GOP wins a seat that had been held by a Dem since it was created 90 years ago. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-09-13-19-34-18
For Democrats, It’s 2010 All Over Again http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/ There are good reasons to think that local issues may have loomed especially large in New York’s 9th Congressional District, where the Republican Bob Turner won on Tuesday. President Obama had significantly underperformed his Democratic predecessors in the district in 2008, and the large split in voting between the Brooklyn and Queens portions of the district — the Brooklyn parts are more heavily Jewish — implies that Israel-related issues may have played a role. Still, even if those issues played a role, even if they swung the result, the Democrat David Weprin would likely have performed better had the national environment been stronger for his party. And when paired with the results in Nevada’s Second Congressional District, where the Democrat Kate Marshall was blown out on Tuesday, the special election scorecard is starting to look pretty ominous for Democrats. ... One crude way to forecast the results you might expect to see out of a House race is through its Partisan Voting Index, or P.V.I., a measure of how the district voted relative to others in the past two presidential elections. The Nevada Second, for instance, has a P.V.I. of Republican plus-5, meaning that the Republican candidate would be expected to perform 5 points better there than a Republican might nationally. Since a vote for the Republican is (usually) a vote against the Democrat, you need to double that number to project the margin of victory. In this case, that would imply a Republican win by 10 points given average candidates and a neutral overall political environment. The Republican Mark Amodei, however, leads by 22 points as of this writing, an easy victory, meaning that he overperformed the P.V.I. by 12 points. Meanwhile, Mr. Turner’s winning margin in the New York district, 8 percentage points as of this writing, represents a 18-point G.O.P. swing from the P.V.I.-projected results. ... In other words, the four special elections, taken as a whole, suggest that Democrats may still be locked in a 2010-type political environment. Democrats might not lose many more seats in the House if that were the case, since most of their vulnerable targets have already been picked off, but it would limit their potential for any gains. And it could produce dire results for the Democrats in the U.S. Senate, where they have twice as many seats up for re-election.
OK, I'll give that one a 6.5. The Congressional dems are going to have to really cut ties with Obama if they want to hope to stay in office. It'll be interesting how the democrats up for reelection deal with Obama. Not many dems will want him around as he will probably drive down their chances. That, in return, might make Obama look more isolated and vulnerable to independent voters. This could be another brutal election for the dems.
Just one more election (along with the one in Nevada) that has gone the Republicans' way since Obama was elected. Anybody see a trend here? The American people are apparently coming to their senses . . .
Until they vote Democrat, at which point they'll have lost their senses again. I do see a trend here...you think Americans are great people until they don't vote for your party.
I think that it's anti-incumbency as much as (and perhaps MORE than) anti-Obama. Obama hasn't done himself any favors, IMO, with how he's treated Israel, but I'm not convinced that he's more of a negative than most candidates at the Congressional level. Ed O.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/14/opinion/carville-white-house-advice/index.html?hpt=po_t2 By James Carville, CNN Contributor (CNN) -- People often ask me what advice I would give the White House about various things. Today I was mulling over election results from New York and Nevada while thinking about that very question. What should the White House do now? One word came to mind: Panic. We are far past sending out talking points. Do not attempt to dumb it down. We cannot stand any more explanations. Have you talked to any Democratic senators lately? I have. It's pretty damn clear they are not happy campers. This is what I would say to President Barack Obama: The time has come to demand a plan of action that requires a complete change from the direction you are headed. ... As I watch the Republican debates, I realize that we are on the brink of a crazy person running our nation. I sit in front of the television and shudder at the thought of one of these creationism-loving, global-warming-denying, immigration-bashing, Social-Security-cutting, clean-air-hating, mortality-fascinated, Wall-Street-protecting Republicans running my country. The course we are on is not working. The hour is late, and the need is great. Fire. Indict. Fight.
I believe that NY-9 wants to change how things are working in Congress. They did that by going a different direction. Ed O.
Check out the 11/2010 incumbent results on a D vs. R comparison. It isn't even close. If there was an anti-incumbency effect, one would think the ratio of Dem losses versus GOP losses would be somewhat similar. It wasn't. Your "anti-incumbency" theory doesn't hold up to the actual facts from 2010, and it's irrelevant to these two special elections, in which no incumbent was running. Also, the Dem ran on a "different direction" platform. He didn't have Obama campaign for him, while Weiner was one of Obama's primary attack dogs in Congress. Hell, the guy who won is the guy who gave Rush Limbaugh a TV gig in the '90s. That's quite a "different direction", isn't it?
I don't know what country's politics you are watching, but here in America, the Republicans have been taking almost every significant election since Obama came to office. There is clearly a backlash against big government, and it seems to be growing stronger all the time, as people see the results of Obama's policies . . .
I wasn't aware that I was making a statement about 2010. Can you link to where I said that? And, again: it's not necessary to have an incumbent to want to "throw the bums out". I think that that general sentiment impacted the NY-9 race at least as much as antipathy towards Obama. Ed O.
