Dems pick up deep red NY-26

[AZGrizFan]

Well, that's an interesting theory. How come 98% of the campaign advertising goes directly against your theory then?

Edit: And if "defeating an incumbent" is so goddamned difficult, how come it's happened in 2 of the past 5 presidential elections where there was an incumbent running?

1. defeating an incumbent is hard as shit... look at Congress. in 2010, a "wave" year 70 some seats out of 435 changed hands.
2. in the case of the Presidency let's take a look at the last 100 years:
1912: Incumbent TR loses (however he is running as an independent having originally declined to run... splitting the GOP between he and Taft - an outlier if there ever was one)
1916: Woodrow Wilson Re-elected over C.E. Hughes
1920: Harding wins an open-seat election
1924: Coolidge (having succeeded Harding) crushes Davis
1928: Hoover wins an open-seat election in a massive landslide
1932: FDR trounces Hoover - promising massive reforms (if ever there was a challenger people were voting FOR this is it)
1936-1944: FDR rolls over a succession of "I'm not FDR" challengers
1948: Truman (have succeeded FDR) holds of "I'm not Truman" candidate Tom Dewey
1952: Ike beats Stevenson in open seat
1956: Ike does it again - Stevenson falls clearly in to "I'm not Ike" category
1960: JFK wins open seat
1964: Johnson CRUSHES Goldwater - debate can be had about whether he's an "I'm not LBJ" candidate
1968: Nixon wins open seat
1972: Nixon buries McGovern an "I'm not Nixon" guy
1976: Carter beats Ford - this is the ONLY election I can think of in the past 100 years where, by simple virtue of being "not Ford" is that enough (and it took the pardoning of Nixon to do it)
1980: Reagan wallops Carter - I'm no fan of Reagan - but he clearly did not run on "I'm not Carter"
1984: Reagan routs Mondale - the consummate "I'm not him" guy.
1988: Bush wins open seat
1992: Clinton beats Bush - Clinton surprises many by emerging as a candidate people want to vote FOR.
1996: Clinton downs Dole - clearly running as "I'm not Clinton"
2000: Bush edges Gore in an open seat
2004: Bush beats Kerry - clearly running as "I'm not Bush"
2008: Obama beats McCain in an open seat

A tally:
25 elections
8 are open seat races - leaving 17 with an incumbent facing a challenger of these:
12 are won by incumbents
5 are won by challengers of these:
4 are won by candidates with strong appeal candidates voters are voting "for"
1 is won by somebody who just showed up and wasn't Gerald Ford (who was subsequently THRASHED in the next election by a challenger voters were voting "for")

5 challengers have won in 25 elections - that's 20% (while better than Congress - it's not terribly impressive)
1 of those fits the "i'm not so and so" criteria - that's 5%...

I'm gona go out on Cappy's limb here and assume that our country has changed JUUUUUST a little bit since Woodrow Wilson's relection. 2 of the last 5. It's a brave new world, TTBF. Better get on board or get swept out to sea with the rest of the donks whose heads are stuck in 2008.

[TwinTownBisonFan]

1. defeating an incumbent is hard as shit... look at Congress. in 2010, a "wave" year 70 some seats out of 435 changed hands.
2. in the case of the Presidency let's take a look at the last 100 years:
1912: Incumbent TR loses (however he is running as an independent having originally declined to run... splitting the GOP between he and Taft - an outlier if there ever was one)
1916: Woodrow Wilson Re-elected over C.E. Hughes
1920: Harding wins an open-seat election
1924: Coolidge (having succeeded Harding) crushes Davis
1928: Hoover wins an open-seat election in a massive landslide
1932: FDR trounces Hoover - promising massive reforms (if ever there was a challenger people were voting FOR this is it)
1936-1944: FDR rolls over a succession of "I'm not FDR" challengers
1948: Truman (have succeeded FDR) holds of "I'm not Truman" candidate Tom Dewey
1952: Ike beats Stevenson in open seat
1956: Ike does it again - Stevenson falls clearly in to "I'm not Ike" category
1960: JFK wins open seat
1964: Johnson CRUSHES Goldwater - debate can be had about whether he's an "I'm not LBJ" candidate
1968: Nixon wins open seat
1972: Nixon buries McGovern an "I'm not Nixon" guy
1976: Carter beats Ford - this is the ONLY election I can think of in the past 100 years where, by simple virtue of being "not Ford" is that enough (and it took the pardoning of Nixon to do it)
1980: Reagan wallops Carter - I'm no fan of Reagan - but he clearly did not run on "I'm not Carter"
1984: Reagan routs Mondale - the consummate "I'm not him" guy.
1988: Bush wins open seat
1992: Clinton beats Bush - Clinton surprises many by emerging as a candidate people want to vote FOR.
1996: Clinton downs Dole - clearly running as "I'm not Clinton"
2000: Bush edges Gore in an open seat
2004: Bush beats Kerry - clearly running as "I'm not Bush"
2008: Obama beats McCain in an open seat

A tally:
25 elections
8 are open seat races - leaving 17 with an incumbent facing a challenger of these:
12 are won by incumbents
5 are won by challengers of these:
4 are won by candidates with strong appeal candidates voters are voting "for"
1 is won by somebody who just showed up and wasn't Gerald Ford (who was subsequently THRASHED in the next election by a challenger voters were voting "for")

5 challengers have won in 25 elections - that's 20% (while better than Congress - it's not terribly impressive)
1 of those fits the "i'm not so and so" criteria - that's 5%...

I'm gona go out on Cappy's limb here and assume that our country has changed JUUUUUST a little bit since Woodrow Wilson's relection. 2 of the last 5. It's a brave new world, TTBF. Better get on board or get swept out to sea with the rest of the donks whose heads are stuck in 2008.

It's funny - I'm saying the same thing about conks - who seem to think it's still 2010... given the sharp decline in the popularity of your tea-party governors, combined with this reversal, you'd think you guys were starting to figure out the country is moving away from you again... but hey... please don't go changing your thinking on my account...

[AZGrizFan]

I'm gona go out on Cappy's limb here and assume that our country has changed JUUUUUST a little bit since Woodrow Wilson's relection. 2 of the last 5. It's a brave new world, TTBF. Better get on board or get swept out to sea with the rest of the donks whose heads are stuck in 2008.

It's funny - I'm saying the same thing about conks - who seem to think it's still 2010... given the sharp decline in the popularity of your tea-party governors, combined with this reversal, you'd think you guys were starting to figure out the country is moving away from you again... but hey... please don't go changing your thinking on my account...

Super. JSO hit it on the head when he stated that as soon as you start messing with the entitlement mentality in this country, everyone gets up in arms, and that will ultimately be the death of the country. Obama may very well win again in 2012, but it won't be the cakewalk it was in 2008...and if he DOES win and has 4 MORE years to drive this country into the ground, you may not have another donk president in my lifetime...and while it may appear the country is "moving away" from the financially conservative bloc, I guess the proof will be in the pudding. I'm willing to wait and watch things continue to collapse down around our ears over the next 16 months and watch whose lever gets pulled in November 2012.

You do realize Bin Laden's been killed, right? There's no more Bin Ladens to hang his hat on...

[BDKJMU]

Why the Republican Lost in NY-26
The Ryan Medicare plan needs a clearer and more populist defense.

"................................................................................................................................................Most, but not all, of this is wishful thinking. Ms. Hochul won a plurality (47%) of the votes, not a majority, getting only one percentage point more than Barack Obama as he was losing the district in 2008. Not exactly a compelling performance.

Democrats won only because a third-party candidate—self-proclaimed tea partier Jack Davis—spent a reported $3 million of his own money. Absent Mr. Davis as a spoiler—he got 9% of the vote—Democrats would never have made a serious bid for this district, nor won if they did. Ironically, Mr. Davis ran for the same seat in the last three elections as a Democrat. This year he ran as a populist conservative.

Still the question remains: Did the Medicare reforms proposed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan and supported by Ms. Corwin play a role in the outcome? The answer is yes, though not with the blunt force and trauma some Democrats are claiming.

Polling by American Crossroads (an independent expenditure group with which I'm associated) showed that while Ms. Hochul's Medicare attacks galvanized Democrats, they swayed few independents. Among voters who had an unfavorable view of Ms. Corwin, just 20% focused on Medicare, with most Democrats already voting for Ms. Hochul.

A larger percentage of those voters with an unfavorable opinion of Ms. Corwin's campaign—26%—were concerned about an ugly on-camera incident involving her chief of staff yelling at Mr. Davis in a parking lot. These voters felt Mr. Davis was being unfairly harassed. The defection of these overwhelmingly Republican and independent voters doomed Ms. Corwin.

That's not to say Medicare didn't play an important role. Ms. Hochul pummeled Ms. Corwin over it. The GOP candidate did not respond with TV ads until the campaign's closing week, and only then with an ad many voters thought lacked credibility. It alleged Ms. Hochul had endorsed Medicare and Social Security cuts that she claimed she had not.

An earlier, more aggressive explanation and defense of the Ryan plan would have turned the issue: 55% in the Crossroads survey agreed with GOP arguments for the Ryan reforms while just 36% agreed with the Democrats' arguments against it.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... on_LEADTop" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So there you have it in a nutshell:
-3rd party candidate running as a tea partier that took 9% mostly R votes
-Republican chief of staff on camera harrassing said 3rd party candidate
-Republican candidate failing to adequately defend against attacks on Ryan's plan & failing to articulate the merits of it, a plan that the majority of those in the district supported.

After all of this and the Donk only gets 47% of the vote, 1% more than Obama got. And yet you have donks claiming this is some sort of bellweather.

[TwinTownBisonFan]

Why the Republican Lost in NY-26
The Ryan Medicare plan needs a clearer and more populist defense.

"................................................................................................................................................Most, but not all, of this is wishful thinking. Ms. Hochul won a plurality (47%) of the votes, not a majority, getting only one percentage point more than Barack Obama as he was losing the district in 2008. Not exactly a compelling performance.

Democrats won only because a third-party candidate—self-proclaimed tea partier Jack Davis—spent a reported $3 million of his own money. Absent Mr. Davis as a spoiler—he got 9% of the vote—Democrats would never have made a serious bid for this district, nor won if they did. Ironically, Mr. Davis ran for the same seat in the last three elections as a Democrat. This year he ran as a populist conservative.

Still the question remains: Did the Medicare reforms proposed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan and supported by Ms. Corwin play a role in the outcome? The answer is yes, though not with the blunt force and trauma some Democrats are claiming.

Polling by American Crossroads (an independent expenditure group with which I'm associated) showed that while Ms. Hochul's Medicare attacks galvanized Democrats, they swayed few independents. Among voters who had an unfavorable view of Ms. Corwin, just 20% focused on Medicare, with most Democrats already voting for Ms. Hochul.

A larger percentage of those voters with an unfavorable opinion of Ms. Corwin's campaign—26%—were concerned about an ugly on-camera incident involving her chief of staff yelling at Mr. Davis in a parking lot. These voters felt Mr. Davis was being unfairly harassed. The defection of these overwhelmingly Republican and independent voters doomed Ms. Corwin.

That's not to say Medicare didn't play an important role. Ms. Hochul pummeled Ms. Corwin over it. The GOP candidate did not respond with TV ads until the campaign's closing week, and only then with an ad many voters thought lacked credibility. It alleged Ms. Hochul had endorsed Medicare and Social Security cuts that she claimed she had not.

An earlier, more aggressive explanation and defense of the Ryan plan would have turned the issue: 55% in the Crossroads survey agreed with GOP arguments for the Ryan reforms while just 36% agreed with the Democrats' arguments against it.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... on_LEADTop" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So there you have it in a nutshell:
-3rd party candidate running as a tea partier that took 9% mostly R votes
-Republican chief of staff on camera threatening said 3rd party candidate
-Republican candidate failing to adequately defend against attacks on Ryan's plan & failing to articulate the merits of it, a plan that the majority of those in the district supported

After all of this and the Donk only gets 47% of the vote, 1% more than Obama got. This isn't really news worthy

Except that the district is R+6 - which means the GOP should win 56-44. She outperformed DPI by 4%. THAT is what should be concerning conks - the GOP hangs it's majority on a LOT of seats less conservative than this.

[AZGrizFan]

-3rd party candidate running as a tea partier that took 9% mostly R votes

Except that the district is R+6 - which means the GOP should win 56-44. She outperformed DPI by 4%. THAT is what should be concerning conks - the GOP hangs it's majority on a LOT of seats less conservative than this.

Isn't it obvious, TTBF?

[TwinTownBisonFan]

Except that the district is R+6 - which means the GOP should win 56-44. She outperformed DPI by 4%. THAT is what should be concerning conks - the GOP hangs it's majority on a LOT of seats less conservative than this.

Isn't it obvious, TTBF?

yes - without the tea party candidate the GOP would have won a seat they should have won by 1% that it should have won by 6%...

the margin matters.

[BDKJMU]

Isn't it obvious, TTBF?

yes - without the tea party candidate the GOP would have won a seat they should have won by 1% that it should have won by 6%...

the margin matters.

The donk candidate won 47-43. Without the 9% going to the guy claiming to be the tea party candidate, most of which would have gone to the conk, the donk would have lost by a lot more than 1%.

[AZGrizFan]

yes - without the tea party candidate the GOP would have won a seat they should have won by 1% that it should have won by 6%...

the margin matters.

The donk candidate won 47-43. Without the 9% going to the guy claiming to be the tea party candidate, most of which would have gone to the conk, the donk would have lost by a lot more than 1%.

I give up. TTBF is living proof donks don't understand math.

[Bronco]

Republican's had five defectors vote against the proposal to save not destroy Medicare.

Interesting that there was also a vote on Obama's budget proposal yesterday.

Also interesting that Bill Clinton warned Dems yesterday to do something about it before it's too late
So far only one side trying to save the program

--
February: Dems Fall All Over Themselves Praising Obama’s Budget Plan. Today: Same Budget Plan Fails in Senate 0-97 After Zero Dems Vote For it…


(Washington Examiner) – Zero Senate Democrats voted to move forward on President Obama’s 2012 budget proposal, and the motion to proceed on it failed by a unanimous 0-97 vote.

What this means is that thus far, no Senate Democrat has voted in favor of any budget plan.
As Guy Benson notes, this was the same Obama budget that Democrats effusively praised when it was released in

February:

SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV): “President Obama’s budget is a serious attempt…” (Sen. Reid, Press Release, 2/14/11)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): “This is a responsible proposal… I believe this approach should have bipartisan support.” (Sen. Schumer Press Release, 2/15/11)

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): “I am encouraged … I applaud the President for remaining committed to innovation…” (Sen. Coons, Press Release, 2/14/11)

SEN. TOM CARPER (D-DE): “The President’s budget is an important step forward…”(Sen. Carper, Press Release, 2/14/11)

SEN. MARIA CANTWELL (D-WA): “I applaud President Obama…” (Sen. Cantwell, Press Release, 2/14/11)

SEN. JEANNE SHAHEEN (D-NH): “…a responsible framework…”(Sen. Shaheen, Press Release, 2/14/11)

SEN. BILL NELSON (D-FL): “I personally think that the President’s budget is a step in the right direction.”(U.S. Senate, Finance Committee, Hearing, 2/16/11)

SEN. KENT CONRAD (D-ND): “The President’s budget gets it about right in the first year.”(Sen. Conrad, Press Release, 2/14/11)

SEN. BEN CARDIN (D-MD): “President Obama has given us a credible blueprint…” (Sen. Cardin, Press Release, 2/14/11)

SEN. KAY HAGAN (D-NC): “…a good start.” (Sen. Hagan, Press Release, 2/14/11)

SEN. HERB KOHL (D-WI): “The President’s budget is a good first step…” (Sen. Kohl, Press Release, 2/14/11)

SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND (D-NY): “… the President’s budget provides a good place to start the conversation.”(Sen. Gillibrand, Press Release, 2/14/11)

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): “…the President’s budget provides a good blueprint for achieving many of our shared goals.” (Sen. Blumenthal, Press Release, 2/14/11)

SEN. FRANK LAUTENBERG (D-NJ): “President Obama’s budget presents a careful evaluation of what our nation needs…” (Sen. Lautenberg Press Release, 2/14/11)

SEN. MAX BAUCUS (D-MT): “The President’s budget… strengthens our economy…” (U.S. Senate, Finance Committee, Hearing, 2/16/11)

SEN. SHERROD BROWN (D-OH): “The President’s budget proposal will put us on track…” (Sen. Brown, Press Release, 2/14/11)

SEN. AL FRANKEN (D-MN): “The President’s budget proposal is headed in the right direction…” (Sen. Franken, Press Release, 2/14/11)

SEN. TOM HARKIN (D-IA): “…the President has proposed a balanced approach…” (Sen. Harkin, Press Release, 2/14/11)

SEN. TOM UDALL (D-NM): “… it’s a solid starting point.” (Sen. Udall, Press Release, 2/14/11)

[AZGrizFan]

Sounds like they see their political lives flashing before their eyes should they go on record supporting that piece of crap (I mean the budget, not Obama...but draw your own conclusions).

[ODUsmitty]

I don't give a flying fuck about Obama's budget proposals. He is an idiot and a puppet of the Dem lIb machine.

I like Ryan's proposal, and support Herman Cain to steward it.

I just want the angry bitch in the grand palace that surrounds the DC's greatest watermelon patch to stop telling my kids that they need to eat more fucking broccoli in their school lunches. I hate that Ru Paul impersonator.

[houndawg]

I don't give a flying **** about Obama's budget proposals. He is an idiot and a puppet of the Dem lIb machine.

I like Ryan's proposal, and support Herman Cain to steward it.

I just want the angry bitch in the grand palace that surrounds the DC's greatest watermelon patch to stop telling my kids that they need to eat more **** broccoli in their school lunches. I hate that Ru Paul impersonator.

Hater's gotta hate.

[dbackjon]

Funny to see the right slobbering over a plan that increases the deficit, which Ryan's does

[Baldy]

Funny to see the right slobbering over a plan that increases the deficit, which Ryan's does

That Media Matters 'logic' goes in direct opposition to the demagoguery. If Ryan's plan 'destroys' Medicare like the moonbats say, then there is close to $1 Trillion saved right off the top, and untold Trillions in future obligations.

[AZGrizFan]

Funny to see the right slobbering over a plan that increases the deficit, which Ryan's does

baiters gonna bait...