I know I sound like a broken record, but that's what happens when the Beltway press corps embraces crushing uniformity; everybody just keeps repeating themselves.

-Fact: There are three key off-years elections today, with contests in N.Y., N.J., and VA. According to the polls, Dems could win one or two of those races.

-Fact: There are three key off-years elections today in N.Y., N.J., and VA. According to the polls, Republicans could win one, two, or three of those races.

So why do media elites only ponder the implications of Dems losing?

From the AP [emphasis added]:

In a very early test of President Barack Obama's political influence, two states are choosing whether to continue Democratic rule while voters elsewhere elect a handful of congressmen and big-city mayors.

Elected just a year ago, the president has spent a considerable amount of time and energy trying to ensure that Democrats win governor's races in Virginia and New Jersey and pick up a GOP-held congressional seat in upstate New York.

In doing so, Obama raised the stakes of a low-enthusiasm off-year election season -- and risked political embarrassment if any lost.

All three could.

Do you follow? If three Dems “could” lose, than that's news. If two Republicans “could” lose, that's irrelevant.

As a bonus, the AP Liz Sidoti's election analysis is just plain dumb:

Of the two races, a Republican victory in Virginia would be the most telling about potential trouble ahead for Democrats as they compete in swing states next fall.

Long reliably Republican in national races, Virginia is a new swing state. It's home to a slew of northern bellwether counties filled with swing-voting independents who carried Obama to victory last fall, the first Democrat to win the state in a White House race since 1964. Rapidly growing counties like Loudoun and Prince William swung toward Democrats in the 2005 governor's race, previewing an Obama win three years later.

Conversely, New Jersey is a traditional Democratic-leaning state with an incumbent Democratic governor. As such, it's the trickier of the two for Republicans to win -- and yet the GOP just might.

The GOP just might! Nice touch, Liz.

And by claiming that a GOP victory in traditionally GOP-leaning VA “would be the most telling about potential trouble ahead for Democrats,” Sidoti gets is pretty much exactly wrong. Republicans are expected to win the purple state. The real trouble for Dems would be if the GOP won the governor's race in blue-trending NJ.

Honestly, can't anybody here play this game?

UPDATED: What's also astonishing, and this is absolutely ignored by the press, is that the NJ race is only close today becuase the GOP candidate has lost a double-digit lead in recent months. It's only close because the GOP candidate's campaign has imploded since the summertime. But the press doesn't care about that, or what that might say about the GOP. The press only cares if Dems lose.