Wow, 70+ pages of the same old my-side-rocks-your-side-sucks politics. What a surprise.
This wasn't a referendum on Obama, or the Republican agenda, or on what flavor of ice cream Ben & Jerry's should invent next, or anything else that it's been tied to. I also reject Schumer's half-assed explanation about how conservative the district has been getting over the past decades, mainly because it kept electing a Democrat. This was about local politics and nothing but local politics.
I don't know about any of you, I noticed that Weprin took certain positions which left him very vulnerable in a district full of conservative Jews:
- He supported the Park15 project -- the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque."
- He voted for the legalization of gay marriage in New York.
- He wasn't particularly effective at attacking his opponent or addressing his opponent's attacks.
- He pissed off some local interest groups with gestures as thoughtless as, well, not showing up to talk to them.
Summation, for all you tl;drers -- this was an election lost by an idiot because of local politics. It was nothing more or less than that.
I realize that the national media (and, heck, let's throw Fox News in there) didn't have a whole lot to say about these another salient facts in the wake of Turner's victory, but that doesn't make them any less true, or this referendum crap any less false.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled baseless posturing.