With all the attention on the GOP wins in the Virginia and New Jersey governors’ races yesterday, the purportedly liberal media is ignoring the fact that voters in a larger, one-time solidly red state went a little bluer yesterday.

The state’s largest city elected a Democratic mayor for the first time in 22 years, and despite the fact that this southern city is two-thirds white, the new mayor happens to be African American.

Meanwhile, this state’s most famous college town in the world of sports elected a mayor who is a Democrat and openly gay.

What state is it? More clues:

It is the 10th largest state, with a larger population than either Virginia or New Jersey. It is a Southern state that, like Virginia, flipped from red to blue in 2008, swinging from voting decisively for Republicans in every cycle since 1976 (for the kids, that’s Reagan twice, Bush I twice, Dole in 1996 and Bush II twice) to going for Obama last year. It also elected Democratic women as governor and U.S. Senator last November — and both houses of its legislature have been controlled by Democrats for the last several cycle.

Give up? It’s North Carolina, where the voters in Charlotte elected Anthony Foxx, a city councilmember for four years, as mayor.

Up the road in Chapel Hill, a Democratic stronghold best known as the home of the University of North Carolina Tar Heels, Mark Kleinschmidt, an openly gay man, was also elected mayor.

So what’s the big whoop? While it’s debatable whether the GOP wins in New Jersey and Virginia are bellwethers for the congressional elections next year, the election of Mayor Foxx in Charlotte could forebode trouble for long-time GOP congresswoman, Sue Myrick, who also once served as the city’s mayor.

First elected to Congress in 1995 she was reelected handily in 2008, despite the fact that Pres. Obama won Charlotte by 25 percentage points.

Rep. Myrick comes across as dour and doctrinaire on camera, but she is not as unpleasant and hardcore as the tea bagger Rep. Virginia Foxx in NC5 — who last week said health insurance reform was a more deadly threat than terrorism. Myrick has made a name for herself as one of the most right-wing members of the House and is especially known for her unfettered expressions of bigotry against Muslims.

One slightly risky factor in Myrick’s record is that after voting against George Bush’s $700 billion bailout package last year, she voted for the Senate version. This indulgence in runaway spending — even though it may have helped save the nation from financial collapse — could potentially draw a tea bagger challenger in next year’s primaries.

She’s also Palinesque in her “drill, baby, drill,” call for ending the moratorium on oil production off the North Carolina coast, which includes the Outer Banks, a national treasure akin to the Grand Canyon, as well as an extremely vulnerable ecosystems.

But mainly demographics are working against Sue Myrick. Most of Charlotte’s explosive growth has come from emigration from Democratic strongholds — particularly the Northeast but also from California — often as a result of workers being transferred to work for Bank of America or Wachovia, both of which are headquartered in the city. (San Francisco’s Bank of America was purchased by Charlotte’s NationsBank in 1998; Wachovia was purchased by San Franciso-based Wells Fargo in December 2008.)

Just last year, NC8, a suburban, formerly reliable GOP district adjacent to Myrick’s, switched from Republican to Democratic when Larry Kissell defeated Robin Hayes, the scion of the Cannon Mills textile fortune.

But “liberal” media types shouldn’t feel bad for ignoring these significant Democratic wins in North Carolina. Being ignored while their more flamboyant and bizarre neighbors immediately to the north and south (respectively) get all the attention is ingrained into North Carolina’s history.

Back in the olden days, North Carolinians were fond of describing their state as a “vale of humility between two mountains of conceit” — the “mountains” being the aforementioned Virginia and South Carolina. Tar Heels even internalized their fate of perennially being overshadowed by the pretentiousness of others into the state’s motto: Esse quam videri — “To be rather than to seem.”

H/t: Lydia

The tea baggers are starting to remind me of my ex-mother-in-law, who always used her bags at least twice. No matter how long you let it steep, the product is weak and watery. The same could be said for trying to recycle the grassroots angst of the tea baggers. Reusing those same patsies over and over, as the astroturf string-pullers are doing, is beginning to lose its potency.

Witness the the defeat of Conservate Party candidate Doug Hoffman in New York and the fizzle of Operation House Call, an effort led by Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.). It was to begin at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 3, lobbying 13 lawmakers with phone calls, emails, and faxes protesting their plan to produce meaningful health care reform.

…a quick survey of some of the 13 targeted senators’ offices suggests that the “attack” has barely registered on the Hill. Kimberly Hunter, a spokeswoman for Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) says that at a little after 3:30 on Tuesday, her office hadn’t seen any uptick in calls or visits. If the tea partiers do call, she adds, “We’re happy to listen to their opinions.” Likewise, a spokesman for Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), another target on the patriots’ list, says the office has fielded a few calls from people saying they are coming to Thursday’s press conference—but overall the volume has been “nothing unusual.”

As of Tuesday afternoon, the official tea party website indicated that only 25 patriots were on hand for “Operation House Call.”

While the press is busy thinking of new ways to proclaim the two Republican victories in this year’s governors’ races a referendum on Obama, there is less focus on the referendum on Sarah Palin and the far, far rightwing that took place in New York’s District 23 race. The scary-looking Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman was defeated by a Democrat, despite people like Palin and Fred Thompson lending their famous support, and despite Republicans holding that seat since it was created 16 years ago in 1993.

The big bucks continue to flow to the tea party movement but it might have to morph into something that appeals to people with higher than grade school reading skills if it has a future. Sites like DontKillGrandma.com can only keep manipulating the little people for so long. The site is professionally produced by FreedomWorks, headed by lobbyist Dick Armey, who appeared on the campaign stump with Hoffman. Other aligned groups are equally well-funded.

Americans for Prosperity, which has taken the lead in the current fight against reform, is a front group for oil billionaires David and Charles Koch, co-owners of the world’s largest private oil and gas conglomerate.

On the other hand, as the deaths by gunshot of the gun-totin’ soccer mom attest (and a local killing that looks pro-gun related), the frontline little folks might be their own worst enemies. As one of the patriots on DontKillGrandma suggested, “Can we hold sit-ins across the country in the middle of America’s busiest highways. That might get their attention.” Brilliant idea! The tea baggers should be gone in no time with tactics like that.

After California Republican lawmaker Mike Duvall, 54, was caught on tape in September bragging to a colleague about his sexcapades with not one but two women Sacramento lobbyists that included spanking and tiny underwear, the case was seen as evidence of how rampant and, er, naked corruption has become in Sacramento.

Now, however, the FBI has cleared the Sempra lobbyist, Heidi DeJong Barsuglia, of wrongdoing:

The female lobbyist who was the subject of sexual boasting by former Assemblyman Mike Duvall issued her first public statement Monday,describing his allegations as untrue and her experience as a “professional and personal nightmare.”

The statement from Sempra Energy lobbyist Heidi Barsuglia came in response to an announcement that the Justice Department would not file any charges over the conduct described in a legislative committee tape in which Duvall can be heard detailing sexual encounters with two lobbyists.

Sempra Energy also issued a statement saying its own investigation into the matter had concluded and that Barsuglia, who had denied any wrongdoing from the outset, would return to work.

“What is shocking to me and my family is that anyone would have taken seriously the statements of someone boasting about his alleged exploits or even believed for a moment that they were true,” said Barsuglia, who was identified in an ethics complaint as the former lawmaker’s mistress.

Next up: Duvall will probably be hearing from Barsuglia’s lawyers:

Barsuglia’s attorney said Duvall’s comments defamed her and that he did little to repair the damage after they were made public.

“Her reputation, her job, and her exemplary career have all been placed in jeopardy by Duvall’s disgusting remarks,” Segal said.

In his political campaigning, Duvall of course claimed to be a “family values” conservative and a believer in the sanctity of marriage — and an opponent of gay marriage. He was caught on tape saying this:

“She wears little eye-patch underwear. So, the other day she came here with her underwear, Thursday. And so, we had made love Wednesday — a lot! And so she’ll, she’s all, ‘I am going up and down the stairs, and you’re dripping out of me!’ So messy! …So, I am getting into spanking her. Yeah, I like it. I like spanking her. She goes, ‘I know you like spanking me.’ I said, ‘Yeah! Because you’re such a bad girl!’…”

And so her birthday was Monday. I was 54 on June 14, so for a month, she was 19 years younger than me. I said, ‘Now, you’re getting old. I am going to have to trade you in.’ And she goes, ‘[I’m] 36.’ She is 18 years younger than me. And so I keep? teasing her, and she goes, ‘I know you French men. You divide your age by two and add seven, and if you’re older than that, you dump us.’”

On the tape released in September, Duvall couldn’t quite remember the name of the second woman — “Oh, yeah, Sher, Shar, Shar… Oh, she is hot!” So no word on whether Sher-Shar has been cleared or even investigated, or if she even exists.

Leaving aside Barsuglia’s career and professional reputation, the best news out of the investigation is that, if Duvall was lying about his sexual adventures, his wife Susan can rest easy that, despite her husband’s claims, he did not have unprotected sex with the lobbyists.