Bellwether race in NY23 bad for Dems
Now Dems don’t want the bellwether they hoped for
Less than two weeks ago the left was revelling in the supposed chaos within the GOP in the special election in the 23 Congressional district.
The left’s answer to Glen Beck, 14 year old boy and star of the upcoming Peter Pan remake “Tinkerbell Dusts Wendy,” Rachel Maddow espoused the following on her Oct. 20 broadcast:
It will be news that will cheer the heart of the most pessimistic Democrat.
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For the country as a whole, these races are important to the extent that they are bellwethers, real world indicators of what‘s going on in American politics.
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This year, this New York district which hasn‘t elected a Democrat since the Civil War era looks awfully close to electing a Democrat in 2009, in large part because of a bare-knuckled, hair-pulling, knockdown drag out intra-party fight that has broken out over this race on the political right.
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Now, the local impact of this chaos on the right, the ultimate affect for the New York‘s 23rd district may very well be that the 23rd district of New York elects its first Democrat since around the time of the Civil War.
Then Rachel added in this little nugget:
… we‘ve been talking for the last year about how the Republicans are going to rebuild and whether or not they‘re going to be able to sort out amongst themselves whether or not the way forward is through moderation and trying to appear more centrist, or whether they‘re going to go into a sort of death spiral of ideological purism. And we‘re—it‘s no longer theoretical, we‘re actually seeing it happen right here.
Well Rachel, not only do you do lack an understanding of fashion, your skills for political prognostication also leave much to be desired.
Various polls in NY23 (please also make note to your webmaster that you do not need the superfluous rd after the 23, also deficiencies in Ms. Maddow’s grammar) show Conservative party candidate Doug Hoffman leading by anywhere from 5 to 18 points in the race.
Following Scozzafava’s endorsement of the Dem candidate the Republican position on the national stage after a Hoffman win would be even stronger driven by a “See I told so” mantra permanently shifting the GOP’s focus firmly to the right for upcoming elections.
Obama supporters especially will try to downplay the importance of the election, and others races across the country leaning to the right, as simply reflections of local preferences in those districts rather than a measure of voters satisfaction with the President.
One again, though, I go back to Maddow:
Common political wisdom is that the first round of elections in the new president‘s first year are a referendum on that president.
I note this because the 23 which has become so bright red actually voted overwhelmingly for Obama over McCain in the recent pres election. How quickly the tides have turned.
