It appears for the first time in a hundred years this New York District shall have a Democrat. On a good note it is likely we can get rid of him next year.
The number of votes the DEM got would appear to be shocking. Please go to the bottom of this page to see how GOP this district is by looking at past races. Please note HOW GOP it was in the 2006 and 2008 cycles that was a very anti Republican year.
So is this GOP district bucking what appears to be a huge GOP trend tonight because it likes the Democrats and Obama.
There is a lesson here and I don't think many conservatives want to hear it. That is to remember the Psychology of the voter. That has little to do with if the voter is liberal or Conservative or moderate. I understand the need for slash and burn politics but I think in this case it was handled badly.
Watching these results reminds me of the year I cut my political teeth as it were. It was the horrible election cycle where David Duke was running against Johnson for the Louisiana U.S. Senate race. It colored all the races and was the horrible elephant in the room. I was campaigning for a Judicial candidate and a three Parish race and I had to be wary of it.
A nice percentage of Duke's vote was what I call the "what the hell vote". They were tired of outsiders telling them what to do, they got tired of the attention, they got tired of it period. Yes it would go against their interest to vote for DUKE and make the State look like idiots but in the privacy of the voting booth they said basically "well I will show you".
I really wonder if the fact that so many for these GOP leaning voters went to the Democrat is because they resented Conservative groups making them ground zero in some war. The resentment of some GOP figures up there I suspect was intense. I suspect many people thought they were being used. Lets face it the conservative candidate up there was not too up on local issues as he admitted. Again the danger of trying to nationalize a race from afar.
In my viewpoint it would have been better to hold conservative fire and then get the liberal Republican out in a real primary that had real voters.
Now we need to take that district back
I generally agree with you. There are probably a lot of people up there having a good laugh over a cold beer tonight. Owens isn't going to do much damage in 12 months in Washington because it is almost time to start campaigning for 2010. By the time he finds his feet in the House, he will be back in NY campaigning again.
ReplyDeleteThe locals are probably chuckling at all the people everywhere else scratching their heads wondering where those polling numbers came from.
Yeah this was just a bad race altogehter. The Local GOP up there I thought put up a real bad person to run. THen the Conservative groups got involved.who I thinks main reason to target this race was to make bucks and expand their mailing list. After all is said and done I bet hardly none of the money all those emails were asking me for actually got to the Hoffmam campaign. It is such a scam.
ReplyDeleteAs I tell my conservative friends this is not rocket science. THey need to organzie efforts in that district to win party elections and such. It is really easy to do because no one shows for stuff like that.
If I had been in that District I would have voted for Hoffman but I think setting a precedent of demanding elected GOP folks to endorse the non GOP person is bad.
I mean the last thing I want down here is pro-choice Republicans or Libertarians playing a active role in trying to defeat a Republican Pro-lifer that was chosen by the voters. Again my issue was of tactics