Victory in New York City
[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here. Or by Twitter @AaronWorthing.]
And wow, this WaPo article is full of a lot of hard truths:
Bob Turner, the winner, cast the election as a referendum on Obama’s stewardship of the economy and, in the state’s 9th Congressional District, which has a large population of Orthodox Jewish voters, the president’s position on Israel.
Turner, 70, a retired cable television executive who has never served in elective office, defeated Democratic State Assemblyman David Weprin, 55, who has two decades of public service experience, to fill the seat left vacant when Anthony Weiner (D) resigned in disgrace in June after more than 12 years in the House.
The defeat came as Republicans trounced Democrats in another special House election Tuesday, in northern Nevada, where — with almost 10 percent of the districts reporting — Republican Mark Amodei led Democrat Kate Marshall, 56 percent to 39 percent.
In both contests, the GOP pulled ahead by linking the Democratic candidate to Obama and his handling of the economy. Both Republican contenders urged voters to “send a message” to the president.
In the two weeks leading up to Tuesday’s elections, Democrats conceded that they could not win in Nevada — essentially a Republican seat reverting to form after some competitive races by Democrats, including Obama in 2008.
New York was a different story. National Democrats poured more than $500,000 into a last-ditch effort to save the seat and deployed former president Bill Clinton and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) to try to mobilize voters.
All those big guns and big money, and fake robocalls claiming that Jews for Jesus supported Turner, and the Democrats still lost.
IN NEW YORK CITY!
As the song goes:
If I can make it there,
I’d make it anywhere
Come on, come through,
New York, New York.
On the other hand, if you see a liberal spinning this, trying to convince you that this is not a real sign of trouble…
Let them talk. Seriously, let them. Let them fool themselves. Just like they rationalized away Scott Brown’s victory. Let them. I would rather they believe that this is not the bellwether that it is.
[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]