In yesterday’s election for Massachusetts’s 5th district’s seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, Democrat Niki Tsongas defeated George W. Bush. Bush wasn’t running for Congress himself, of course, but Republican James Ogonowski was successfully cast as a stand-in for Bush. A vote for Ogonowski was, Tsongas said, “basically another vote for George Bush”. Who would want to vote for George W. Bush again?

The sort of people who turn out to vote, apparently. District Democrats were on the lazy side, as general approval of Niki Tsongas was high, but Democratic voter turnout was not the best. So, the election was much closer than it should have been. Work for it next time, Massachusetts Democrats!

If a vote for Ogonowski was a vote for Bush, what was a vote for Tsongas? We’ll have the opportunity to find out over the next year, as we watch Representative Niki Tsongas in Congress until the election of 2008.