keep a change in the state's law regarding public employees' collective bargaining.

It's curious, at best, that Bashir insisted that Democrats scored a victory with the defeat of the Mississippi personhood initiative given that the Democratic candidate for governor supported the measure.

Bashir also erroneously stated that Ohioans "voted down a measure to have Ohio opt out of President Obama's health care law" when in fact nearly 66 percent of Ohioans voted FOR a state constitutional amendment to bar the mandating of health insurance purchases.

What's more, Bashir also failed to mention that more than 6 in 10 Mississippians voted to make their state the 31st in the Union to require voter ID at the polls, an issue the network has persistently tried to make into a racist bogeyman.