Thanks for helping to make Owens an entrenched incumbent.

Do come back in 2012.

Ad hoc, ad loc and quid pro quo!
So little time, so much to know!

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by: LookingOver @ Thu Sep 23, 2010 at 18:58:19 PM UTC

Safe D

Have fun in Congress, Mr. Owens.

20, CD MA-03/NH-01/MA-08

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by: MassGOP @ Thu Sep 23, 2010 at 19:01:09 PM UTC

Gifts that keep on giving

Doug Hoffman, Christine Odonnell, Tom Tancredo, Sharron Angle, Mike Sodrel, who else am I missing here?  These guys (and ladies) are keeping seats blue.  

Likely D this one goes to next update methinks.

23, Male, Democrat, OH-13

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by: StephenCLE @ Thu Sep 23, 2010 at 19:01:48 PM UTC

I'd rather wait for the Siena poll on this first.

Ad hoc, ad loc and quid pro quo!
So little time, so much to know!

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by: LookingOver @ Thu Sep 23, 2010 at 19:07:36 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

People may not agree with me

but I don't think Owens will need to win with a plurality, I really don't, not in an ordinary election with general election turnout.

The reason I say this is because I think the special election was a turning point and a realignment. St. Lawrence, Franklin and Clinton counties were already reliably Democratic on a Presidential level and continually getting more so, but now I feel they are reliably Democratic on a local level as well, which will definitely help Daniel Aubertine get reelected this year. My sense was that following the undercutting of Scozzafava's campaign, a large number of moderate to liberal Republicans just said fuck this and realigned with the Democrats, which if my view is right, means that Jefferson county effectively switched from Republican leaning to Democratic leaning. Combined with Lawrence, Franklin, and Clinton, which are on their way to Vermont territory, it creates a reliable base for any Democrat running for congress there, and hopefully turns a formerly Republican area reliably Democratic in statewide races.

Regardless of what Ryan says, NY DOES not want to vote Republican. The state is more liberal than its ever been, and this is true even in an election with low turnout among minorities and young voters. Upstate areas that used to be reliably gettable for Republicans in tough elections aren't anymore; Monroe, Onondaga, Orange, Dutchess, these are all increasingly hard for Republicans to win, and Westchest and Nassau are more difficult as well, beyond what happened in recent local elections where extremely low turnout among Democrats killed a variety of prominent Dems, including, thankfully, Tom Suozzi, (what he gets for not running against Peter King in 2008).  

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by: jwaalk @ Thu Sep 23, 2010 at 19:14:23 PM UTC

Pardon my assumptions

but I'm just guessing you aren't actually from NY and are making these statements based on numbers you are seeing from the 2 Bush elections and '06 and '08, which makes sense. I would totally disagree that the state is "more liberal than ever" it recently has voted more Democratic than ever, but I think there's other reasons for that... NY is/was not Bush/Christian right conservative receptive and the fact that Bush has left office and is now a mere memory, combined with the GOP's new focus on fiscal issues, will bring a lot of these areas, especially Upstate and on LI, where taxes are a HUGE issue, back towards the GOP fold. The Democrats being in control of the utter mess that is Albany doesn't help matters either.

True, upstate counties voted heavily for Obama in '08. This was because a) the NYS GOP is awful, and b) the state was obvioulsy written off by the McCain campaign, so what incentive did people have to go vote GOP? I definitely think Upstate, LI and the suburbs will shift back towards the GOP, as the traditionally have. There hasn't been some giant shift towards the Democrats, it was merely a reaction to Bush and the far right. Obviously dbags like Hoffman will help keep Owens in office, but I think if you run mainstream, sane GOP candidates like Hanna and Hayworth, you will see these areas return towards their roots.

I know a lot of people feel that the SUSA and Q polls are outliers or have something wrong w/ them, and I'm not saying Paladino and DioGuardi will win, but it will not be the blowout city that has been predicted. We will see if future polling confirms this or not. You can blame '09 results on low turnout if you'd like but I haven't seen anythign to suggest it will be different in '10 either.  

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by: UpstateNYer @ Thu Sep 23, 2010 at 19:49:09 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

You can also blame the '09 results on horrible candidate selection.

The NYGOP could not have bungled the selection process any worse if they had tried. First, there was neither a primary or convention but a meeting of county chairs, which meant 13 people were responsible for deciding who would represent the thousands of Republicans in the district. Then, there was a civil war between a terrible, too-liberal candidate, and a terrible, out-of-district, too-Glenn Beck candidate. Owens was the beneficiary of this giant mess.


20, CD MA-03/NH-01/MA-08

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by: MassGOP @ Thu Sep 23, 2010 at 20:14:27 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Not valid because the Dems used the same process, both in NY-23 and NY-20......

Owens and Murphy both were handpicked by county-level party officials.  And no one raised a stink.  And Democrats and Democrat-leaners united in voting for them, and they won.

The "candidate selection problem" is that the Republican rank-and-file have become a bunch of extremist whack jobs who won't accept ideological deviance.

Democrats, meanwhile, remain a big tent.

The problem is Republican voters, not the selection process.  You'd have a Senate seat in Delaware come January if only the DE GOP could've used the same candidate selection process used in the NY-23 special, instead of a primary.

43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

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by: DCCyclone @ Thu Sep 23, 2010 at 21:31:55 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Meh..

I'll give you part of that in that it's not the process itself that's the problem, but that the GOP county chairs picked a candidate that was horribly out of tune with the district's Republican voters. The Dem county chairs, in picking Owens and Murphy, nominated candidates that were right in line with local Democrats' views. The problem in NY-23 wasn't the voters, it was a dumb decision by the party bosses.

And despite O'Donnell, I'm all for primaries as opposed to conventions/county chair caucuses. Let the people have who they want on the ballot, and if they screw up like they did in Delaware, let them know that it was their fault we lost the race, and hopefully they learn not to do it again.  

20, CD MA-03/NH-01/MA-08

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by: MassGOP @ Thu Sep 23, 2010 at 21:42:01 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Scozzafava

was fairly in line with most Republican voters in NY-23. Consider that some 53% of registered voters in that district are Republicans, and Obama still got 52% there, and you get an idea of how moderated the Republican voters are there. They needed a candidate moderate enough to appeal to the liberal wing of the Republican party there, and conservative enough to appeal to more right leaning Republicans. On paper Scozzafava was that candidate; her liberality has been much overstated by teabaggers. Indeed outside of gay marriage and abortion Scozzafava was a fairly good Republican on tax issues, business issues, with a moderately environmentalist streak at times. In a word, she was a good fit in general for the districts large Republican party, (by registration), and a good fit for the district as a whole. She wasn't much different than Sherwood Boehlert, or Amo Houghton, or Jack Quinn. I'm tired of hearing this argument from you conservatives that Scozzafava was somehow a radically progressive choice for upstate Republicans or outside the norms.  

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by: jwaalk @ Thu Sep 23, 2010 at 22:02:42 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I think EFCA is sort of a "litmus test"

The GOP has never been a pro-union party, and while conservatives may have been mildly turned off by her views on marriage, it was her openness to EFCA that did her in. She also wouldn't rule out voting for the HCR bill, which was even more toxic with even moderate Republicans then than it is now.

There's room in the GOP for social moderates, but fiscally liberal candidates are a poor fit even in NY-23.

20, CD MA-03/NH-01/MA-08

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by: MassGOP @ Thu Sep 23, 2010 at 22:14:12 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

The HCR Bill

wasn't toxic among ordinary moderates until HCO's poured huge amounts of money into misrepresenting it in a massive ad campaign, and Republicans coordinated together to help them. The fact is that in situations where you explain to voters what is in the bill, and what these individual pieces do, including how it decreases the deficit, support is very strong among moderates and liberals.

I maintain that Sherwood Boehlert would have been open to HCR, as would most moderate Republicans before they radicalized their party. Amo Houghton would have voted for it, and Jack Quinn likely would have too. If you thought Scozzafava had close ties to labor...look at him. Someone did calculations and they found that on the whole her labor voting record wasn't particularly moderate; only an occasional bone she would throw them.

Anyway, I'm fine about how things turned out; I think NY-23 is well on the way going the way of MA-01 and Vermont. The process was just accelerated and many of the last mental roadblocks keeping many moderate to liberal Republicans living in St. Lawrence and Watertown were stripped away.  

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by: jwaalk @ Thu Sep 23, 2010 at 22:26:11 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

If you were correct then we'd have Congresswoman Scozzafava

And special elections bring out the hardcore voters who tend to be more partisan

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by: Andrew @ Thu Sep 23, 2010 at 22:26:39 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I don't think anyone has

denied we would have had a congresswoman Scozzafava. The only reason Hoffman had so much success was the lower tier, gerrymandered to pick up a lot of hardcore conservative rural areas in Hamilton, Lewis, Oneida, and Herikimer.  

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by: jwaalk @ Thu Sep 23, 2010 at 22:30:18 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I think you are totally off

I haven't gotten the impression in upstate New York that taxes are a huge issue. In more suburban, GOP areas like Nassau and Suffolk and Dutchess and Orange and even Westchester to a more limited degree, yes I have gotten that impression somewhat, but not from upstate New York. In fact NY-23 I think is a specific counter example; a district whose economy is strongly influenced by government spending, a district with sane views on government spending and taxes because of this. What's more you have in NY-23, a culturally moderate to liberal district very open and tolerant on social issues, and very environmentally conscious as well. Basically the epitome of a classic, 1970s moderate Yankee Republican District. Such a thing doesn't exist any more.

The problems with your argument is that Kerry was making gains over Gore's totals in upstate New York along the Hudson River Valley and in areas like Jefferson and St. Lawrence over to Clinton, back in 2004, when New York wasn't totally written off by the GOP and even while he was losing ground to Gore overall statewide. For the first time in living memory, and in some places, ever, there is now a strong, invigorated, and well-organized Democratic party apparatus forming and growing, buoyed by new successes.

The other problems I see with that assumption is that when I've seen polls of New Yorkers on almost every question they are strongly in the Democratic camp, not just the Democratic camp, but the liberal camp in general. They've been making gradual gains in the upstate areas and the suburbs since 1996. Like I've been telling Ryan, a decade and half of hard fought gains are not being tossed out in one frustrated election. These voters didn't give Democrats authority over Washington for the first time in two decades, and after two years decide that every Democratic policy was inevitably a failure and decide to go back to Republicans. This is a blip in the realignment, but it was one that will happen anyway. The far right isn't going anywhere, and in moderate, upscale suburbs in the north, voters, particularly younger voters, are getting more liberal all the time, not only on social issues, but also on economic issues where for once they are seeing through the illusion that Republican economic policies create more jobs, (I mean fuck, more jobs were created under Carter's Presidency than Reagan's, bet you didn't know that).

The biggest problem with that assessment is, I think, that you talk about Hanna and Hayworth as if they are well ahead and in great position. To get it straight we have had one independent poll and one partisan poll both show Hanna down by high single digits, and one public poll show Hayworth up within the margin of error and effectively tied with John Hall. So it's hardly time to go counting chickens in those districts, particularly since Hall is the more experienced campaigner and overperformed pre-election day polls in the past. And while I'd like to see a few polls of NY-01 before I make of my mind there, I think Bishop is also ahead and will narrowly hold on, due to the negative and expensive Republican primary.

The fact is it wasn't just Obama, the upstate counties have started going heavily Democratic on almost every single level, all the major ones at least. Monroe and Onondaga are the big examples of this.

In my mind the only place where Democrats are, in the long run, losing ground in New York is among lower class blue collar white voters in the NYC area.

And no, I don't like in NY, but I follow extremely closely as it's sort of my centerpiece for modeling the political orientation of the northeast, which is, according to what I observed, going the way of western European countries, which is to say acceptance of basic Keynesian principles, rejecting monetarist and Austrian economics, rejecting the insertion of faith into politics, and the embrace of moderate minded pragmatism within that framework. I study demographic trends immensely there, keep tabs on tons of news, and follow its politics with enormous discussion. I talk to local reporters and editors, keep eyes on the discussion boards for local upstate papers, and talk to bloggers on the ground there. I'm afraid I have to disagree with your assessment.  

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by: jwaalk @ Thu Sep 23, 2010 at 20:27:45 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Don't trust . . .

the Siena numbers.  I believe that they are still using a registered voter model.  That may have made Arcuri appear artificially strong in his race against Hanna.  

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by: kewgardens @ Thu Sep 23, 2010 at 21:24:23 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

They used LV for the house races

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by: Davidsfr @ Thu Sep 23, 2010 at 21:38:15 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

So, I have a friend who worked for hoffman during the primary

My friend is from the Dallas area and I met him at college in North Texas. Somehow, he got picked up by Hoffman and went to NY-23.

Two weeks before the election I asked him how things were going, he kept telling me they were in the driver's seat and were going to blow it out. I told him I didn't think so, Doheny looked like the favorite to win. He told me I was wrong and they had the grass roots support, and no one liked Owens so the general was locked.

Two days before I checked in again, he projected they were going to win all but maybe one county based on the numbers he had seen.

Then the primary hit, I sent him a message telling him I was sorry he lost (bout midnight their time). His response was it wasn't over, still more votes to count, despite me telling him the AP had called it. Few days later I spoke on Hoffman continuing as the conservative party nom, to which he flat out said how Hoffman was not so selfish and egotistical to do that, he was a much more low profile kind person. He was just not conceding until all the absentees were counted.

My friend, it seems, does not know what kind of campaign he got sucked into.

26, Male, Democrat, TX-26

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by: trowaman @ Thu Sep 23, 2010 at 19:18:14 PM UTC

That's truly bizarre. Is your friend in delusional denial, or is it that the entire Hoffman campaign crew were like that?......

That's just an astounding level of denial.  By the time the AP called the primary a normal person would be dejected and disillusioned, no longer in denial.

43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

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by: DCCyclone @ Thu Sep 23, 2010 at 19:28:19 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

FWIW, my friend left after the primary

Kept saying how he wanted to get back to Texas. Missed his Shiner beer, I guess (which I can't blame him on)

26, Male, Democrat, TX-26

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by: trowaman @ Thu Sep 23, 2010 at 19:41:23 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Nate Silver being humorous:

'If Paladino's momentum continues at current rates he will have a 117 point lead on election day'.  

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by: jwaalk @ Thu Sep 23, 2010 at 22:07:08 PM UTC