# 2009 Election Results **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 4, 2009, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2009-election-results/516238 "2009-11-04T01:39:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2009-election-results/516238/181 "2009-11-06T04:19:34Z")
> [@E-Sabbath](#): > > You great ball of fetid iguana kidneys, I’m telling you that you have no idea what I was saying, and you completely missed the point. I was talking about the votes received by the candidates. The ones that went to the Republican did _not_ go to the Conservative by some magic. They went to the Republican Candidate, even if she had dropped out of the race. The interesting thing is that there was only a three day margin, and yet only five percent voted for the candidate-that-was-not-there. > > This means, among other things, oh blindfold over the eyes and nipples of Justice, that Ashcroft really _did_ lose to a dead man, it was not simple inertia that made him lose. > > You are talking about something entirely different, endorsement by a party. Endorsement does not transfer votes. I didn’t miss the point. I was correct. He got the nod from the committee after Scozzafava dropped out. No matter how much you violate the rules of the forum you are posting in, that doesn’t change. You even agreed with that. No matter how much you explain what I already knew, that they didn’t re-write the ballot, it still doesn’t change what I said. So go ahead and violate the rules of Great Debates more. It doesn’t change anything. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2009-election-results/516238/182 "2009-11-06T04:32:23Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Typo; homosexual marriage. Freudian, no doubt. But I wouldn’t get too comfortable with this victory, if I were you. Naked bigotry continues to sell with the voting public, but the returns are getting smaller every year. Five years ago, a vote like this would have been a blow-out. This year, it passed by a very narrow margin. By the time you’re old enough to vote, don’t be surprised to see the percentages completely reversed. For that matter, don’t be surprised if you find yourself voting for the other side. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2009-election-results/516238/183 "2009-11-06T04:34:22Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Typo; homosexual marriage. They legalized it in Washington (close enough anyway). ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2009-election-results/516238/184 "2009-11-06T05:04:12Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > They legalized it in Washington (close enough anyway). Homosexual marriage should be allowed in every state. It would be nice if this could be handled by the Federal Government somehow even though our President claims that he doesn’t support gay “Marriage”. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2009-election-results/516238/185 "2009-11-06T05:20:49Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > You do realize that when Scozzafava dropped out Hoffman became the Republican Candidate right? This is incorrect. There is no way in which this was correct. This is not true. This is false. Hoffman was the Conservative candidate. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2009-election-results/516238/186 "2009-11-06T05:26:56Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > The Democrats won a very closely contested district which was only lost due to the meddling left-of-Rockefeller Republican and lost the two governor chairs by a wide margin (in New Jersey the third party candidate, Daget attracted moderate Republicans and Libertarians who would overwhelmingly have voted for Christie) yet they claim they had a good night? Also the massive drive to legalize homosexuality for the last year is finally being slowed and this is the first major conservative victory since Prop 8. Also pretty much proves outside of Massachusetts _voters_ will not approve of homosexual marriage. Are you talking California in your first sentence? Or are you completely clueless as to what actually was the case in the district (which I’ve known the politics of – for over a decade and a half, as a part of my job) intimately for probably as long as your parents have been alive. (Not a sneer at your youth – I’m establishing my credentials with reference to NY-23. I had to know the political climates of Oneida, Oswego, Lewis, Jefferson, and St. Lawrence Counties fairly thoroughly to do my assigned work for just short of seventeen years, and was involved in local politics a little for over a decade before that.) Dede Scozzafava is “left of Rockefeller” only to someone looking from farther right than Glenn Beck. As for same-sex marriage, I take it you are ignoring the fact that Vermont, Connecticut, and New Hampshire also have it in place, apparently without major outcry other than from a handful of agitators; that New Jersey, Washington, and California have equivalent institutions (civil union, domestic partnership); that all of Canada has had same-sex marriage for several years; that a growing number of European countries have it in place… ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2009-election-results/516238/187 "2009-11-06T05:30:40Z")
The ballot listed Scozzafava as the Republican candidate, and Hoffman as the Conservative one. Following Scozzafava’s withdrawal from the race, too late to change the ballots, some Republican leaders endorsed Hoffman (Dede endorsed the Democrat). Erek is correct to that extent, but in no factual way was Hoffman the Republican candidate. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2009-election-results/516238/188 "2009-11-06T05:37:23Z")
Now, the interesting thing about New York is that it _would_ have been possible for Hoffman to be both the Conservative and Republican candidate. At the same time. And to have the votes pool for him. Happens quite a lot, actually. Bloomberg was both a Republican and an Independent, for example. It’s called Electoral Fusion. It was a big factor in taking apart the New York Machine. But it just didn’t happen. (As for ‘violating the rules of the forum’, I rather thought you enjoyed it, from your previous remarks, and was continuing in gentle good spirit. If it offended, I apologize. I thought the hyperbole involved was sufficient.) I didn’t know you were from up north, Poly. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2009-election-results/516238/189 "2009-11-06T05:47:19Z")
> [@E-Sabbath](#): > > …It’s called Electoral Fusion… Call it that if you like, but I think its a perversion and a threat to traditional politics. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2009-election-results/516238/190 "2009-11-06T11:05:14Z")
Okay, and why do you think that, luci? I like it because it lets me vote against the people who run on the Right to Life platform. Nice and shiny snapshot of their views. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2009-election-results/516238/191 "2009-11-06T14:27:33Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > The Democrats…claim they had a good night? They did? Which ones? Nancy Pelosi said that, from _her_ perspective, it was a good night. But there’s every reason to believe she was speaking from the specific perspective of the House Democratic leader, whose goal in life is to figure out what’s the best legislation she can get 218 votes for, and pass it in the House. From that perspective, it was in fact a good night. But that’s very different from saying that “the Democrats” are claiming that _the Democrats, overall_, had a good night on Tuesday. Still, I’d say that if we had to lose two races, the governorships were the best ones to lose; over time, they will be self-remedying. Corzine wasn’t exactly the sort of guy one wants to represent one’s own party; he’s gone. Christie is the sort of guy one wants to see representing the _other_ party, so that’s looking like a good opportunity to retake in four years with a better Dem candidate. (Could hardly do worse than Corzine.) And McDonnell will have the problem that there are only very limited conservative solutions to Virginia’s infrastructure needs, a fact that won’t be lost on Virginians in the Commonwealth’s metro areas. Unless McDonnell governs in a manner that makes the Virginia GOP want to disown him, he’ll be succeeded by a Democrat. The one we lost that I really wish we’d won is Maine. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2009-election-results/516238/192 "2009-11-06T14:33:33Z")
> [@E-Sabbath](#): > > This is incorrect. There is no way in which this was correct. > This is not true. This is false. > Hoffman was the Conservative candidate. It’s correct in precisely the way I said it. The Selection Committee gave him the nod. Why is such a simple concept so difficult for you to understand? Dede Scozzafava wasn’t the Republican candidate because she dropped out, regardless of what the pre-printed ballots said. Anyway, I’m done arguing it with you. If simple concepts are beyond your ken, they are beyond your ken, and I’m not going to slog through things for a piece of irrelevant minutiae, so we’re at an impasse. To put it simply, if we want to be absolutely precise, the Republicans didn’t have a candidate in this race. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2009-election-results/516238/193 "2009-11-06T14:36:04Z")
> [@E-Sabbath](#): > > Now, the interesting thing about New York is that it _would_ have been possible for Hoffman to be both the Conservative and Republican candidate. At the same time. And to have the votes pool for him. Happens quite a lot, actually. Bloomberg was both a Republican and an Independent, for example. It’s called Electoral Fusion. It was a big factor in taking apart the New York Machine. But it just didn’t happen. > (As for ‘violating the rules of the forum’, I rather thought you enjoyed it, from your previous remarks, and was continuing in gentle good spirit. If it offended, I apologize. I thought the hyperbole involved was sufficient.) No worries about the insults, I was just teasing you back. ;p [QUOTE=elucidator] Call it that if you like, but I think its a perversion and a threat to traditional politics. [/QUOTE] It’s the way it’s done in New York. Bill Thompson was the Democratic and Working Families candidate. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2009-election-results/516238/194 "2009-11-06T14:36:54Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Call it that if you like, but I think its a perversion and a threat to traditional politics. [Old thread.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=262650) [Electoral fusion.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_fusion) > [@](#): > > Electoral fusion was once widespread in the United States. In the late 19th century, however, as minor political parties such as the People’s Party became increasingly successful in using fusion, state legislatures enacted bans against it. One Republican Minnesota state legislator was clear about what his party was trying to do: “We don’t propose to allow the Democrats to make allies of the Populists, Prohibitionists, or any other party, and get up combination tickets against us. We can whip them single-handed, but don’t intend to fight all creation.” (Spoiling for a Fight, 227-228). The creation of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party made this particular tactical position obsolete. By 1907 the practice had been banned in 18 states; today, fusion as conventionally practiced remains legal in only eight states, namely: > > Connecticut > Delaware > Idaho > Mississippi > New York > Oregon > South Carolina > Vermont > > In several other states, notably New Hampshire, fusion is legal when primary elections are won by write-in candidates. > > The cause of electoral fusion suffered a major setback in 1997, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided by 6-3 in Timmons v. Twin Cities Area New Party that fusion is not a constitutionally protected civil right. [National Open Ballot Project](http://openballotvoting.org/) ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2009-election-results/516238/195 "2009-11-06T17:51:23Z")
> [@E-Sabbath](#): > > Now, the interesting thing about New York is that it _would_ have been possible for Hoffman to be both the Conservative and Republican candidate. At the same time. And to have the votes pool for him. Happens quite a lot, actually. Bloomberg was both a Republican and an Independent, for example. It’s called Electoral Fusion. It was a big factor in taking apart the New York Machine. But it just didn’t happen. > (As for ‘violating the rules of the forum’, I rather thought you enjoyed it, from your previous remarks, and was continuing in gentle good spirit. If it offended, I apologize. I thought the hyperbole involved was sufficient.) > > I didn’t know you were from up north, Poly. Oh, so that’s why my ballot this last Tuesday had a bunch of hyphens for the candidates. I wondered about that. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2009-election-results/516238/196 "2009-11-06T18:39:45Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > To put it simply, if we want to be absolutely precise, the Republicans didn’t have a candidate in this race. This is more correct than your previous statement. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2009-election-results/516238/197 "2009-11-06T18:47:23Z")
> [@E-Sabbath](#): > > Now, the interesting thing about New York is that it _would_ have been possible for Hoffman to be both the Conservative and Republican candidate. At the same time. And to have the votes pool for him. Happens quite a lot, actually. Bloomberg was both a Republican and an Independent, for example. It’s called Electoral Fusion. It was a big factor in taking apart the New York Machine. But it just didn’t happen. > (As for ‘violating the rules of the forum’, I rather thought you enjoyed it, from your previous remarks, and was continuing in gentle good spirit. If it offended, I apologize. I thought the hyperbole involved was sufficient.) > > I didn’t know you were from up north, Poly. I completely agree. It’s interesting to look at ballots with the same two candidates arrayed across five or six pariy lines, and see them angling for minor-party endorsements. And yeah, I was born and spent all (except four months) of my first 49 years and part of my 50th in what’s now NY-23. My wife and I were a grade ahead of the present Secretary of the Army in the same high school; my first auto insurance was written by his father as my agent. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2009-election-results/516238/198 "2009-11-06T19:03:29Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > The Democrats won a very closely contested district which was only lost due to the meddling left-of-Rockefeller Republican Wait a minute. Scozzafava was nominated by the Republican Party, _and_ she quit the race! How was _she_ meddling? If anyone interfered in the race, it was Hoffman (who initially sought the GOP nomination himself, and didn’t even live in the district he wanted to represent), and Palin, Pawlenty, _et al_. Just looking at the numbers, Hoffman hadn’t come in, a Republican would be holding that spot in Congress now instead of a Democrat. > [@](#): > > yet they claim they had a good night? That’s political spin for you. Everybody always says they had a good night, no matter how transparently false it is. > [@](#): > > Also pretty much proves outside of Massachusetts _voters_ will not approve of homosexual marriage. You are one of the relatively few young people who is against gay marriage. In the coming years, a lot of voters are going to approve gay marriage. It may take longer than a lot of people would like, since younger people don’t generally vote that much, but as older voters die off, the electorate’s going to move in that direction. > [@elucidator](#): > > Call it that if you like, but I think its a perversion and a threat to traditional politics. 😉 I support same-ticket fusion balloting. If a democratic candidate and a workers’ party candidate love each other very much, why shouldn’t they be allowed to be the same person? ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2009-election-results/516238/199 "2009-11-06T19:07:50Z")
> [@E-Sabbath](#): > > This is more correct than your previous statement. In that it’s correct, yes. Unlike those who referred to Dede Scozzafava as the Republican candidate, which she wasn’t. ;p ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2009-election-results/516238/200 "2009-11-06T19:18:48Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > In that it’s correct, yes. Unlike those who referred to Dede Scozzafava as the Republican candidate, which she wasn’t. ;p She was, at one point. That she withdrew prior to the election is quite true. That does not somehow make a man running on a third party ticket who was supported by some Republican leaders “the Republican candidate” – to do that, he would have had to have the Republican ballot line, which he did not, even though he tried for it. Notice also that although the district is one of the largest in the East, he lived a few miles outside the district. A Conservative from St. Lawrence, Jefferson, or Oswego Coun6es (I know a few of them) would have had far better luck in getting the Republican line. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2009-election-results/516238.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2009-election-results/516238.md?page=11)