Katie Couric's Notebook: Election Results

Republican candidates swept gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia - two states President Obama won just a year ago.

How significant those victories are and what they foreshadow for 2010 - is up for debate today.

RNC Chairman Michael Steele declared these elections will determine the direction the country is headed - that Americans are tired of being tax too much by a government delivering too little.

The White House, meanwhile, is downplaying the results, and pointing to last night's congressional victory in New York's 23rd District.

Our own Jeff Greenfield delivered this timely analogy, "predicting national trends from off year elections is like predicting the World Series winner from spring training."

It may be too soon to say Republicans knocked it out of the park - but one thing is clear - they are still in the game.

That's a page from my notebook.

I'm Katie Couric, CBS News.