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Some round-ups on NY-09.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  September 14th, 2011 at 08:00 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

A little bit of a relapse today, so let me just grab three pretty-good analyses of yesterday’s NY-09 results* from RCP and go with them. First off: Michael Barone’s “NY-9: Stunning Repudiation of Chuck Schumer.” After noting that disgraced Congressman Weiner was a protege of Schumer, Barone points out:

In January 2007, just in time for the new Democratic majority in Congress, [Shumer] published a book, Positively American: Winning Back the Middle-Class Majority One Family at a Time. It is a thoughtful essay on how Democrats can win the votes of the kind of voter Schumer himself has won over in his career as a congressman and senator, with specific policy recommendations as well as public relations advice. As one of the three Democratic leaders of the Democratic majority in the Senate—and by common reckoning the one who outshines in intellect the other two put together—Schumer has played an important role in fashioning Democratic policies, including but not limited to the 2009 stimulus package and Obamacare.

This vote is a startling repudiation of those policies by just the voters Schumer was hoping to win over.

As well it should have been: I respect Michael Barone and everything, but ‘smarter than Gillibrand & Reid[**]‘ isn’t precisely hard and I suspect that voters have a bit longer memories about statements like ‘porky little amendments‘ than Schumer might wish to admit. Personally, I still think that Schumer was vulnerable in 2010 – oh, well, that ship has sailed. It’s certainly true that the Democrats have a problem with blue-class workers these days.

Which segues us to Josh Kraushaar’s “Rethinking the 2012 Landscape.” Josh looked into what is the increasingly-frantic conventional wisdom of the Online Left – 2012 will be an anti-incumbent year – and finds it, well, not supported by the most recent special elections:

Tuesday’s special elections for two House seats, one in New York and one in Nevada, are starting to put the picture in clearer focus—and it’s not good for Democrats. Democrats lost a deeply-Democratic New York City district that had been in party hands for nearly a century, and they lost by over 20 points in a congressional race in the battleground state of Nevada, a contest that once promised to be a bellwether because of the GOP’s positioning on Medicare.

Put simply, Obama and Republicans in Congress are both unpopular—and voters are taking out their anger on Democrats—even in a reliably Democratic district.

One thing to note here is that Josh does go into the NV-02 election a bit, which is probably best: the NY-09 special election must inevitably be compared to the NY-26 special election, which I am starting to suspect teaches a false lesson to Democrats about using Medicare as a wedge issue. Not to get into it too deeply, but NY-26 may have been more on the issue of the dangers of fusion tickets, not to mention the dangers of letting your party’s former Congressman go shirtless on Craigslist and advertise for adultery. Judging from the results from NV-02 as compared to NY-09, not having the second problem wins you elections; not having either wins you elections big-time.

Lastly, we have a picture from Sean Trende’s “New York-9 and the Democratic Coalition.” It’s a pretty picture.

It’s a picture of NY-09, which is what you get as a side-effect when you have to draw majority-minority districts. The color scheme: Red for white neighborhoods; Green for Latino; Blue for African-American. Stu Rothenberg floated a rumor yesterday that the Democrats pumped money into this race because it was worried about having to find another district to put on the chopping block; that sounded weird at the time, but look at that map and you’ll see why it may not have been.  To put it simply: hack up this district, and you have to contort the surrounding ones even more.  Ain’t racial gerrymandering grand?

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*From what I can tell, the unspoken consensus about the NV-02 results were “Man, but the Democrats pretty much were completely useless there. I mean, they didn’t even try, really.”

[**I have had it pointed out in comments here that I read this wrong; Barone was referencing the Senate leadership in general, not the NY Senate leadership and the Senate Majority Leader.  This is true... but "smarter than Durbin and Reid" is no more of an accomplishment for Schumer, so (luckily) my point remains valid.]

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COMMENTS

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  • http://www.jacksonlaws.com/ mcclelland

    This is a big win in my opinion for the R. Even though these off year elections have gone back and forth, we are still talking about New York.

    Play big or go home. Weiner could hold the seat because he was bold. This is why the R won and the D lost. Romney could learn from this election if he wants to beat Perry.

  • HawkImNot

    But I’m lost as to why you would think he’s referring to Gillibrand as the third “of the three Democratic leaders of the Democratic majority in the Senate” besides Schumer and Reid. Durbin?

  • lineholder

    Are blue-class workers and blue-collar workers one and the same? Just asking.

  • YnotNOW

    Turner did run specifically against Obama’s economic and foreign policy positions, so that bodes bad for anyone on O’s coattails.
    But there was taint left over from Weiner on Dems, plus the high jewish vote, which do not apply to other districts.

    And it was just one d___ election, after all.

  • http://moelane.com/ Moe Lane

    Your take would probably mean Durbin, at that.

    Mind you, this does not invalidate my point. :)

  • http://moelane.com/ Moe Lane

    I actually kind of like it.

  • silentcal2012

    Dont tell Rush, who somehow used this race to bash “establishment” Republicans, but Turner ran on protecting Social Security and Medicare.

    You dont win that seat if Turner did what some around here insist all Republicans do.

    On his website he explicitly rejects any efforts to privatize Social Security.

  • perry4prez

    The country as a whole is much more conservative and receptive to social security reform.

  • http://www.usdebateboard.com usdebateboard

    which is what establishment Republcans bristle at.

  • MOlsen6

    I would agree not to read too much into this win, but it does have SOME meaning. Folks who think this a key “bellweather” or a harbinger of what is to come in 2012 are getting carried away, as of right now (but 3 or 6 months is a different story!). When a Republican runs even with the Democrat in Queens … ya gotta take some notice. I’m discounting the Brooklyn result a little bit.

    If the Presidential Election were held today, I’d still say that enough of the Democrats in NY-9 would come home and Obama squeeks out a win in NY-9, and maybe nationally. But it isn’t going to stay that way. Most folks think in terms of linear functions. Politics is almost never a linear function … they tend to be step functions, and Obama is about to take a big step down. We have the impending bankruptcy/bailout of the Postal Service, a slow-motion financial crisis in Europe that may drag on for a year, potential fallout in the US municiple bond market (CA and IL), a possible scandal with Solyndra, and perhaps some more Pritchard, AL pension situations in deep blue states (RI for example) if the Euro-crisis causes enough damage. None of these are a recipe for improving job approval ratings. So just give it some time …

  • silentcal2012

    He was mocking the “establishment”, saying ‘they probably told Turner not to say this and that” and implied that he was some courageous candidate.

    What Republican is afraid to run against Obama and his economy. That’s just stupid to imply the “establishment” doenst want candidates to run against Obama.

    What Turner did do is run 180 degrees from privatizing SS.

  • http://www.usdebateboard.com usdebateboard

    The commentary was directed specifically at Republicans who won’t get in Obama’s face, not about Social Security and Medicare.

    Which is the Republican establishment.

  • gawken

    a caucus which will be considerably smaller,..and much more liberal/hard left..and Chuckie is just the guy to lead them further afiled.

    If you think that 2012 is going to be a disaster for Senate Dems, take a look at who’s up in 2014….

  • Adjoran

    It doesn’t matter that the country is more willing to consider reforms in SS than it was 20 years ago. It doesn’t matter that the Chilean system is much better for the citizens.

    What matters is it is NOT an issue this cycle. The impending entitlement meltdown crisis will be Medicare and Medicaid. The problem we need to be talking about is that and the economy and jobs and taxes.

    Bringing up SS, which can still be fixed by reforms, only gives the Democrats a free bat to hit us with. It makes NO sense to be arguing over the finer points of SS reform and the system itself, which will clearly be around #36 on the list of the next President’s pressing priorities, no matter who wins.

    It is stupid, a self inflicted wound to do this. Let’s hope our candidates got it out of their systems with that last debate.

  • bk

    All day yesterday we had Debbie Downer WS saying two things:
    1) This race had zip zilch zero nada to do with Obama.
    2) That these Orthodox Jews were stupid enough to vote for the in-disctrict Catholic over the out-of-district Orthodox Jew doesn’t change the KnownFact that Jews love Obama.

    Meanwhile, as the NYT reports today, the Obamabots are scrambling to change the perception that Obama is anti-Israel because the Jews no longer seem to be in his pocket.

    Translation: “Doh! I’ve been blaming Israel for all the Middle East problems for 2-1/2 years, but if the Jews abandon me how can I win Florida again in 2012?”

  • The_Gadfly

    at the gross level, it is important to remember how key the liberal Jewish vote is to Dems. They depend heavily on them for fund raising and as key activists. Lose them and they lose a great deal more than just the gross Jewish vote.

    Also, a new candidate usually washes the taint off the current election in the GOP, it’s a slam dunk for Dems. If the taint were to carry over as you suggest, the Nevada race should have gone to the Dems. So this race comes down to The Big 0′s anti-Israeli, pro-Palestinian stance (with the usual Dem “nuancing” to try to obfuscate their position) and the jobs situation. As Moe as noted in other articles, the Big 0′s administration has pretty much adopted Bush’s policies on the terrorist front. Those issues might have moved some liberal Jewish votes if that weren’t true, but with them off the table….

  • The_Gadfly

    I’ll see your Florida and raise you New York. And maybe Pennsylvania and New Jersey too. Rhode Island is probably still safe.

  • wennejunk

    But the loss is demoralizing for them anyways.

    Every bit of doom is useful in the larger picture, because, while their strategy people may see it as a fluke and not a trend, the voting dems (those still living anyways) see it as affirmation their party sucks even more than they thought.

  • YnotNOW

    in that this election is not a “bellweather” but one indicator among many that may or may not point in the same direction.