Democrat Wins Upstate New York Congressional Race

haymarket said:

Get used to it.... this was only a down payment .... a very small down payment. This one seat will seem as if a drop of water compared to the deluge heading your way. And thanks to right wing extremists for the hard slap.

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its easy to win elections when you tell people you will keep giving them all they want and they won't have to pay for it

ruining the country to keep the dem parasites in power has been your party's SOP since 1932

pbrauer said:

But Ryan came up with a stupid plan to throw grandma over the cliff and all but 4 Republicons voted for it.

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your hysterical take on this is expected

as I noted before

everybody wanna go to heaven

nobody wanna die

telling the junkies they will keep getting their dope wins you the voted of the stoned

This was one of the most conservative districts in New York. The Republican candidate got 74% of the vote in the last election. This vote for the Democrat represents a complete rejection of the Ryan plan by a very conservative electorate.

cpwill said:

Yeah. Democrats ran a spoiler fake "Tea Party" candidate to split the Republican vote. Somehow the NYTimes seems to have neglected to mention that.

So ya'll get an extra seat in Congress; but anyone trying to sell you that it is some kind of major swing-trend is offering snake-oil.

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Dontcha think that a few spoilers have been in the race since 1857…when the last Dem was in that office.:2wave:

I'd warn some people in here about saying it's a referendum on ryans plan or anything of that nature frankly.

I seem to remember some of you being very upset about people calling some of the races following obamas election that the right called a referendum on him...

Chappy said:

This was one of the most conservative districts in New York. The Republican candidate got 74% of the vote in the last election. This vote for the Democrat represents a complete rejection of the Ryan plan by a very conservative electorate.

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is that based on evidence or the talking points from DNC spam central?

Chappy said:

This was one of the most conservative districts in New York. The Republican candidate got 74% of the vote in the last election. This vote for the Democrat represents a complete rejection of the Ryan plan by a very conservative electorate.

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Exactly....

Jetboogieman said:

I'd warn some people in here about saying it's a referendum on ryans plan or anything of that nature frankly.

I seem to remember some of you being very upset about people calling some of the races following obamas election that the right called a referendum on him...

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I tend to agree. I think the only fair conclusion to draw is that more people voted for the Democrat than the Republican in this special election. Anything else is media spin. The media reads WAY too much into these special elections, when the most likely explanation is "**** happens."

TurtleDude said:

is that based on evidence or the talking points from DNC spam central?

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Honestly, would evidence actually convince you of anything? Really?

TurtleDude said:

its easy to win elections when you tell people you will keep giving them all they want and they won't have to pay for it

ruining the country to keep the dem parasites in power has been your party's SOP since 1932

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Not really. The Dem SOP is to bail the country out of economic messes left by Republicans, as it has done in 1932, 1992 and now 2008.

upsideguy said:

Not really. The Dem SOP is to bail the country out of economic messes left by Republicans, as it has done in 1932, 1992 and now 2008.

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remind me how the bailing is doing now

you seemed to forget 1980 and 2000 where the GOP had to clean up the carter malaise and the clinton dot com bubble burst

the current mess started when the botox bitch became speaker of the house

haymarket said:

Get used to it.... this was only a down payment .... a very small down payment.

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oh, I definitely believe that we are going to see an entire campaign of fake "Tea Party" candidates emerge funded by left-leaning sources as this is now a twice-proven tactic.

we will see if it and demagogic fear-mongering are enough in 2012 to get ya'll through or not.

Let's not forget that Ryan's plan in right wing social engineering.

cpwill said:

oh, I definitely believe that we are going to see an entire campaign of fake "Tea Party" candidates emerge funded by left-leaning sources as this is now a twice-proven tactic.

we will see if it and demagogic fear-mongering are enough in 2012 to get ya'll through or not.

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This nothing more than projection on your part. I seem to remember Repulicons playing this game by funding Green party members. Ralph Nadar comes to mind and I'm sure there are others.

Kandahar said:

Usually when a party significantly splits its vote, it's evidence of some sort of problem with the party's standard bearer. Maybe not always, but a good fraction of the time.

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eh, I would say there is a problem with the party's image. that was the impetus for the development of the Tea Party, after all; disgust with both parties, but mainly a rejection of the notion that Republicans could be trusted to live up to their small-government fiscal-responsibility rhetoric.

So I would say that the Tea Party as a right-wing-rebel to the Republican Party remains powerful symbols. Combined with a disgraced local Republican Party (thanks to a disgraced local republican), that conflict of images was enough to hand victory over by splitting the base.

That's why I don't think you can just add up the vote totals of the Republican candidate and the Tea Party candidate, and conclude that the Republican would have won in a two-way race against the Democrat. Occasionally that might be true, but usually the third party candidate would never have been successful in the first place if the people who would normally vote Republican were satisfied with the Republican nominee. It's the same reason that I don't think Ross Perot was a spoiler for George H.W. Bush...Perot would've been an asterisk like most third party candidates if there hadn't been any disaffection with Bush for him to tap into.

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Presidential politics are about the candidate. charged special elections for house races are now more often about the party. in 2010, our local Sheriff lost reelection - he had held the office more than a decade. Now, he was a fine Sherrif, and most people couldn't have even told you his name. So why did he lose? Because he had a (D) after his last name, and folks were pissed off about the Bailouts, the Stimulus, the Lack of Jobs, and Obamacare.

Now, whether or not this Tea Party candidate was legitimate, I couldn't tell you. I've never heard of him and didn't even know (or care) that there was a special election until last night. But I don't think you can conclude that his votes would have otherwise gone to the Republican.

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i think it's a pretty safe assumption that they were far more likely to go to the republican than the democrat - just as disaffected Nader Fans weren't about to vote for Bush in 2008, and Paulites are more likely to vote for whoever actually wins the Republican nomination in 2012.

And I agree that the predictive value of these special elections on the results of the next general election is nil.

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if there is a string of such events that all indicate the same general thrust and dont' have the kind of factors present in this election, they can be indicative. but this one? it's about as useful as the Dede Scozzafoza disaster.

pbrauer said:

I seem to remember Repulicons playing this game by funding Green party members. Ralph Nadar comes to mind and I'm sure there are others.

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:shrug: i don't recall such (I recall them cheering him on) - but an important distinction is that nader (like perot) actually believed what they were selling. This guy was on deliberately as a spoiler.

cpwill said:

oh, I definitely believe that we are going to see an entire campaign of fake "Tea Party" candidates emerge funded by left-leaning sources as this is now a twice-proven tactic.

we will see if it and demagogic fear-mongering are enough in 2012 to get ya'll through or not.

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See where all this "persuasion" gets us?

See where manipulation of public opinion gets us?

Education is innoculation.:2wave:

pbrauer said:

Let's not forget that Ryan's plan in right wing social engineering.

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:roll: on the upside, Newt seems to have provided a kind of solvent like unto the radioactive liquid one swallows to allow doctors to peer at your inner organs. You can tell those who are unable to come up with a legitimate argument because they regurgitate his backwash.

TurtleDude said:

is that based on evidence or the talking points from DNC spam central?

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What i have been reading was that Hochul took 48%.Do you think that of the other 52%, she wouldn't have copped a couple of %?Besides where do you think the votes that the Green in the race would go?

cpwill said:

:roll: on the upside, Newt seems to have provided a kind of solvent like unto the radioactive liquid one swallows to allow doctors to peer at your inner organs. You can tell those who are unable to come up with a legitimate argument because they regurgitate his backwash.

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Newt was telling the truth - for once. He's knows it a losing proposition. Ryan's plan is the "death panel" that the conservatives talked about for a long time. What does a senior do who has a preexisting condition - like cancer - who is going to insure them and at what price? It's a stupid mean spirited plan by a brash young man.

pbrauer said:

Newt was telling the truth - for once. He's knows it a losing proposition. Ryan's plan is the "death panel" that the conservatives talked about for a long time. What does a senior do who has a preexisting condition - like cancer - who is going to insure them and at what price? It's a stupid mean spirited plan by a brash young man.

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Didn't the shirtless one win his last election by a 75/25 margin? If so, the winger talking points are starting to sound rather hollow.:roll:

Chappy said:

The Paul Ryan budget plan claims its first victim.

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Yes, a Democrat won in one of the reddest districts in the State of New York. But there is more to it than meets the eye:

1) The Republican vote was split between two candidates.

2) The Democrat still got less than 50% of the vote, which I wouldn't call a mandate by a long shot.

Hochul has a right to celebrate. She won. And she should bask in the glow of her victory while she can. In this reddest of red districts, she is definitely going to be a one-termer.

danarhea said:

Yes, a Democrat won in one of the reddest districts in the State of New York. But there is more to it than meets the eye:

1) The Republican vote was split between two candidates.

2) The Democrat still got less than 50% of the vote, which I wouldn't call a mandate by a long shot.

Hochul has a right to celebrate. She won. And she should bask in the glow of her victory while she can. In this reddest of red districts, she is definitely going to be a one-termer.

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I am not buying the idea that the Republican vote was split between two candidates - Jack Davis clearly had a Democratic message in fact he was endorsed AFL/CIO.

YouTube - Jack Davis For Congress Channel

Here's Nate Silver's take on the special election. He does think that special elections have some predictive power on the subsequent general election, but that it's just one of many data points. An interesting article, from one of the better political minds out there.

Hopeful Signs for Democrats - NYTimes.com

pbrauer said:

This the most Republic district in New York, it's definitely a referendum on Ryan's let Gramdma die, Medicare plan.

Ryanmentum

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Which "Let Grandma die" law is that?