It’s risky to draw lessons, warnings, or signals from odd-year and special elections because they involve so few races – isolated snapshots in a vast landscape.

Nonetheless, voting last week for governor in Virginia and New Jersey, and for special elections for Congress in New York and the Legislature in Michigan, provides 2010 omens for both parties in Michigan, where hot races loom in all three categories.

Republican gubernatorial victories in Virginia and New Jersey exposed erosion of the 2008 coalition – including independents, minorities, youth, and union members – that helped elect President Barack Obama, whose winning margin helped Democrats across the 2008 Michigan ballot.

In New Jersey last week, Democratic Governor Jon Corzine ran 13% behind Obama’s winning percentage, while Virginia Democrat Creigh Deeds ran 12% behind in that open race. Obama campaigned for both of them.

On the eve of the election, Charlie Cook of the National Journal wrote “the party that won the White House one year has lost gubernatorial contests the next year in eight consecutive elections in Virginia and in New Jersey’s past five. Such a strong trend is hard to dismiss as coincidental. Some degree of buyer’s remorse, disappointment, or counterbalancing seems to be at work.”

It sure was. What happened in those two states was not so much a recall of history as a wake-up call for Democrats, especially about drift of independents, which in Virginia voted 2-1 in favor of Republican Bob McDonnell.

Independents are big factors in ticket-splitting Michigan, where slumps in the economy and in job approval of Obama and Governor Jennifer Granholm do not bode well for Democrats next year.

As quoted by Washington Post columnist David Broder, Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee) said Obama “retains his personal popularity, but his policies, and those pushed by the congressional Democrats, are scaring the daylights out of people.”

Two Michigan congressional Democrats who replaced Republicans with Obama’s help will be targeted by the GOP next year: Representative Gary Peters of Bloomfield Township and Mark Schauer of Battle Creek.

Mr. Schauer should squirm if Republicans get their act together – a big if. Last year, he defeated Representative Tim Walberg (RTipton).

But last week, ex-state Representative Mike Nofs (R-Battle Creek) overwhelmingly (61-34) won the special election for Mr. Schauer’s vacated Senate seat, increasing the Republicans’ margin in the Senate, their only bastion of power in Lansing, to 22-16.

Representative Mark Griffin (D-Jackson), in losing to Nofs in his bid for the state Senate seat previously held by Walberg and then Schauer, said: “What can I say? It’s a Republican year. The Obama euphoria is over.”

GOP State Chairman Ron Weiser said the result portends well for prospects of defeating Mr. Schauer next year.

Amid all the GOP euphoria about last week’s votes in Michigan, Virginia, and New Jersey, there was a warning note from the special congressional election in upstate New York, where intra-party strife cost a seat Republicans had held for 100 years.

In a half-century of following such matters, I have never seen such an identity crisis as now exists within the GOP across the land.

Nolan Finley, editorial page editor of the Detroit News, said it well last week about need for Republicans to learn to stick together and end the “feud over who had the right to be called a Republican.

“This ‘RINO’ – Republican in Name Only – nonsense must stop. It's self-destructive and ignores the reality that it takes different types of candidates to win in different races.

“The ideologues have already cost Michigan a solid Republican congressman. They defeated Joe Schwarz, who could be counted on to deliver fiscally conservative votes, and ultimately turned the seat over to liberal Democrat Mark Schauer, who votes the way [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi tells him to.

“And now they've handed the Democrats another liberal vote from a district that should have been safe for the GOP.”

Weaver Wins

Actually, the public is the big winner. But when the Michigan Supreme Court, by a 4-3 vote, adopted rules last week for stepping aside from cases if justices have a conflict of interest, it was success of a cause pushed by Republican Justice Betty Weaver for six years or so.

To distress of her GOP colleagues, she has opposed the unwritten tradition of leaving it up to each justice to decide if he or she should step aside because of a conflict.

The new rules, adopted upon motion of the newest justice, Democrat Diane Hathaway, let justices review another justice’s deci- sion not to step aside in some cases, including if there is only an appearance of conflict.

Opposing the motion were Weaver’s three Republican colleagues – Justices Robert P. Young, Jr., Stephen J. Markman, and Maura D. Corrigan.

Indian Country

There have been occasions over the decades when presidents have given mere lip service on health care and other commitments to Native Americans. So it was of interest to hear President Obama in nationally televised remarks to leaders of 386 tribal nations, including those from Michigan, say of commitments made last week at a White House conference:

“This is not something we just give lip service to. And we are going to keep on working with you to make sure that the first Americans get the best possible chances in life in a way that’s consistent with your extraordinary traditions and culture and values.”

Chairman Derek Bailey of the Grand Traverse Band (GTB) of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians praised the 90-day deadline Obama gave to Cabinet officers to craft ideas for improving tribal policies.

GTB officials were especially upbeat about Obama’s initiatives on health care and his appointment of Kim Teehee, former aide to U.S Representative Dale Kildee (D-Flint), founder of the congressional Native American Caucus, as presidential assistant on tribal matters.

Another Levin in the Wings

Andy Levin, son of U.S. Representative Sander Levin (DRoyal Oak) and nephew of Senator Carl Levin, was named by Granholm as the state’s chief workforce officer.

His duties are in addition to being deputy director of the Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth, a job he received after a narrow loss in a 2006 bid for the state Senate.

Governor Granholm said: “Preparing our workforce for the 21st century economy is crucial for Michigan’s economic turnaround. Michigan’s No Worker Left Behind program has become a national model for workforce policy. We must continue to innovate and provide Michigan’s citizens every chance to succeed, and that’s why I am creating the position of chief workforce officer.”

A Tree Grew in Bergland

After growing for 65 years in Bergland, about 30 miles east of Ironwood and 20 miles south of the Porcupine Mountains in the western Upper Peninsula, a 63- foot old spruce is to be the official Christmas tree to stand in front of the state Capitol in Lansing.

Bergland is almost as far away from Lansing as you can get in Michigan, 508 miles. Washington, D.C., site of the national Christmas tree, is 588 miles from Lansing.

George Weeks retired in 2006 after 22 years as political columnist for The Detroit News. His weekly Michigan Politics column is syndicated by Superior Features.