Learning from the NY-26 special election
It’s bad news that Democrat Kathy Hochul defeated Republican Jane Corwin in a special election in a NY district that is traditionally Republican. But let’s be careful not to generalize too much about it—although the MSM certainly will, and all in the direction of Democrat cheerleading and chest-thumping.
The first thing that leapt out at me on reading the results was that Hochul benefited from the presence of a “Tea Party” challenger Jack Davis who got 9% of the vote. I place Davis’s Tea Party designation in quotes because he was apparently one of those astroturf Tea Party candidates, and so it’s not completely clear where his votes came from in the end, but the consensus is that it was Corwin his presence hurt.
Another thing that is apparent is that turnout was low, as is so often the case in special elections. This favors organizational ability and motivation. The Republicans did not get their act together to energize their voters to go to the polls.
In addition, the Democrats capitalized on confusion and a scare campaign of their own about the Republican proposals on Medicare. Expect to see much more of that in 2012, and Republicans had better have a more effective response.
I’m with William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection, who notes all of that, and more. And Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway adds this:
It’s also worth noting that Republicans lost a special election in another upstate New York Congressional District in 2009. A year later, they took control of the House of Representatives.
There may be something especially special about New York state special elections that ends up favoring Democrats. But if so, I can’t quite think what it would be.
[ADDENDUM: I found some possible answers here. Take a look at the first few comments, which say, among other things, that the NY Republican Party is “sclerotic,” and that it can’t “find it’s own behind with both hands and a flashlight.”
Perhaps there really is something especially special about NY Republicans—although come to think of it, those descriptions needn’t be confined to Republicans in that state alone.]
RINO candidates appointed by GOP bosses, do not help the cause.
Exactly Pat,
The NY GOP are a collection of RINO libs masquerading as Republicans. This was the state that the awful Pataki hails from. I know of one GOPer in my reserve unit and he’s a latte sipping, New York Times worshipping, country club loser as they come.
“Sclerotic” ?!… Yep. That, pretty much sums it up.
Even I, a platinum member of Sourpusses International, don’t find anything very worrisome in this (beyond losing a seat in the House – until 2012, anyway – and having to listen to smug Democrats exhilarate in victory).
The GOP is infamously sclerotic in NY – to call it sclerotic is an insult to sclerosis. I’m surprised Republicans, recognizable as such, have any seats in the NY delegation to DC.
Furthermore, the seat was cleared by a sleazy Republican, and that fact was in the air and no doubt in voters’ minds. In an atmosphere of scandal, a Republican can win in New Orleans and Hawaii and a Democrat (with a hefty heaping of help from an astroturf Tea Party candidate) can win in NY-26.
I’m still pessimistic about 2012, but this election doesn’t tell me anything at all, except that third parties are a disaster. The Wisconsin Supreme Court election was far cleaner and less ambiguous – and if we’d lost that one by 7,000 instead of winning it, I would have been depressed. Democrats know it too. They know Wisconsin was much more significant than this weird mutant monster of a “race” in upstate NY.
But beyond that, this again reinforces just how corrupt the media really is – not long ago, Wisconsin was THE referendum to end all referendums, apocalypse now, do or die, the final word for all time on The People’s Choice about public sector unions – that is, until the Democrats lost, and now we barely even remember the election happened. Needing a new propaganda tool, NY-26 becomes THE referendum forever and ever, and, alas, they win – so take that conservatives! Ha ha! You’ve been refudiated!
That kind of Soviet bullsh*t is what grinds my gears about this thing. At the very least, it ups the chances of Ryan actually jumping in the race. His response has been forceful and eloquent, and he may need a bigger megaphone sooner rather than later.
Upstate NY is a ghost town, hollowed out by decades of Corrupt politics (both Dem and GOP). Everyone left is somehow dependent on government aid (retirees, govt workers, etc.) and is very distrustful of both parties. The younger people are moving out simply because there is nothing to do. If you look at the politics of the Northeast you see similar things. Only New Hampshire stands out because it’s low tax environment is keeping some growth alive.
Neoneocon: “In addition, the Democrats capitalized on confusion and a scare campaign of their own . . . .”
Kolnai: “this again reinforces just how corrupt the media really is . . . .”
I suggest that the real targets for the GOP in 2012 should be a two-pronged attack of Obama’s record and the liberal sycophantic messaging of the MSM itself. It does the GOP no good at all to mount a clear concise campaign only to have it undermined and undone by the messenger to whom it is entrusted.
Call Obama out on his abysmal record and use it call the MSM out on their abysmal record.
I almost posted something along the following lines shortly before the election, but changed my mind so as not to circulate defeatism:
1. The national GOP is incompetent. Their game plan for 2009/2010 was to hope for Democrat mistakes. Without the Tea Party, the GOP would have fared significantly less well in November than they did. (The Tea Party is not ready to run or replace the GOP. I am hopeful but not yet confident about its future.)
2. The GOP got a warning when they lost NY-23 in the 2009 special election. They got another warning when the Democrats held NY-23 last November.
*****************
3. Now they have another warning with the loss of NY-26, and apparently many in the GOP would like to rationalize that away as well.
Steyn has a good article called “Truce or Consequences” where he writes
“From Scott Brown to Mitch Daniels, from the post-November business-as-usual to a potential Democrat upset in NY-26, it’s starting to look as if the political institutions of the republic are impervious to course correction.”
Yowsa.
And then the Democratic upset happens.
The political institutions?
I wish it were that simple.
The TV station here in NYC “reported” this race as 1) a victory for the Dems, 2) a loss for the Repubs “because they want to END MEDICARE” [flatly so stated]; followed by 3) a helpful visual aid of the previous Republican in his infamous “half-naked” Craigslist ad.
They never, ever refer to a shirtless male Dimwit as “half-naked.”
It never ends. And this was the bluntest, most slap-in-the-face TV “report” I’ve yet seen. The contempt was breathtaking.
Funny how Scott Brown was not a referendum on the democrats, but this election is a referendum on republicans. More MSM crowing.
Of course any attempt to rein in entitlements will be fodder for MSM & DNC demagoguery. Fiscal conservatives have to stop allowing the opposition to steer the dialogue. They need to get out in front and convince the public that entitlement reform is actually saving entitlements as opposed to throwing granny under the bus and dooming future generations to the plantation of tax slavery.
T said, “I suggest that the real targets for the GOP in 2012 should be a two-pronged attack of Obama’s record and the liberal sycophantic messaging of the MSM itself.”
Just so! Whoever runs for the GOP must have an anti-MSM messaging group up and running 24/7. Every little mistake, innuendo, mischaracterization, and lie must be answered immediately. Not in a shrill defensive way, but with firmness and reason as we have seen demonstrated by Benjamin Netanyahu and Paul Ryan. Put Obama on the defensive, Make him defend his record and challenge him to define his plans for the deficit, the economy, the energy problem, the ME, and prosecuting with the war on militant Islamism. In other words, attack, attack, and attack again. My fear is that the GOP will sit back and react rather than take the offensive. The man’s abysmal record and lack of leadership is what must be highlighted and repeatedly.
T and JJ are absolutely right. I think it would help if someone could provide a framework for Obama’s actions. We’ve spent a lot of time analyzing him, but not enough showing people how he works. For instance, with the flip flops and expiration dates. These show that Obama’s basic intincts are wrong. He tries to correct things when hit over the head by reality; however, this doesn’t bode well for what he will do when confronted with crises. Libya is a case in point. Obama wiggled and delayed; no one knew what he wanted or where he wanted to go, and we now have a mess with a dozen leaders with individual agendas sending mixed messages to the Muslim world. The really bad actors are encouraged by this muddle. They have sized Obama up as a finger in the wind kind of guy, and they know just how to aim their wind machines. What Obama considers flexibility and pragmatism, they see as weakness. Not a good trait when people accustomed to tribal strongmen are trying to defeat us and destroy our way of life.
Obama spends more energy trying to correct his mistakes than in analyzing situations and anticipating problems. No one trusts him because they’ve seen him flip too many times. Our allies probably think WTF is a perfect reaction to him. His ignorance has caused many of our problems. Yet he wants praise for partially solving these same problems.
The pattern people need to see is that he is instinctually wrong, that he dilly dallies around trying to get out of his messes, and that when there is success, it comes about because of people he previously dissed. All of our criticisms need to be voiced so that this framework is exposed. Despite 2 1/2 years of intensive on the job training, his instincts haven’t improved. He will always be flashing that condescending grin (which is not a smile–there is no warmth behind it). His basic instict is to show the world what a cool, clever fellow he is, but the columns were only styrofoam.
Seems to me that liberals and the MSM have all the same advantages of terrorist. They only have to be right one time to advance their agenda, whereas free market decent Americans can never fail even once less they be percieved as roundly defeated.
This heads i win- tails you lose demoralizing game must be clearly pointed out and even mocked by leading conservative voices at intervals often enough that the media can’t omit their message without looking suspiciously corrupt and dishonest in doing so.
The media’s credibility needs to go through the floor over the next year and deservedly so. Somebody higher up in the republican party needs to recognise we get that done or God help this country with 4 more years of socialist hell.
once again posting is almost impossible.. no error message, just that a post with no curses, links or such, cant be submitted.
piecemeal till whatever is triggering it, is located
Ever thought that the opposition is smart enough to pull back on the worst republicans so they can win, while going all balls to the wall against anything decent?
That there is more ways to play a game when your looking at many players on a chess board (collusively, collectively, conspiratorially), rather than the idea of every player running to a win against every other player. Ie, from what default premise of organization, facilitation, methodology and such is one deriving their ideas for guessing what is going on (sans caring about what they write, read, talk about outside the public view but on record)?
Go over years of posts and most of them consist of people who are relatively smart not getting any of it and not getting the implications of how different systems work.
if your not a social species who cares for its young, then the young are on their own, and certain actions never happen.
If your a social species who does care for its young, then all kinds of things become possible, like sacrifice, distraction, fighting on behalf of another.
The base premise flowers outward into implications and rules that impose actions.
piecemeal till whatever is triggering it, is located
No one will ever understand cut thr oat po ker from the rules of go fish… you can try and try and try, but it aint going to work – ever. want to understand their game, then stop analyzing it from your perspective as obviously they have another one, its effective (look where they are and the opposition level), calculated, coordinates across many lines of social commu nication, relies on psychology – social engine eering, cares not as to em pirical validity (as the goal is to control and manipu late peo ple to ends, not win a debate and be liked by the cat tle)
something in that paragraph above is a big no no, and putting a space into its heart allowed the paragraph to go up. you can see that its nothing but a rant of curses, and horrible things, including nasty words…
no?
They win because their perspective is different, and people won’t let go of the common calculus and move to the new set of rules. They cling to things like empirical validity and call them crazy for pretending reality. They listen to a debate but forget that validity is a base term, and the minute that is gone, they are only watching a liars contest maybe against the truth, or another set of competitive lies.
Never standing on a solid base and being confused means the ones not confused just act unopposed for the most part. And the more people realize this, the more join as a survival tactic. They know which side of the bread is buttered… they may not know what is right, works, or even is good in the long run, but they sure know that to back a loser is to join that fate.
Coll ective collusion (con spiracy for advantage, the many who act as one against the divided) as a normal way to do business (while denying it exists), is something the public is not used to in terms of a system, and not a few violating a system that operates otherwise.
That is, the default way everyone is thinking is that things like lying, amoral, bad advice, and all that is an aberration, an exception to the norm of valid and such we assume we live under as we did before. but no. a socialist system, which denies morals, makes lying ethical, and so forth, follows a system of nothing but lies, the aberration is the norm, and so the norm of propriety, social reciprocity, open transparent behavior, moral ethical behavior, all become the abnormal thing to stamp out.
Inversion, always inversions… Hegel, opposites, etc.. How do you cut a diamond? With a diamond. In opposition. How do you destroy good and moral people, get them to think immoral things are bad, and let them be the diamond to cut them when nothing else will
in this way, the indestructible people, who think they cant be stopped, are stopped as a part of the indestructible is turned to cut itself… and to get it to do that well, one must convince it that cutting itself is consciousness raising, modern, future directed, progressive, forward thinking…
if you convince the lemmings to jump off a cliff, and attack those who try to stop them as being backwards, evil, racist, etc… then not only do you not join them, but rule them… but if they wake up, they wont remove what made them launch themselves to the cliff, they will blame themselves and leave the cancer alone, while the cancer denies any fault, responsibility, etc..
This was the refinement of the German overt model, and the soviet overt model. it left the leaders vulnerable to being responsible for what happens.
Now there are a 100,000 fill in the blanks reflexive apologetic that just make up things and write and never look them up reinforcing the reality of lemmings, and attacking or ignoring anyone that tried to point out there is a cliff…
Want to see evidence that the people thinking of things know?
National Lampoon’s Lemmings
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Lampoon%27s_Lemmings
1973… describing the new left yippies and the political eventual end of the nihilist death cult (they even walk around with a life rune inverted as their symbol!!!! meaning death… i guess death is a kind of peace).
National Lampoon was a ground-breaking American humor magazine started in 1970, originally as a spinoff of the Harvard Lampoon.
Published since 1876,[1] The Harvard Lampoon is the world’s longest continually published humor magazine. It is also the second longest-running English-language humor magazine, after the Yale Record.[2][3] The organization also produces occasional humor books (the best known being the 1969 J.R.R. Tolkien parody Bored of the Rings) and parodies of national magazines such as Entertainment Weekly and Sports Illustrated. Much of the organization’s capital is provided by the licensing of the “Lampoon” name to National Lampoon, begun by Harvard Lampoon graduates in 1970.
ah… the new left, and Harvard again…
The Lampoon is known for its bacchanalian parties, which can result in smashed plates and furniture. The Lampoon’s affairs are administered by Harvard Lampoon, Inc., whose Board of Graduate Trustees includes such people as James Murdoch, Ted Widmer, and Bill Oakley.[4] Robert K. Hoffman, co-founder of the National Lampoon and major donor to the Dallas Museum of Art was a Trustee until his death in 2006, and was declared a Trustee “Ad-Infinitum” a year later. The bone of his pinky finger is said to be encased in a block of lucite in the Harvard Lampoon’s “Brainatorium Crypt.”
Corwin was “Peroted” just in case.
Why is the NY GOP “sclerotic”?
Simple: the good GOPers in NY already have voted… with their feet, a long time ago.
Haven’t you seen the latest statistic – young NYers are leaving the State in droves. There are no job opportunities, and the cost of housing and living in general are horrible!
Thus, GOPers with some sanity left decided to leave the asylum. Only the lemmings are left now.
But don’t worry. NY is about to lose one Congressional seat by 2012. Probably this one. Best thing about it: that seat is going straight to… Texas.
GOP Texas.
The biggest problem with the GOP is that voters who tend to support Republicans don’t really like govt. Someone from that group of voters who wants to work in govt is out of touch to begin with.
There is a disconnect which does not afflict Democrats whose voters and candidates are united in their love of more and more govt.