Fifty-Four Forty-Three: Obama's Home Court Catastrophe in NY-9

As for the Dems, they're PAID to suck. Sucking is their job. They're a party of corporate getekeepers.

You said:

The election results in NY-9 are a rejection of Obama.
Fifty-four percent. That's the number of people who disapprove of Barack Obama's handling of his job as president in NY-9 and the margin by which the Republican won in that district.

This is a rejection of the DNC, the DCCC, the DSCC, and by extension, Obama's political mishandling.

Weprin was hand-picked. This candidate was selected by the DCCC for that district. This is the person that Barack Obama and Steve Israel and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz wanted to run with. Another hopelessly compromised, wishy washy, ineffectual, corporatist, DLC weenie. And remember: Pelosi, Wasserman-Schultz, and Obama didn't have to have this election. They didn't need to demand Weiner's resignation.

This just shows us what a disaster that the Dem Elites in DC are -

Meanwhile over in La La Land at TPV this loss hasn't been mentioned at all and all DK can do is give a blow by blow of the event. No analysis at all. They did however mention that the Big O's approval rate in California is now below 50%.

When will folks start calling for Obama not to run again?

and Medicare from...Obama's attempt to ruin them. Really. Now, how he votes will probably be quite different, but Obama has opened a huge hole in Democratic plans to pin SocSec/Medicare/Medicaid attacks on Republicans. I mean, who are voters going to believe? A Dem's claim that the Repubs are going after those programs? Or their lying eyes and ears seeing and hearing Obama going after those programs?

Toss in Obama's refusal to take strong action to save homes and create jobs, when he had both the House and the Senate, and sentient voters have a right to not believe what he's saying now as he goes into campaign (read bamboozlement) mode.

Also, conservative Orthodox Jews voted against Weprin because he voted FOR same sex marriage in the NY assembly.

By the way, I don't know if it's just WNYC referring to Weiner over and over as "disgraced former Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner," but every top of the hour news summary and election report I heard yesterday used those words. NPR, howver, in reporting on the Republican win in the NV district where Rep. Ensign resigned due to a sex scandal? No such phrasing appears....

Double standard much, NPR/PBS/WNYC?

Turner will now be used as proof that even safe Dem seats are at risk because of Obama. And R candidates will continue to lie, saying they're the true champions of saving SocSec and Medicare. And D candidates' protests will be overwhelmed by Obama's own words.

(I think Romney is on to something in calling out Perry on his statements against SocSec--he realizes it undermines the Republican game plan to lie about saving SS and Medicare. Perry is making that lying tactic less powerful.)

Brilliant, Pres. Obama. If you're actively trying to weaken and destroy a political party. The one which happens to be the party you used to gain office. Seems he has far, far different objectives than both his party's members and his party's voters.

What a terrible selection the Dems made for their presidential candidate. And if Obama's goal is to destroy the party, he will never step down from running for reelection. Getting as few Dems into Congress as possible is another major achievement for this stealth candidate and "transformative" president, and playing dog in the manger fits that plan to a T.

Heh, tranforming the Democratic Party into a confused and directionless true minority party --in a nation which supports its former principles!-- is truly "transformative."

Obama isn't transforming what was clearly already a DLC ever rightward triangulating neoliberal, free trading, for profit health, anti labor, telco lover boy, war party to begin with... has been this way for decades.

Excellent post, Jay.

Subject: Black Agenda Report blames Hillary racism.
Claiming that the near 100% AA vote for Obama was a product of a white racist candidate forgetting to couch her bigotry in coded speech, BAR's Margaret Kimberley states:

There will be no Hillary Clinton claiming that Obama “Isn’t a Muslim, as far as I know,” or desperately stating that she is reaching out to the “good voters, the white voters.”
that's all they got
the race card
http://www.blackagendareport.com/content...
that's all they got
the race card:
First Lady Hails Students in Rally Against Racism -
http://articles.latimes.com/1997/dec/10/...

The NYT New York City blog has the best rundown I've seen.

This really was a very, very local race, filled with personal vendettas and Brooklyn Dem machine power broking, and infighting. The district is a bizzare configuration, and guess what--it is slated to disappear in the next general election. So the winner of this race is destined to be a lame duck, one year Congresscritter.

It's really misleading to try to extrapolate anything about national political trends from this result. It amuses me to see so many people trying to do so.

that Obama is disappointing so very many Dem voters, but there is also former mayor Koch pushing Turner as the Great Goy Savior of Israel. Koch also pushed austerity and paying down the debt, iirc.

CBS Evening News is playing the anti-Obama sentiment heavily this evening. Orthodox Jews upset with Obama's "treatment" of Israel (What? Just mentioning using 1967 borders to begin discussions is so bad?), along with Dems disappointed in Obama's lack of economically beneficial actions. I didn't catch CBS mentioning the internecine war among Dem leadership in the area.

A pollster interviewed on WNYC said it was not just Obama, and he put more importance on gay marriage and Israel as prompting the Orthodox Jewish community to vote for Turner.

From City Hall's Heard Around Town:

Same-sex marriage played a role in handing Republican Bob Turner his victory over Democratic Assemblyman David Weprin, but it hinges on a subtle distinction, sources said. They said Weprin, an Orthodox Jew, drew the wrath of his fellow Orthodox not because he voted for same-sex marriage in Albany, but because he said his vote was compatible with his religious beliefs. “There were rabbis who came out and said, ‘You may not vote for David Weprin,’ ” said Assemblyman Dov Hikind, an anti-same-sex marriage Orthodox Democrat. Other sources said Orthodox Councilman David Greenfield pushed Weprin to apologize for his religious justification and to court the Orthodox vote, but Weprin’s campaign refused and lost the chance for Greenfield’s endorsement. Still, Turner spokesman Bill O’Reilly said same-sex marriage was never part of the campaign’s strategy. “I really don’t think that had anything to do with it,” O’Reilly said. “We did what we could to play that down.” [Riiiight. It's always best to have others do your dirty campaigning fer sure.] (My emphasis)

More from The Nation's Ben Adler.

, looks at the marriage issue as enabling opponents of marriage equality to continue attacking those who voted for it. This piece points out the Orthodox Jews in that area are Modern Orthodox, not Hasidic, meaning same sex marriage should not have been a big issue.

The upset appears likely to raise questions about the potential for marriage equality support to pose a political liability, and also about the willingness of opponents to press the issue even when polling shows a majority of voters preoccupied with other concerns. While some answers remain in flux just hours after the election, the initial analysis suggests that discussions about marriage equality will persist, so long as opponents have anything to do with it.

“They have a microphone and a good loudspeaker and they will claim that they had an impact,” said Ken Sherrill, a political science professor at Hunter College, about the contribution of marriage equality opponents. “Absent any systemic exit polling, I think there will be no hard evidence to support that claim. It just flies in the face of everything we know about voting to think that views on marriage equality would trump votes on the issue of the economy when there is a high level of unemployment.”

Ask any analyst, and they will say the special election turned on the economy, opinions about President Obama, and to a lesser extent, U.S. policy toward Israel (a theme stirred when former New York City mayor Ed Koch, a Democrat for marriage equality, endorsed Turner in July to warn Obama to be a better friend to America’s closest ally in the Middle East). One week before the election, a Siena Research Institute poll showed Turner in the lead by six points, where 30% of voters listed the economy as their primary concern, followed by federal entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare at 28%, with Israel at a distant 7%.

Here:

I know someone who did canvassing in Queens, which is hard core Dem base, and said the vibe was terrible and predicted a Weprin defeat. So I’m not buying what the hackocracy is selling.