Justin5 20 Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 Democrat Kathy Hochul has upset Republican Jane Corwin in a special three-way House election in New York that became a referendum on the GOP budget plan that revamps Medicare.The Associated Press called the race after 71 percent of the vote was counted, with Hochul taking 48 percent to Corwin’s 42 percent. Independent candidate Jack Davis took 8 percent, running on a self-proclaimed tea party line. The race to replace former GOP Rep. Chris Lee—who resigned in February after a gossip site reported the married congressman had replied to a Craigslist personal ad—wasn’t supposed to be a high-cost, national attention affair. But that changed when Hochul seized on the controversial changes to Medicare in Rep. Paul Ryan’s, R-Wis., budget and made it the centerpiece of her campaign. Hochul ran the first ad of the cycle, knocking her GOP opponent for her support of the plan, and pressed the issue at debates and talked up the changes at every stop on the campaign trail. Corwin argued that the plan was aimed at preserving the system and noted it wouldn’t touch voters older than 55, but the damage was already done. Corwin herself admitted on Monday that she should have responded sooner. Instead, she made the economy and cutting the deficit the focal point of her campaign, sticking to a strategy that worked for Republicans in last year’s midterms but overlooking the new injection of Medicare into the race. Republicans have pointed to the presence of Davis as the reason for an artificially close race, saying the two-time Democratic nominee for the seat was taking GOP votes from Corwin. But the final Siena survey of the race showed that while Davis’s numbers had plummeted in the past month, those voters weren’t moving uniformly to the Corwin camp, and instead he was still drawing votes from both parties. A wealthy manufacturer who put $2.6 million of his fortune into his campaign, Davis had interviewed for the Republican nomination that went to Corwin. Instead, Davis petitioned onto the ballot as an independent and created his own tea party line. That moniker upset both local and national tea party groups, who called him a fraud. As the race tightened and both parties hoped—or worried—that the campaign was becoming a referendum on Medicare, outside groups began pouring money into the already high-spending contest that saturated the local airwaves. The conservative American Crossroads spent almost $700,000 to hit Davis first, then Hochul. The National Republican Congressional Committee spent more than $400,000 to boost Corwin, who had already put more than $2.7 million of her own money in her campaign coffers. Tea Party Express and FreedomWorks both endorsed and worked on behalf of Corwin, hoping to knock down Davis. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent more than $266,000 to knock both Corwin and Davis, while the newly formed House Majority PAC, a liberal counter to Crossroads, spent $371,000 to hammer Corwin over the Ryan budget. http://nationaljournal.com/ap-hochul-victorious-in-n-y-special-election-20110524 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RunInRed 18,948 Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 Paul Ryan's plan = fail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigsixfive 341 Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 A referendum? Really? It was a race between a Democrat, a Republican, and a fake tea party candidate... in NEW YORK. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
80Tiger 909 Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 A referendum? Really? It was a race between a Democrat, a Republican, and a fake tea party candidate... in NEW YORK. If it was a referendum on Paul Ryan's plan then at least 50% seem to agree with it if not more. Only 48% voted "against" by voting for Hochul. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RunInRed 18,948 Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 A referendum? Really? It was a race between a Democrat, a Republican, and a fake tea party candidate... in NEW YORK. It's a historically conservative district. Prior to last night, only twice in the last 60+ years has a Democrat held the seat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AURaptor 1,137 Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 Paul Ryan's plan = fail. Not really. More like moronic ( phony? ) TEA party candidate fail. 3rd party option cost the GOP this seat. Hopefully lesson learned . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin5 20 Posted May 25, 2011 Author Share Posted May 25, 2011 Paul Ryan's plan = fail. Not really. More like moronic ( phony? ) TEA party candidate fail. 3rd party option cost the GOP this seat. Hopefully lesson learned . Davis was the Democratic nominee in that district in 2006. He definitely siphoned away both Democratic and Republican votes. Proof of that was as the election got closer and his percentage went down - Hochul and Corwin each gained equal amounts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RunInRed 18,948 Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 A referendum? Really? It was a race between a Democrat, a Republican, and a fake tea party candidate... in NEW YORK. If it was a referendum on Paul Ryan's plan then at least 50% seem to agree with it if not more. Only 48% voted "against" by voting for Hochul. Hochul getting this close to half the vote is astonishing in a district where in 2010 the Democratic candidate got just 26 percent of the vote. Even in the very good Democratic year of 2008, the Democratic nominee got just 40.5 percent. To get a sense of how this result might extrapolate elsewhere, look at very Republican Wyoming County. Hochul lost it, as President Obama did in 2008. But Hochul matched Obama’s 36 percent share of the vote. If every Democratic House candidate in 2012 could reach Obama’s 2008 vote share, Democrats would be back in control by a substantial margin.http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/ny-26-democrats-should-thank-paul-ryan/2011/05/24/AFkPkrAH_blog.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RunInRed 18,948 Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 The other point to make is that the GOP spent a fortune trying to hold this seat - a fight they shouldn't even of had to make... Not counting outside money, Corwin alone spent about $2.6 million of her own money to get about 40,000 votes. That comes out to $68/vote. By contrast, Meg Whitman spent approximately $144 million out of her own pocket — a record — to net about 4 million votes in last year's gubernatorial race in California. That comes out to roughly $35/vote. Kathy Hochul raised very well, but she was most certainly outspent.As for outside money, the main spenders for Corwin were $700K by Karl Rove's American Crossroads, $100K by the American Action Network, and $425K by the NRCC (totaling about $1.2 million). For Hochul, it wound up as $371K from the House Majority PAC, $111K from the Communications Workers of America, $75K from 1199 SEIU 1199, and $267K from the DCCC (totalling $824K). Hochul herself raised around a million bucks. http://dailykos.com/story/2011/05/24/978967/-NY-26:-Kathy-Hochul-victory-thread-#2?via=blog_1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aufan59 173 Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 Medicare cuts are extremely unpopular. The Tea Party and other conservatives say "HANDS OFF MY MEDICARE" while simultaneously saying "CUT THE DEFICIT". Its a laughable situation.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
autigeremt 7,316 Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 Paul Ryan's plan = fail. ObamaCare and current situation=destruction of the United States. ObamaCare is soooo good that over 1000 waivers have been granted to protect groups from it. I'd say failure is priceless for the Democrats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RunInRed 18,948 Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 How many Republicans do you think will be running on Paul Ryan's plan in 2012? I'd be willing to bet President Obama and the Democrats will run on their plans. Telling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tigermike 3,982 Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 How many Republicans do you think will be running on Paul Ryan's plan in 2012? I'd be willing to bet President Obama and the Democrats will run on their plans. Telling. I hope the dems do run on their "accomplishments". Run on their record. Obama's culture of corruption should be a real winner shouldn't it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RunInRed 18,948 Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 Do you think the Republicans will run on or run from Ryan's plan? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auburn85 438 Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 Do you think the Republicans will run on or run from Ryan's plan? Depends on who goes on the offensive and sets the tone. Republicans would probably rather not talk about the Ryan plan. They would probably rather talk: about the economy, Obama's promise to cut the budget defict in half, The person representing the Obama administration in saying the stimulus would prevent unemployment from exceeding a certain level, I'd also use the quote "the biggest annual spending cut in history" and show where it didn't even cut a billion. I would too of course blame the media and point out examples of how they cover certain things. If I was advising them, that's what I'd tell them to set the tone with rather than continue on with a plan that would never be signed into law since Obama is President and Obamacare has already been signed into law. Make it a referendum on Obama. Obama should think he has accomplished and passed enough. I would go around using big charts showing that taxing the wealthy along with crumb cuts (the dollar amount, not the actual pain it causes) will not even put a dent in our budget defict. If the Ryan plan continues to dominate the discussion, ping pong back with the hundreds of billions in Medicare "savings" that Obamacare will use to help fund the healthcare law. The savings are used to help keep Obamacare from running a deficit, not using those savings to keep Medicare premiums and deductions from increasing on those who are on Medicare. It's an uphill battle for Republicans. There was a recent townhall where a Republican tried to explain the Ryan plan and tried to point out the Medicare cuts (not benefit cuts)in Obamacare to someone in the crowd and the person did not believe the Republican congressman. So people won't even believe a Republican when they are speaking a fact now. As it stands today, my opinion would be that Democrats would have a net gain in overall congressional seats. I still stand by my statement I said before Obama won in 08... Obama's going to win in 2012. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auburn85 438 Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 Medicare cuts are extremely unpopular. The Tea Party and other conservatives say "HANDS OFF MY MEDICARE" while simultaneously saying "CUT THE DEFICIT". Its a laughable situation.... Exactly Santa Claus will win and The Grinch will lose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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