It’s interesting to see what spin is being put on the significance of today’s elections by different media organizations.

Reuters pitches it a test of Obama‘s influence:

Republicans seeking a comeback from recent losses may pick up the governor’s seats in Virginia and New Jersey on Tuesday in campaigns that tested the limits of President Barack Obama’s influence.

Democrats were bracing for the unhappy possibility they could go down to defeat not just in those two states but in a congressional district in upstate New York where a conservative candidate was leading.

The election outcome could give some clues as to the national mood a year after Obama was elected president and a year before 2010 congressional elections that will represent the first clear referendum on Obama’s time in office.

The AP hews closely to this line:

Just a year after President Barack Obama’s historic election victory, his Democrats face the possibility of significant symbolic setbacks in Tuesday’s election: the potential loss of governors’ mansions in the states of New Jersey and Virginia.

In a different story, the AP focuses on the New Jersey gubernatorial election:

Obama has endorsed Gov. Jon Corzine as a partner in five campaign appearances, and a win by the Republican former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie would sting the president ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

The facts on the ground, of course, are that Corzine has been a deeply unpopular governor, and the only reason that he might still pull off a win today is that voters decided they weren’t exactly impressed by the fact that Christie’s entire campaign consisted of: “You really don’t like Corzine, do you?”

It seems extremely misguided to start reading national implications into such a contest. But, hey, that’s what news organizations have to do. Those are, simply, the rules of the game. Midterm elections can only be analyzed in terms of what they portend about the popularity of the recently elected president. It is axiomatic for “the nation’s political class” to read the entrails and look “for clues about the future direction of the country” (that’s still the AP talking).

CNN thinks it’s all about voters’ anger:

As voters across the country head to the polls Tuesday, one thing appears certain: Many of them are angry.

And that anger could shape the results of three of the most high-profile elections this year — gubernatorial battles in New Jersey and Virginia and the fight for an open seat in New York’s 23rd Congressional District.

National polls indicate that many voters are in a foul mood. The big question is whether that mood will continue into 2010, when the entire House of Representatives, more than a third of the Senate and more than a third of the governorships are up for grabs.

And that, apparently, is what tonight’s results will tell us: whether anger will continue into 2010.