It looks like the tea bagger lost in NY-23. And you know what happened in the other two races.
There’s not much of a lesson to be learned from a bunch of low turn-out races in an odd year. But if you didn’t already know that running to the center in a state your party lost last time (I’m referring to McDonnell in VA) is smart and running to the far right in a swing district (NY-23) is dumb, this is more evidence.
There was a period under Bush where it became accepted wisdom that Bush had “won the center by moving to the right” (this is pretty close to a verbatim quote from Howard Fineman). I think that era is over.
Update. I am now putting all posts in the category “Good News For Conservatives”, btw.
Update update. Also consider this a late-night open thread.
asiangrrlMN
Man. That makes me happier than it has any right to do, given that I don’t live in New York.
But, it still looks like good news for conservatives!
asiangrrlMN
And for Gramps McCain.
Can we pleez haz late-night open thread?
kthxbai.
General Winfield Stuck
Suck on this Dick, Armey.
Geeno
Bring on the popcorn
All NY-23 showed is the divisions in the GOP, but the teabaggers still say “it’s cuz of that turncoat Scozza-whatever”.
They’ll keep pressing on.
Geeno
I think the last a democrat won in Watertown they beat a Whig.
Zam
Well at least I have something to say when my tea bagging friend demands I disavow Obama tomorrow.
burnspbesq
113K votes cast. In a special election. In what is (apologies to those who live there) the outskirts of East Nowhere.
Wow.
And the right guy appears to be winning.
Pluswow.
P.S. I am an Upstater by birth (Albany), ancestry (Albany on one side and Whitehall on the other), and college degree (Union), so I am allowed to rag on my fellow upstaters.
Lavocat
Don’t jinx NY-23. It has yet to be called by anyone. But I hope togod Owens wins this. I feel like Flounder, in Animal House: “Oh boy, this is gonna be GREAT!”
Dreggas
Dragonage…all i can say is Fuck yeah
eemom
I live in Virginia. Will no one weep for me?
Matthew Hooper
Wow. And what makes me howl with laughter is that you just know that the teabaggers are going to follow up this humiliation with the “Clap Louder!” strategy.
Anya
If Owen wins should we thank the Wasilla nut for the win?
I guess this makes it 2 to 4 for our side. The Rs win two governor seats and we win two congressional seats, CA and NY.
Chad S
I feel for Mark Kirk, Charlie Crist, Bob Bennett and any other republican office holder who isn’t ideologically pure. The NY-23 loss(assuming Owens wins) is just going to drive the wingnuts even crazier.
The only lessons I can divine from these elections are:
1-If you’re a Dem in a blue/purple state, run as a Dem. Run as an Obama Dem since he’s more popular than any other political figure in your state including you.
2-Incumbent governors should polish up their resumes if the economy is still struggling in a year.
3-Beck, Palin and the wingnut rookery don’t have as much power as they think they do, nor are they listened to by as many people as they think they are.
4-Voters care about the economy. Nothing else. Not healthcare, not Afghanistan, not Iraq, not socialism, not GM, etc etc etc.
Geeno
I weep for you eemom.
Of course, if the democrat hadn’t spent the whole election running away from his own party, he might have won.
Gus
Nice link from Sully here
burnspbesq
@eemom:
No weeping, but I can probably come up with a hug for ya.
Best line of the day: “The biggest mistake Creigh Deeds made in his campaign was to be himself.”
If that’s the best the Democratic Party can come up with, well …
Comrade Darkness
Anyone laying odds on how long Hoffman sues to avoid having the results certified? I’m taking 3 months.
Anya
@Matthew Hooper: I was brave or stupid enough to check the freepers and they are fluctuating between claiming NY-23 does not matter (New Jersey is better) and blaming Gingrich.
DougJ
Anyone laying odds on how long Hoffman sues to avoid having the results certified?
That’s the worst part of it. NYS has a very orderly recount process. It’s very hard to drag things out.
Xenos
@eemom: Willow weeps for you.
Not sure that is much consolation, but it is certainly a thing of beauty, which is something. At least the Administration knows now it needs to get things done if they want to avoid serious trouble next year.
batgirl
@Matthew Hooper: Hoffman wasn’t wing nut enough. You betcha
jwb
@DougJ: Didn’t they say something like that about the MN senate race?
PeakVT
The NY-23 result (looks like) the best outcome possible: Dems get a seat, and the teabaggers get tantalizingly close.
Sucks about Maine, though.
asiangrrlMN
Sure, DougJ., just tuck the late-night thread into this one. How lazy can you get?
Kidding. Thanks!
Keith G
I am not looking forward to the next several news cycles. I need a pie filter that scrubs all the conventional wisdom blather from my screen til next Sunday night.
Or maybe a missing blond white girl will be thought to be drifting slowly across America in a runaway balloon.
Robertdsc-iphone
Fuck conservatives. Fuck the GOP. Fuck the teabaggers. Fuck them all with a rusty pipe.
I am goddamned fucking sick of conservatism in this country.
Matthew Hooper
Yeah, when I check on the HotAir crew they’re convinced that NJ is more important. My takeaway is that in the NJ race, local issues like corruption mattered. Likewise, the Conservative candidate’s lack of knowledge regarding local issues did him in. Local issues matter. And ideologues can’t compete on the local level.
Bokonon
eemom, I am a former Virginia resident who remembers during the GOP’s surge in the 1990’s (from George Allen pulling stunts like refusing to enforce the federal Clean Water Act to the total incompetence and disfunction and failure at the end). So I feel for you. It is really, really painful to see McDonnell and Cuccinelli and company sweep the election like this. Any voters from Virginia who think these guys are going to govern as centrists is a fool – and hasn’t been paying attention. Natural law, anyone?
asiangrrlMN
@jwb: Aaaaaargh! What a nightmare that was.
Martin
So, the Democrats pick up 2 more national seats and the Republicans pick up 3 state/local ones.
I don’t mind that trade. The governors have no direct impact on Obama’s agenda, but the national seats do. So we have two more governors to threaten secession and hike the appalachian trail. Big whoop.
Though it does mean that the progressive dream that is the left turn, which has come to all 49 other states, will elude New Jersey a bit longer.
Notorious P.A.T.
That is such good news for conservatives!
@Robertdsc-iphone:
Thumbs up )
JGabriel
DougJ@Top:
I know that the networks will say it’s all good news tonight for Republicans, but there is one takeaway — if not quite a lesson — in tonight’s results. There are two special elections for House Reps, that I know of, and it looks like both were won by Democrats — NY-23 and CA-10.
It’s not enough to confirm any kind of trend, but it at least it continues the pattern of Dems winning federal races. Which is good news for us.
.
Comrade Darkness
ericjodom @newtgingrich We purged Dede last weekend… I think you need to be purged next. #teaparty #ny23
half a minute ago from TweetDeck
Ah ha ha ha ha ha! Yeah, you do that. I’ll enjoy watching that.
GregB
Corzine should call Christie fat in his concession speech.
-G
General Winfield Stuck
The only possible bad news for dems tonight is losing the governor seat in a blue state. Not because it was any kind of bell weather, cause it wasn’t unless you consider NJ voters sick of state dem shenanigans and ineptitude as one. But because the wingers will control the election apparatus for 2012. Though I think they kind of like Obama, so maybe not a big problem.
dfd
What went wrong in Maine?
New Yorker
It’s good to see decent, hard-working real Americans in NY-23 revolt against the media and beltway elitists (that would be Palin and Beck and Armey) who told them that their concerns are not important, also too.
And since I mentioned Dick Armey, I should also bring up the fact that when I was living in DC, there was a local punk band with the name “Dick Army”. That might be the greatest name for a band ever.
Zam
Corzine was a banking hack, 23 put the teabaggers claim that they represent the majority of voters to the test. This election was good for more moderate conservatives, bad news for the kind of conservatives it takes to be on tv.
Martin
Hate is very motivational.
JGabriel
Comrade Darkness:
Since Hoffman’s not officially the Republican candidate, he’d probably have money issues pursuing a legal suit. I doubt he’ll put up any fight at all.
.
Tom Q
I just had Chris Matthews on momentarily — when he immediately jumped to It’s a Night of Doom for Obama, I hit the mute button.
VA was gone long ago. Deeds made that incredible stupid mistake “centrists” always do: started distancing himself from the most popular parts of the national Dem agenda. Once he said he’d opt out of the public option, what reason did any left-leaning Dem have to vote for him? Christ, Jim Webb, former Republican, ran a more liberal campaign.
NJ was a heartbreaker. Corzine damn near pulled it off — a 4-5% margin — after being hopelessly behind not long ago. The third party guy Dsggett just collapsed; polling mid-teens, he only got 6%. That was the race right there.
But I just see that Hoffman has conceded in NY 23, which redeems the whole night. The righties are too emboldened to turn back, but we’ve seen a clear demonstration that the teabag candidates can’t win even in made-for-GOP districts. I got to bed happier than I imagined an hour or so ago.
Sentient Puddle
Chris Matthews reported that Hoffman conceded…though I may have misinterpreted that seeing as the preceding interview killed more brain cells than I could count.
KG
holygoodgod… from RedState:
And it gets better:
I use to be a Republican, I use to be a center right libertarian. I have studied politics for a very long time. I can pretty much guarantee to you now, as a more or less center left libertarian: the GOP has a much better chance of winning without these idiots than it does with them.
Comrade Darkness
Governor of NJ is the worst job in the world, well Governor of CA … I’d rather not feel sorry for the sap who has the job. Has it EVER been a reputation builder?
Hoffman conceded. All right, I was wrong about him fighting it. 4k votes down is like Al Gore tho.
Zam
@KG: No mention of Conservatives inability to win without moderates?
Of Bugs and Books
@Zam:
Does this demanding have anything to do with politics?
Martin
@JGabriel:
Club for Growth and FreedomWorks have the money to support the lawyers for a district recount. It’s not that expensive.
It all depends on whether they see NY-23 as a key turning point, or feel they have better odds down in Florida with Crist.
Davis X. Machina
The interesting thing to me is that TABOR lost, and a mandate to reduce the auto excise tax lost, and both lost big — 60-40% and 75-25%
So there’s a substantial wedge of voters who voted for #1 — the people’s veto — and against two tax cutting measures.
That’s not your traditional wingnut voter.
soonergrunt
That jackass, Erick SonofaBitch has posted this on the front page of
fuckwits wankfestRed State:Hmm, looks to me like the republicans can’t win with or without the conservatives.
And just in case this post’s blockquote fails, FYWP!
Baron Elmo
This. The ‘baggers get the bloody scalp of Scozzafava to hang from their belts and an encouragingly close showing in the general to put lead in their pencils. They’ll be hitting the bricks by the thousands with amusingly misspelled placards, howling like rabid monkeys for the blood of every GOP moderate in the nation.
If I were Charlie Crist, I’d be investing in a mojo hand.
Comrade Darkness
@JGabriel: Club for Growth gave Hoffman 1/3 of his campaign money. I’m sure he could have tapped them. 95% of his money was from out of district. In fairness, 80%+ of Owens was as well. Frankly given that the entire economy up there is Federal stuff and they got 1 billion of the stimulus money, it’s ALL out of district money.
Ash Can
@PeakVT: Yeah, that’s really sad about the marriage law getting scuttled in Maine. What a shame.
@Comrade Darkness: Oh, please, please, let it be so. That would be fabulous if they went after Newt. I swear, the GOP is going to end up consisting of no one but Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh, in a cage match to determine which is the more ideologically pure of the two. (I’d call it for Palin unless Limbaugh sits on her.)
Ash
@KG: Go ahead, destroy all your sane candidates. THEN LOSE EVERY ELECTION FOR THE REST OF ETERNITY.
This is fine with me.
Sentient Puddle
@Zam: The base strategy seems to be a token of faith amongst them. If they lose a race, it’s always because conservatives didn’t turn out. Moderates? What are those?
Calouste
Full equality same sex domestic partnerships in WA survive by the looks of it.
Martin
2nd helicopter of the evening hovering almost directly over my house – maybe 200′. Noisy as hell. The first was HUGE – looked like a Lifeflight copter – lots of lights, but no spotlight. Left after about 20 minutes. A new one there now. Smaller, also no spotlight.
It’s damn impressive how stable they are. Doesn’t look like it’s moving even slightly.
asiangrrlMN
@Robertdsc-iphone: Ahem.
Fixed that for you to reflect my current favorite saying.
Zam
@Of Bugs and Books: I think it has a lot to do with a need to demonstrate Obama is a failure. Get a staunch supporter and liberal like myself to say something bad and that means, at least to him, that even his closest supporters are jumping ship.
asiangrrlMN
@Martin: But did the helicopter…laugh…?
burnspbesq
The bottom line on NY-23:
The Republicans managed to lose a district that last voted Democratic in the 1870s.
Well played, y’all.
Comrade Darkness
@Martin: BoB?
JGabriel
Martin:
Ummm … I wouldn’t read too much into that. Don’t forget that Corzine made most of his money through Goldman Sachs. In the current economic environment, that’s probably not a plus.
I mean, despite Corzine’s liberal record, I’m not sure we can blame NJ’s voters for failing to see much of a difference between a Republican and a Goldman ex-CEO.
So it’s probably not a good idea to read Corzine’s loss as any kind of sigil indicating the progressive or conservative trend of NJ’s electorate.
Won’t keep the networks from reporting it that way, though.
.
mai naem
Personally, I would be willing to bet Corzine being an ex-Goldman Sachs partner hurt him more than the media is taking into consideration and if I was an Obama admin official that is what I would be paying attention to. I would bet a lot of Bear Stearns/Lehman/Merrill Lynch and other people came out and voted against Corzine.
Davis X. Machina
Incumbent governors, regardless of party, are in for a rough couple of years.
Martin
@asiangrrlMN:
The helicopter was not laughing. I will email my credentials to John Cole to prove it.
The Dangerman
Gold(man) Sacks? That mass murdering rapist in Cleveland is held in slightly higher regard than anyone from GS.
asiangrrlMN
@Martin: Better yet…email him…your credenzas…!
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
The Republican party lost their asses in NY-23. The local party and candidate was shit on by the national party and the locals are not going to forget that any time soon. As they say, politics is local and the national party forgot that. You can bet there are more than a few new former Republicans bleeding from NY-23 because of this self-inflicted gunshot.
This was a huge mistake of the national party, trying to dictate national politics at the local level. I just about died laughing when I heard Pat Robertson telling Tweety that Scozzafava ‘was selected by eleven people in a back room’ or something to that effect. As if this is anything but business as usual at the local level!
Scozzafava is now an enemy of those that screwed her over in the name of party purity, as I would bet some of her supporters and party members now are. They are going to be trouble for the Republican party in the future and you just know they are going to make themselves the biggest pain in the ass that they can just to get back at the fuckers who came in and screwed up their district. However it happened, Scozzafava was the next Republican in line for the job and that was fine with the local party. That was where it should have stayed but nooooo, the fuckwits at the top have been seduced by the beauty of the teabagging mindfuck.
Congratulations Republicans, you have helped the teabaggers turn a district that has been reliably Republican for over a century into one now led by a Democratic representative. Please keep up the good work! When I see results like this it makes me think of the kind of leadership that these people could have offered as Captains on the last run of the Hindenburg.
They would have been fighting over who got to hold the wheel as it collapsed in flames around them.
Comrade Darkness
Speaking of helicopters, Hoffman probably wanted to get the hell out of Watertown before the snow flies. That place can get 50 inches at a time. The recount would have required more residency than his entire remaining term.
And on another note, the sad/angry tweets from his supporters are amusing as hell, they seem to think this guy will actually come back in 2010. Um, dudes, this was a neocon/Dick Armey opportunistic one-off. Hello?
Brick Oven Bill
This is good news for conservatives.
eemom
thanks y’all. I actually think Creigh Deeds has been unfairly maligned……he’s a decent guy who has worked all his life for good things and would have done so as governor. He’s just not a fucking great politician……and what exactly is wrong with that?
So now we’ve got Governor Snake Oil Pat Robertson the Second, and Attorney General Homophobus Extraordinarus the First, a mere year after we joyously celebrated our Obama victory and our second Democratic senator.
Ah well. One step forward, four centuries back…….
Modulo Myself
Rahm Emmanuel may be a centrist prick, but he’s also a smart guy, and he is noting that tonight, in the midst of a country with an unemployment rate around 10%, not much truly terrible happened against an incumbent.
And I think, behind the scenes in the conservative world, people who are smarter x80 than Erickson and his ilk are becoming really concerned by how a) fucking stupid, clueless, and easily spun the wingnuts really are, b) how hostile they are to anything that pierces their insular world, and c) how much control they have of the party apparatus.
JGabriel
@Martin:
Quick! Turn off the GroLights!
.
MBSS
@Comrade Darkness:
Governor of NJ is the worst job in the world, well Governor of CA … I’d rather not feel sorry for the sap who has the job. Has it EVER been a reputation builder?
ronald reagan?
MBSS
@JGabriel:
and maybe burn a stick of incense or two.
Zam
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): With all the talk about this signaling the second coming of 1994 I’ve heard today I am not surprised that there is a huge push for a national party. 94 was pretty much the only midterm that can be considered a national election, and that came only after something like 40 years of dem dominated congress. Republicans are gonna need to study up on elections and learn to build local coalitions that can put together a winning team.
JGabriel
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
Yep. Every one of Scozzafava’s supporters that argued to their friends that the GOP isn’t really that crazy just had their eyes pried open with a crowbar — like John Cole after Terry Schiavo.
The fallout should be pretty entertaining.
.
JGabriel
eemom:
Umm, losing?
.
Comrade Darkness
@MBSS: Confusingly written. I meant that question strictly in the sense of NJ governor.
joypog
just wanted to say, Houston extremely dull white ex-deputy secratary of energy mayor is gonna be replaced by a dull lesbian city-controller or a dull black politically-connected lawyer.
YEEEHAAAWWWWWW!
Martin
@MBSS:
And after the shit that went down around his era (though not all was his doing directly) the state has been circling the drain in more respects than not.
Martin
@JGabriel:
That’s not Deeds’ fault, that’s the DNCs fault for not finding a stronger candidate.
asiangrrlMN
@joypog: This is how realignment happens!
Martin
Hey, any news out of the Bronx? I had a prediction about Yankee Stadium for today.
And FTFY – just to get the ball rolling for tomorrow.
Of Bugs and Books
@joypog:
Any background linkys?
Brachiator
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
I don’t think that the GOP learned anything from this. And thank goodness for that. I’ll be able to sleep a little easier, and ignore every pundit from now through the weekend.
The GOP will vainly try to spin this as a growing total repudiation of Obama, even though the best evidence, the exit polls, do not allow such an easy conclusion (especially when you factor in low voter turnout).
But the GOP gubernatorial victors are going to have to solve their states’ problems. I look forward to seeing them reject federal funds and following a GOP prescription (a near empty piece of paper with “cut taxes” scribbled on it).
Still, the Democrats can’t fall back on “just keep electing us and we will promise to try, even if we don’t deliver a freakin’ thing.”
Martin
The *GOP* knew this lesson going in – that’s why Dede was supported. Again, Obama has a 5% disapproval rating in the northeast. There is no way in hell running against Obama is going to get you anywhere there. But the GOP needs to say what’s good for the GOP, so they’ll do the usual bullshit spin (the same one that the DNC would have done) to try and save face here.
The wingnuts, however, are a different kettle of fish. The won’t learn shit from this, because whatever lesson they needed they could easily have learned by reading the polls.
I think the GOP is not so dumb as to not be able to read the polls, but their base won’t hear of it. It will be an interesting 2010.
The Other Steve
It’s good news for Democrats that the Republicans are now picking their candidates in the same fucked up grassroots manner.
Yutsano
I just wanna know one thing: when can we start saying “But Christie is fat!”. Also.
Cain
@Martin:
Can we put Dean back in charge? Jeezus.. I still can’t figure out why that guy doesn’t get more respect. Besides being a O-bot, I’m a Deaniac. He was the guy who really got me into politics big time. He had such promise…
cain
MelodyMaker
This is great news for Tim Pawlenty!
Here’s a month-old video from the very recently re-elected Mayor of Minneapolis on the Ed show:
http://minnesotaindependent.com/46489/st-pauls-coleman-debates-ng-minneapolis-rybak-shadow-boxes-t-paw
Steeplejack
@Martin:
Right on, bro’. I get off work at 6:00 tomorrow and am already planning my pizza and alcohol deployment for Game 6. As I said before, Phillies to squeak through with a disingenuous show of weakness and then crush the Yankees in Game 7, causing Steinbrenner’s heart to infarct.
Martin
Watching Sully on Colbert is really disconcerting. He looks just like my brother in-law, who is a straight-up racist redneck, and the accent and lack of ‘fucking wetbacks’ peppering his speech is very jarring.
Napoleon
I was kind of hoping Hoffman would win and embolden the teabaggers in 2010 to drive the Republican party even farther off the cliff. This was one of those elections that no matter what happened I was going to be happy.
jaquestraw
meanwhile have you kept an eye on your dolla bills lately.http://www.infowars.com/estulin-g-20-meeting-in-scotland-this-week-about-dumping-u-s-dollar/
PeakVT
@Cain: “I still can’t figure out why that guy doesn’t get more respect.”
Listen to 5-10 minutes of this interview of Dean on health care from yesterday and you’ll know.
El Cid
I watched the news and C-Span this morning for 5 minutes and we can now officially conclude that there is literally no election result that the media talking heads will not conclude proves that the country is not ready for nor agreeing with the Democrats’ agenda.
Even some shitty 2009 by-elections for a couple of god-damned governors in places where the Democratic candidates were either predicted to lose or it was damn questionable, this of course means that ALL AMERICANS CAME OUT TO STAND AGAINST BARACK OBAMA NANCY PELOSI SOCIA_LISM.
And the only exaggeration I made there was the use of the word “socia_lism”. Literally everyone I turned to — HLN, CNN, C-Span, they all agreed that this would make the Democratic agenda much more difficult.
And the ‘independents’ didn’t turn out for Obama.
It was a fucking 2009 election. The young and the independents and whatnot don’t fucking turn out and never fucking do in these off year non-presidential shits.
ET
Virginians are screwed with their new Attorney General. Get ready for a bumpy ride. I don’t feel all that sorry for them though. He has been pretty obvious and told them he wants to be Virginia AG for life and that he has no intention of enforcing those laws the personally doesn’t agree with. He is going to be spectacular to watch because of his AG philosophy and because he is going to be in everyone’s face about it – and because he doesn’t seem to be a behind the scenes kind of guy.
Jack
In my own local news, schizophrenic voters put a school killing GOP alderman into the (fairly strong) mayoral seat, passed a ridiculous and harmful spending and tax cap that handicaps the municipal ability to address resource starved schools and departments, then sent 13 of 14 Democrats to the Board of Mayor and Aldermen, and stacked the School Board with Democrats.