Republicans lose in NY 23rd District

[Cynic]

I don't think that's a fair statement. We're in a political environment (one that isn't really that new, in fact) where 40% of the country would sooner vote for a Osama bin Laden himself than for a democrat. If it reflects anything, it's that coversatives are afraid, not that democrats are weak.

 

[Dr Adequate]

What I find most interesting is that the 3rd party candidate got ~45% of the vote vs 49% for the Dem. Even in a 2 way race against an independent the Dems couldn't break 50%. The Dems can barely squeak out a victory when running against an underfunded 3rd party candidate and with no Republican candidate for competition - that is just pathetic.

Well hooray for the triumph of conservatism ...

... oh, wait, you were serious.

A Democrat wins a seat in a district where the Republicans have held the seat for the last century ... and the moral you draw from that is that the Democrats are "pathetic"?

 

[MattusMaximus]

Agreed there was no Rep running, but she dropped out b/c she was losing so badly. The candidate was a terrible choice, performed badly and was yanked offstage before the curtain dropped. Yes the Reps lost.

What I find most interesting is that the 3rd party candidate got ~45% of the vote vs 49% for the Dem. Even in a 2 way race against an independent the Dems couldn't break 50%. The Dems can barely squeak out a victory when running against an underfunded 3rd party candidate and with no Republican candidate for competition - that is just pathetic.

Not only did the Reps lose, but the Dems showed how extremely weak they are. Both the major parties should learn a lesson from this.

Denial is both funny & sad to see. Wow.

 

[leftysergeant]

Wierd. 55% of the district voted anybody-but-a-ranting-rightie, and the rightwingunts are calling it a victory.

I still think it symptomatic of a mental disorder.

Perhaps PTSD as a result of the battering they took last November.

 

[Thunder]

well..the NY 23rd didn't go to a guy from Kenya, so the GOP nuts think it was a victory.

 

[Trakar]

This seat has been held by a Republican Congressman for almost 100 years.

Now that the right-wing Republicans demand that only conservative Republicans are worthy of the seat, the proud people of New York State give the seat to a Democrat, by a good margin.

As there was no Republican in the contest, and the Republican that withdrew from the election gave her support to the Democratic candidate, its very hard to establish that the Republican candidate "lost" or that the New York Republican party lost through this win, as this defeat of the Conservative candidate established that there is not enough public support for radical conservatism for it to replace or displace the moderate, broad-based fiscal conservatism, social moderatism represented by New York's Republican party.

 

[Dr Adequate]

Here's what conservative blog RedState has to say about it ...

In NY-23, Conservatives Win

The race has now been called for Democrat Bill Owens.

This is a huge win for conservatives.​

If you're wondering what the grovelling halfwit's argument can possibly be, it's that this shows that moderate Republicans can't get along without extremist conservatives.

To which moderate Republicans might well answer that this result shows that extremist conservatives can't get along without moderate Republicans.

Whereas I, being a moderate Democrat, am just going to sit here and giggle and giggle and giggle; and ponder over the facts that neither of them can get along without the other; that the "big tent" strategy is the only reason that they've won any elections at all since about 1980; and that if they want to fight a bitter civil war between themselves then we are going to walk all over them in hobnailed boots.

 

[Thunder]

Here's what conservative blog RedState has to say about it ...

In NY-23, Conservatives Win

The race has now been called for Democrat Bill Owens.

This is a huge win for conservatives. .​

McCain lost the Presidential race. I guess this was a huge victory for conservatives as well.


​

 

[Dr Adequate]

McCain lost the Presidential race. I guess this was a huge victory for conservatives as well.

Everything is always simultaneously a sign of impending conservative victory and a sign that the New World Order is about to kill all conservatives in FEMA Death Camps.

It's a strange ideology at first, but if you get a friend to hit you repeatedly in the head with a sledgehammer until you start bleeding into your brain then you might get the hang of it.

 

[FlamingMoe]

Looks like they picked a principled and honest man, the kind who says what he means and means what he says.

Owens Breaks 4 Campaign Promises in first hour in Congress

Yeah, right.

 

[Cynic]

*invokes Milhouse laughter*

 

[Dr Adequate]

Looks like they picked a principled and honest man, the kind who says what he means and means what he says.

Owens Breaks 4 Campaign Promises in first hour in Congress

Yeah, right.

You notice how the story turned out not to be true?

 

[FlamingMoe]

Yeah, only three promises broken instead of four. The man's an angel, really.

 

[Lurker]

Has the political makeup of that district changed at all over the years?

Northeast Republicans are getting scarcer and scarcer. This particular district voted for Obama so they are not as conservative as they seem at first glance.

 

[linusrichard]

*invokes Milhouse laughter*

I don't know what this is, but I'm picturing it like a nervous "heh heh heh heh."

Did you mean Nelson laughter?

 

[Cynic]

I don't know what this is, but I'm picturing it like a nervous "heh heh heh heh."

Did you mean Nelson laughter?

Crap, I did! Sorry about that.

 

[Newtons Bit]

McCain lost the Presidential race. I guess this was a huge victory for conservatives as well.


[/INDENT]

It is for the conservatives who make a living doing talk radio or other punditry

They're making a killing.

 

[AlBell]

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2009/11/its_not_over_recanvassing_shows_ny23_race.html

Interesting turn of events.

 

[leftysergeant]

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2009/11/its_not_over_recanvassing_shows_ny23_race.html

Interesting turn of events.

I would not make too much of it. There would not be that many votes automaticly going to Hoffman. The military people would not have known that the Republican was out of the race and had probably not heard much about Hoffman.

A lot of his votes were probably from the anybody-but-a-Democrat bloc.

 

[stevea]

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/774747dc5f01571c1.gif[/qimg]

Denial is both funny & sad to see. Wow.

You're the one denying facts. Matt'. Are you having difficulty reading or something ? I said the the Rep lost and the Dem showed themselves to be weak garnering only 49/45% victory in a two way race agains a 3rd party candidate ? These are clearly true statements.

Many ppl will never vote for a 3rd party, so some Reps stayed home. Certainly many Reps switched to the conservative candidate Hoffman. It would normally be unlikely that the republican dropping out increased the dem vote at all, however Scozzafava threw her support to the Dem Owens - so there might have been just a little transfer. Some minor number of Dem supporters may have stayed home (those voting against the Rep). I suspect that means roughly the same vote count for the Dem/Owens.

In all you have Hoffman spending $235k and Owens spending $375k. So 1.6 times as much spending PLUS the big-Party advantage and still he only gets 49/45%. That's a lousy result. Of course in politics close doesn't count - it's winner take all.


===
The Rep party acted like a clown-car full of bozos, but that's par for the course.

If you go back and examine the NY 23rd district for the past 10 years you'll see that the Reps always won, but they also way outspent the Dem - like a 6:1 ratio typically. So one primary reason that the Dems weren't competitive was lack of cash. It would be interesting to see how much of Owens money came from his district and how much was targeted to the district by the party.

Targeting the 23rd district was good strategy by the Dems, but the fact that Reps had a loser/dropout candidate helped enormously.