Reagan Country Votes Democratic

Karen Hanretty, the spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, had a terse response to the startling loss of former Speaker Dennis Hastert's seat in a special election in Illinois on Saturday.

"The one thing 2008 has shown is that one election in one state does not prove a trend," she noted. Fair enough. Indeed in June, 2006, Republicans retained a California seat in a high-profile special election, but that had no predictive value given that Democrats stomped their way to control of Congress a few months later.

But special elections in highly visible seats do have a psychological effect on parties. Not only can they boost or depress morale, but they can affect how political contributions flow in the months leading up to the general election.

That should worry Republicans because history does show that some special elections have captured a growing mood against the party that controls the White House. In early 1974, Republicans lost the Michigan seat vacated by Gerald Ford when he was appointed vice president by Richard Nixon, a clear sign that Watergate was weighing heavily on GOP political fortunes. Twenty years later, Democrats anxiously realized that the Clinton administration was a liability to them in the middle of the debate over Hillary Clinton's health care plan after they lost a Kentucky special election. Republican Ron Lewis was able to win an historically Democratic district in part by running an ad showing Democratic candidate Joe Prather morphing into an image of Bill Clinton. The next fall, Democrats were swept out of Congress.

It's unclear what the significance of the GOP's loss in Mr. Hastert's seat is, but the news is not good.