know that the hundreds of thousands of you that you worked so hard and i know tonight is not easy. i've been involved in a lot of companies that didn't succeed. including my own race for governor in 2009. i understand that emotions are raw. i have been there. i get it. so while i promise you tonight that i will be a governor for all virginians, the real test is my actions when i take office. i expect you to hold me to my pledge to work with both sides and i hope that once -- i hope that once we have started to make bipartisan progress on critical issues leek jobs, education, that i can earn your trust. virginia, thank you for the honor of electing me to serve as

the 72nd governor of the commonwealth of virginia. thank you, god bless you, god bless the commonwealth of virginia and the united states of america. thank you. ["life is a highway" playing]

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013]

>> this morning on washington journal we talked about races across the country. this is 45 minutes. host: matt lewis is at our table this morning. for a dailycolumn column. let's begin with what happened last week with the november 2013 off year election. what do you make of it? republicans, three big races to keep an ion. the one to talk about the leased it was in alabama which was a special election congressional race, a primary where you had bradley byrne who was the more business-backed republican defeat a guy who was a more tea party candidate. that is the empire strikes back.

that is the republican party re- its authority over its primaries. the two gubernatorial elections, new jersey, how does chris christie thomas how does a republican win a blue state by such a wide margin? great news if you are a republican. and then in virginia, i see it as a real missed opportunity. republicans had a real chance to and i think it was just a perfect storm of problems , conspired to defeat ken cuccinelli. everyone thought it was going to be a blowout. i think a lot of republican money went away and in a ridiculous way it went to new jersey where people wanted to be on the side of a winner and maybe they could have pushed originality over the line. do you agree people that say the establishment left ken cuccinelli and if they had done

so, he would have won? guest: i do. the funny thing is you can also blame the tea party because i think the shutdown really hurt him. in virginia and northern virginia especially a lot of government employees, exit polls show that a lot of them were really upset about the shutdown. they were voting for that. and then it also delayed people being upset about obamacare. on october 1, the whole debacle of the rollout and exchanges, you might've had one which kent originality running with the wind in its back -- in his back. he might've had a great last month. the money might have flowed in and he might've one. i think it is interesting. virginia republicans can blame both the establishment and the

tea party, i think, for to this one. it is a missed opportunity. host: what do you think the messages for both parties? think there are several messages. i've known temperature numbly for about one decade. he is a good guy. i was sort of rooting for him as well, as a conservative, certainly. i think there are several lessons. one, things that are happening at the national level clearly have an impact with what is happening at these local races, especially virginia, right across the potomac from washington, d.c. i think the shutdown her temp, but there were a lot of things along the way. one thing republicans need to learn is a trend in alabama and virginia. in virginia, ken cuccinelli, the reason he was the republican nominee is he out maneuvered the lieutenant governor. he thought it was his turn to be governor. ken cuccinelli's team out maneuvered him. there were some hurt dealings,

but instead of the moderates coming together and saying, look, let's rally around the republican nominee, we may not like kent originality, he may be conservative and a tea party guy, he outmaneuvered us, but let's come together and elect a republican. they did not do that. at kenst stones cuccinelli the whole time. he was fighting a two-front war against the establishment and the democrats. the opposite happened in alabama. the more established, business- from the republican if he did the tea party candidate. he said in his concession speech, i will not even vote for the republican. in alabama, that will not hurt them, because the republican is that, but the point this is a trend. if the tea party guy wins, the moderate people take their ball and go home. the establishment people will not support him. if the establishment wins, the tea party says they will not

vote for them. the republicans will not be able to win if they have that mentality. i would say, fight it out in the primaries but you have to come together if you want to win general elections. it is a huge loss. in newhe president was orleans on friday talking about the economy, trying to change the subject, also pushing for congress to act on a couple of pieces of legislation. i want to show you what he had to say and talk about what it means for 2014. >> the unemployment rate is still ticked up. we do not know all of the data, but it could be down because of what happened in washington. that makes no sense. wounds do-inflicted not have to happen and should not happen again. we should not be injuring ourselves every few months. we should be investing. we should be building, not tearing things down.

rather than refining the same old battles, we should be fighting to make sure that everybody who works hard in america, that they have a chance to get ahead. if that is what we should be focused on. host: does that play in 2014? guest: i don't think so. everyone knows barack obama is a good speaker. i don't think he will wow us with his rhetoric anymore. that republicans are poised to win a of seats in the midterms. i don't know if it will be enough to take back the senate, but it might be. it has nothing to do with the rhetoric, at least not currently. with action and obamacare. i think it is entirely possible -- i was talking to an insurance insider on friday. nobody in the industry believes that the obamacare exchanges will be fixed by november 30,

which was the fallback promise. aside from the other promise that you could keep your insurance. i think it is possible you will who, ifocrats -- november 30 comes and goes and the obamacare website is not fixed, they will begin having to assess their political survival. they are either going to jump up turnjump off the ship and on this health care law or they will probably go down. i think it is very likely that republicans will have a good 2014. if that happens, nothing succeeds like success. .inning covers a multitude if you are on a football team that is losing, you have bickering in the locker room, a fighting. you start winning a couple games, suddenly, problems go away.

as much problems as republicans , youhad in the civil war start winning some elections, feelings could subside. you aon that, let me show digital ad put together by the gop group, main street advocacy, taking a look at the mocking tea party candidates from past elections. [video clip] the special few who enter the special candidates hall of shame. >> even when life begins at a rate, it is something that god intended to happen. >> if it is a legitimate rate, the female body has ways to try to shut the that whole thing down. >> i am not a witch. >> what were they thinking? to act is now. help us fight to protect main street. host: what do you make of that? guest: i think it is like the

empire striking back. it is not helpful in terms of uniting republicans and conservatives, no. the childhood phrase, they started it, is probably apt. there are other conservative groups who have been targeting republicans and beating up on them and saying, for example, it seems like it was forever ago, but you could arguably say is lost can kuchen deli the election in virginia. they would say, if you are a republican and you disagree with us, then you are a rhino and you support obama care. which is one of those things where we are in the midst of this civil war and both sides are pushing back and it is certainly not helpful. that think it is possible it may actually have a positive result because up until now it

has been a thing where i think the grassroots conservatives, the tea party, have been beating up on the establishment for a long time. the establishment was hoping they would go away or they could co-opt them. for example, mitch mcconnell, who faces a primary and general election challenge in 2014 in kentucky, he is the senate minority leader who also happens to be vulnerable. he has to fend off a republican challenge in a tough general election. i think he tried to co-opt the tea party initially. he hired a guy who is part of the ron paul family, he was randy paul's campaign manager. i think they were hoping to make peace with the tea party. co-opt a sound so pejorative. agreement and it just did not work. you had this guy in the kentucky primary, mitch mcconnell, running ads attacking mitch mcconnell. i think that mitch mcconnell and

the national republican senatorial committee and other establishment folks have decided, we have to fight back. now you are seeing an effort that was reported on the other week where the national republican senatorial committee is actually blacklisting a republican consultant firm that is running ads attacking republicans, attacking establishment of publicans. i know this is like inside baseball. the c-span audience gets this stuff. is a really interesting story, but again, if they can get past this and put some points on the board and win some races, there could be healing over time. host: let's get our viewers involved. gerald in florida. caller: i was a democrat the first two times that obama was elected but i switched after the health care act.

i recently got employed by a good company. the company took advantage of the exemption for employers. i felt that if they created the health-care law, employers would buy it but many employers nowadays are telling their employees --. don't use healthcaregov. for someone my age, it starts at $207 per month. that is almost a $6,400 deductible per year. that is ridiculous. personally, i changed to republican just because of how this health-care law went. there are some good things in it like being able to keep your kids on your coverage until they are 26. however, i think ultimately this thing will shaft the younger people like me.

guest: i think that's totally true. the health-care law was sold as a win-win. there has to be winners and losers which is the truth. some of the winners are for people who are uninsured but a lot of the winners are older people. the losers have to be younger people. this was created by design to transfer wealth from young people to older people. it does not work unless there are enough young people in the pool who are healthy food don't probably need the insurance -- who are healthy and probably don't need the insurance pre-it this only works if young people pick up the tab for older people. until the affordable care act past, you would have a situation where an older person might be paying t at a seveno 3 ratio, more than a younger person. there is a provision in this law which says it is now 3 to 1, without getting into the weeds

too much, that means if you are young and healthy, your insurance is going up to subsidize older people. i think it is really ironic that president obama was elected and reelected really by inspiring young people to support him. in many ways, they are the biggest losers of his presidency. i would say obamacare is only one part of that story. i am working on a column right now about this very topic. it will be interesting to see if young people begin to flee en masse because they will be the victims of this law in many ways. host: if it is successful, what does that mean for 2014 elections? guest: i actually think that the 2014 elections -- the cake is baked, so to speak. first of all, there have already been stumbles out of the gate. people are going to be upset even if obamacare theoretically

works. they will already be upset because he said if you like your health insurance you can keep it and that was not true. there will be a lot of people like this caller who are not going to be happy. even if it works theoretically, it will work in the long-term, there will be stumbles and there have been stumbles along the way. i think 2014 right now, the wind is at republicans back. if obamacare turns out to be a huge success over time, that really cements president obama's legacy. i think it would clearly help democrats going further. they benefit from americans believing that big government can make the world better and can take care of its citizens. if it works, eventually that will help democrats. host: here are two tweets --

guest: well, first of all, the person who agreed with me is clearly right. in terms of the second point, i think that's true. there is tea party and there's tea party. sadly, i think they get to flick it. can cucinelli are lumped into this national narrative is being tea party. ken cucinelli was a state senator for many terms and was a virginia attorney general and is a patent attorney. he was trained as an engineer and is clearly a credible and competent legislator who happened to be very conservative. dean young in alabama was essentially a political consultant who had been part of the chief justice war machine

who had been a perpetual candidate and ran many times and lost. i agree, it's probably not fair to lump tea party in. i think dean young loss for a variety of reasons and i think they probably nominated the better candidate in alabama. host: springfield, missouri, independent caller. caller: i think we very much have a corporate congress. whether they are democrat or republican or independent or tea party, they are there to be a public servant. they make more money than the average american. they have more benefits. when they shut down the government, they did not lose their pay. they did not lose their healthcare. it's about who has the most money. the lobbyists work for these

corporations. if you don't have millions of dollars, what chance do you have of even getting something heard by your congressman? guest: right, i think that this is a common laments, that the game is rigged. whether you are a democrat or republican, you sort of work for the lobbyists, yadda, yadda, and there is probably true to that. i think it's important that people need to remember that the house of representatives, the republicans won their elections to. i'd make it is perfectly fair for them to try to change policy, to push back against obamacare. clearly, we have seen it has been a debacle. i give republicans credit for seeing this was going to be a debacle. ironically, they would have been better suited to let it go

forward on october 1 and let the american public see how bad it was. to the extent that conservatives have this civil war over the shut down, it was really a matter of strategy. a lot of conservatives believe that they should not fight it and don't shut the government. you can make an argument, not my argument, but you can make an argument that if you really believe that obamacare is that for this country and it's going to hurt people, you have to do whatever it takes to stop this. if that's what you believe, you would say ted cruz is a hero so he was willing to do whatever it took to stop obamacare from being implemented. i happen to think that was an unwise strategy but it is not an absurd point. you could say it is heroic. host: there is a tweet --

we go to georgia, democratic caller. caller: is this c-span? great, i have listened for years. it is a pleasure to be on and good morning to all americans out there. we are out here in america and no job bill has come to the floor. there is only bills against obamacare. people need to go to work. we want people to bring job hills. how many congressmen have bring job bills to the floor? how many people are out of work and we could grow our way out of this thing. where is the optimism? host: what about jobs legislation? people call him a lot about that. members of congress on the hill talk about jobs but have we seen legislation? guest: i would argue that republicans, when they tried to

fight obamacare, are fighting for jobs legislation. what stops jobs from being created? in many cases, it's regulation and having to comply with regulations. there are a lot of policies that are not seen as jobs bills. i would argue and this would be controversial but you could say that raising the minimum wage is a job killer. you may have fewer people making a little more money but people who own a small business and you have to pay your employees more money, by law, you have to, rather than just rewording folks who deserve it, you may hire fewer people. republicans do not get credit for this. they are not very good at getting good publicity or pr and it looks like they are being recalcitrant and a party of no. in fairness to them, a lot of the stuff -- a lot of the bills they tryo