NY-26. Will the teaparty kill the GOP?

[Biggirl]

This district went for McCain in the presidential election.

I do believe that polling showed that it wasn't the Tea Party candidate that did the Republican in but Paul Ryan's budget that the staunchly red voters couldn't stomach.

How bad is this news for Republicans? Does this show that their base would vote for a moderate? Should they shed Tea Party? Can they?

[Merijeek]

Probably not as bad as I'd like. Eventually all the Teatards (AKA, far-rightists from the GOP) will realize that they're no longer pusing the dialog rightwards. Once that happens, they'll just rejoin the GOP and stop nominating their candidates and just start voting for the GOP candidates the way they have for the last thirty years.

-Joe

[joebuck20]

They've really backed themselves into a corner this one. Newt Gingrich tried disavowing the Ryan plan on "Meet the Press" a few weeks ago, and was widely denounced by the right. So, yeah, any GOP candidate is going to have difficulty attracting much support in the primaries if they criticize the plan. But if they embrace it too closely, they're going to turn off the electorate at large.

[Profound Gibberish]

I never underestimate the right-wing's ability to put their ideology-of-the-week over electability. Keep it up TP's!

[Peremensoe]

Originally Posted by Biggirl

I do believe that polling showed that it wasn't the Tea Party candidate that did the Republican in but Paul Ryan's budget that the staunchly red voters couldn't stomach.

Certainly many otherwise-R voters must have gone D here. But wasn't the T share larger than the R's margin from majority? Wouldn't the T vote have virtually all gone to R without T in the race?

[Jack Batty]

I was told that the Tea Party was a vast cross-section of American voters, covering Republicans, Democrats and Independants.

Color me shocked to think that all Tea Partiers would have voted Republican otherwise.

[puddin]

I want to vote them all out. follow a budget. stop giving $ to 150 out of 193 world countries (including china). I want term limits. I want to do away with pennies. No more gasoline selling for $3.799 per gal. no more store prices at $39.99, or autos at $27,999.99. You could beat them with sticks if I was king. No more "attempted murder " charges, if you stab , hammer or shoot someone and they don't die, it wasn't that you didn't try to kill. I want honest elections, you can't even enter a costco without serious member ID, but ACORN has been tried and convicted and prisioned for voter fraud and being tried in 14 states. Am I wrong to be a Tea guy ? I wish they were more right wing. Oh, kick the UN out of the country get all the troops on the borders with 100% pay raises.

[RTFirefly]

Originally Posted by puddin

I want to vote them all out. follow a budget. stop giving $ to 150 out of 193 world countries (including china). I want term limits. I want to do away with pennies. No more gasoline selling for $3.799 per gal. no more store prices at $39.99, or autos at $27,999.99. You could beat them with sticks if I was king. No more "attempted murder " charges, if you stab , hammer or shoot someone and they don't die, it wasn't that you didn't try to kill. I want honest elections, you can't even enter a costco without serious member ID, but ACORN has been tried and convicted and prisioned for voter fraud and being tried in 14 states. Am I wrong to be a Tea guy ? I wish they were more right wing. Oh, kick the UN out of the country get all the troops on the borders with 100% pay raises.

Looks like summer vacations are beginning.

[Merijeek]

Originally Posted by spark240

Certainly many otherwise-R voters must have gone D here. But wasn't the T share larger than the R's margin from majority? Wouldn't the T vote have virtually all gone to R without T in the race?

Actually, leading up to things, as the teabagger started to tank the Democrat had her share increase while the Repubilcan had her decrease.

So...believe it or not, not in the case.

Originally Posted by RTFirefly

Looks like summer vacations are beginning.

I'm pretty sure that all the leftovers caused by pennies is being saved up to pay for the superhighway from Mexico to Canada.

-Joe

[Peremensoe]

Originally Posted by Merijeek

Actually, leading up to things, as the teabagger started to tank the Democrat had her share increase while the Repubilcan had her decrease.

So...believe it or not, not in the case.

I don't think laying those trends next to each other is definitive unless polls established that the same voters were involved. There could have been different groups moving in and out of the columns at the same time for different reasons.

I'd like to know what the results would have looked like with an instant-runoff system in place.

[Gyrate]

Originally Posted by puddin

follow a budget

get all the troops on the borders with 100% pay raises.

Interesting budget you're following.

Also, who or what are we beating with sticks? Autos? Pennies? China?

[Marley23]

Originally Posted by RTFirefly

Looks like summer vacations are beginning.

The logic and grammar are kind of jumbled, but let's keep the responses appropriate for this forum. puddin, if you want to discuss your political views, please start a thread in Great Debates (or join one). This thread is about the Tea Party and its effects on the NY-26 race. This article might be starting point in analyzing those effects.

[Balance]

Originally Posted by spark240

Certainly many otherwise-R voters must have gone D here. But wasn't the T share larger than the R's margin from majority? Wouldn't the T vote have virtually all gone to R without T in the race?

The T guy in this race was a weird case; he's run before...as a Democrat. According to Nate Silver, polls show his support as 2:1 Rep to Dem. If he had not been in the race, and his votes split along those lines, Hochul would still have won by a decent margin. (She would also probably have picked up most of the Green vote if Miller hadn't run, but that's only ~1%.) At worst, it would have been a competitive race in what tends to be a rather Republican district.

That said, I'm trying not to read too much into it. Special elections can be weird, and we're still a long way from the general.

[Jophiel]

Well, it was enough of a scare that Paul Ryan is scrambling to redefine the Medicare debate with a snazzy new video.

Personally, I think the Democrats should yoink the term "Mediscare" and begin applying it liberally (heh) to discussions about Ryan's budget. "This 'Mediscare' by Paul Ryan will kill your grandma!" It seems like a weak "push back" tool against the Dems but I think they could get some mileage out of it while confusing Ryan's counter-message.

[Biggirl]

I'm thinking that perhaps, if the GOP wants to pull away from the fringe, they can view these results as a good reason to back Huntsman-- a moderate-- in the primaries. Maybe I'm wrong but it doesn't look good for Republicans in the long run if they don't moderate their message.

[Diogenes the Cynic]

Sine there really is no official "Tea Party," and basically anybody can label themselves as a "Tea Party" candidate, maybe the Dems should clog up the ballots with ultra-left decoy candidates under some kind of contrived "T" banner. Teabaggers are stupid. They'll fall for it. They could pull enough votes away from the R column to swing the vote. It could be especially effective in conservative districts. The Socialist and Green parties should change their names to something with the word "Teaparty" in it. It could be a really fun time.

Of course, that could also result in all of us waking up the next morning, and seeing through our hungover fog that Ralph Nader is the new President.

[gonzomax]

It was too early. It gave the Repubs a warning of the danger of their extreme views. They will have time to modify the presentation. That will move them more toward the middle. But only during the election process.
If they win, they will go extreme like the mid west governors have. It is also like Bush, after a week of judicial overstepping, the supreme court declared him president. Then he declared he had a mandate to govern like he wanted.

[Diogenes the Cynic]

Originally Posted by gonzomax

It was too early. It gave the Repubs a warning of the danger of their extreme views. They will have time to modify the presentation. That will move them more toward the middle. But only during the election process.
If they win, they will go extreme like the mid west governors have. It is also like Bush, after a week of judicial overstepping, the supreme court declared him president. Then he declared he had a mandate to govern like he wanted.

Their base won't let them move to the middle, especially during the primary season. They're stuck - hoisted by their own retards.

[zut]

Originally Posted by spark240

I don't think laying those trends next to each other is definitive unless polls established that the same voters were involved. There could have been different groups moving in and out of the columns at the same time for different reasons.

I'd like to know what the results would have looked like with an instant-runoff system in place.

Some extrapolation is required, but here is a poll taken just before the election. It shows 13% of self-described Republicans, 10% of self-described Democrats, and 16% of self-described independents voting for Davis. If Davis had not run, one might expect those voters to realign themselves along the same percentages as their other party members, which was about 6:1 for Corwin among Republicans, 9:1 for Hochul among Democrats, and 1.2:1 for Hochul among independents. There are actually more Republicans than Democrats, so this would imply a bigger boost for Corwin than for Hochul, but not by much.

[Jophiel]

Originally Posted by gonzomax

It was too early. It gave the Repubs a warning of the danger of their extreme views. They will have time to modify the presentation. That will move them more toward the middle.

Brown's victory over Coakley was supposed to be a blessing in disguise as an early warning as well. We see how well that worked. Maybe the GOP will do better with it but I wouldn't assume any guarantees.

[FarmerChuck]

Uh, well your simply wrong.. jack davis petitioned on a "tea party" line.. the real tea party did not support him. Also jane corwin is an idiot.. i a registerd republican voted for hochul in protest to the way the republican bosses propped corwin up... as many did. Also alot of people stayed home and didnt vote... but of course is always about the national scene.. when in fact this was an intense dirty campagain filled with lies and low blows... i was going to vote for corwin until her butt boy set jack davis up... that was dirty and not needed.. the monroe county executive, and bill righlac the country republican chairman both seemed to be ok with that, and that turned alot of voters off.. also jane corwin is 47.. one of her adds pointed out she had been working in the family business the "auto telephone book" for 36 years.... no 11 year old has a serious role in a business.. turst me im on a family farm.. when i was 11 i didnt have a say or true role... This is not a referendum on paul ryans plan... it was a dirty camp.. also after redistricting the 26th will probably be gone... so its really a mute point

[Least Original User Name Ever]

There's something else worth bringing up, and that's Buffalo is a pretty segregated city. Race, or, now, the lack thereof, might have something to do with a changing tide.

I don't ascribe to it, really. However, it might be worth talking about.

[Captain Lance Murdoch]

The Republicans are caught between a base that demands the Ryan plan and an electorate that hates it. Look for candidates to be both for it and against it at the same time.

[Biggirl]

Originally Posted by FarmerChuck

Uh, well your simply wrong.. jack davis petitioned on a "tea party" line.. the real tea party did not support him. Also jane corwin is an idiot.. i a registerd republican voted for hochul in protest to the way the republican bosses propped corwin up... as many did. Also alot of people stayed home and didnt vote... but of course is always about the national scene.. when in fact this was an intense dirty campagain filled with lies and low blows... i was going to vote for corwin until her butt boy set jack davis up... that was dirty and not needed.. the monroe county executive, and bill righlac the country republican chairman both seemed to be ok with that, . . .

Are you saying that many voted for the Democrat on protest because the other two candidates weren't Tea Baggy enough? I'm reading this on an iTouch and am having a problem parsing the wall 'o text.

[gonzomax]

Chis Lee won last year with nearly 75 percent of the vote. He was a nut, but the heavily repub base turned out for him. They moved this time. This election should have been easy for the Repubs, but they lost it. I doubt it was about dirty local politics. that is the norm. I think it was about Ryan and Social security and Medicare. The repubs have moved to a place only they occupy now.

[Merijeek]

Originally Posted by FarmerChuck

Uh, well your simply wrong.. jack davis petitioned on a "tea party" line.. the real tea party did not support him. Also jane corwin is an idiot.. i a registerd republican voted for hochul in protest to the way the republican bosses propped corwin up... as many did. Also alot of people stayed home and didnt vote... but of course is always about the national scene.. when in fact this was an intense dirty campagain filled with lies and low blows... i was going to vote for corwin until her butt boy set jack davis up... that was dirty and not needed.. the monroe county executive, and bill righlac the country republican chairman both seemed to be ok with that, and that turned alot of voters off.. also jane corwin is 47.. one of her adds pointed out she had been working in the family business the "auto telephone book" for 36 years.... no 11 year old has a serious role in a business.. turst me im on a family farm.. when i was 11 i didnt have a say or true role... This is not a referendum on paul ryans plan... it was a dirty camp.. also after redistricting the 26th will probably be gone... so its really a mute point

Here you go, folks. Your Tea Party base. Look for Boehner to accelerate his suicide by bottle.

-Joe

[Lobohan]

Originally Posted by Merijeek

Here you go, folks. Your Tea Party base. Look for Boehner to accelerate his suicide by bottle.

-Joe

I laughed. But at the same time I'm really sad.

[just_some_guy5]

I think republicans will eventually have to take a stance that puts less pressure on medicare cuts if they don't want to lose their shirts in future elections. Having said that, the results of this election are crystal clear proof (if anyone needed it) that it's always better to simply tell your constituents what they want to hear. Last night, another NY-Dem Representative explained the outcome as follows:

"I think tonight proves to Democrats and Republicans throughout the entire country that we have better priorities. We don’t need to reduce Medicare, we need to reduce the tax subsidies to the big oil companies. That’s the choice that we presented to the American people and the voters of New York’s 26th district agree with our choice and our priorities"

The tax savings from 10 years worth of ending oil subsidies would total $21 billion compared to a current deficit for this year of $1.5 trillion. So yeah, that seems like the appropriate tradeoff...

[Digital Stimulus]

Originally Posted by just_some_guy5

The tax savings from 10 years worth of ending oil subsidies would total $21 billion compared to a current deficit for this year of $1.5 trillion. So yeah, that seems like the appropriate tradeoff...

For clarity, the tradeoff mentioned was between medicare and oil subsidies, not the full honkin' deficit and oil subsidies.

[Peremensoe]

Also, given that he was speaking of an election, it's appropriate to describe a "choice" between something advocated by one side versus something advocated by the other.