Republicans have at least seven congressional districts in New York that they should target aggressively in 2010, including two seats where John McCain beat Barack Obama in 2008.
Swing State broke out all the Obama-McCain numbers throughout each congressional district nationally, including numbers from the Bush-Kerry and Bush-Gore races.
With only 3-4 point margins of victory by Democrats in 2008, districts 24, 23, 20, 19 and 1 can be taken by Republican candidates.
The only problem is that the NRCC has upgraded only one of them to contender status, Randy Altschuler, a Republican challengers to Democrat Tim Bishop in District 1.
Hotline reported the NRCC upgrading 28 candidates nationwide to either "Contender" or "On The Radar" but passed on upgrading Nan Hayworth in the Hudson Valley's highly competitive 19th against Democrat John Hall (she stays "on the radar"). Also missing the cut were Doug Hoffman in the 23rd, who narrowly lost to Bill Owens in a three way race in a district where Barack Obama only received 52 percent of the vote.
Strangely ignored though not going away is Christopher Cox (the son of State GOP Chairman Ed Cox) who has launched a formidable campaign against Tim Bishop in District 1, so out of the gate the NRCC already finds itself mired in a GOP primary. The NRCC put George Demos "on the radar" and something tells me this race on the eastern end of Long Island is getting a lot of volunteers this summer.
In two other districts, the 29th in Western New York and the 13th on Staten Island and a portion of Brooklyn, John McCain won. With Republican Mike Grimm in the 13th reported to be closing in on $300,000 or more in fundraising, it seems particularly baffling why the NRCC is missing this race where Republicans had ruled for nearly 30 years. Grimm should be a contender, though maybe the NRCC is afraid of another primary.
As for the 19th, a sure winner for the right Republican, Nan Hayworth is boasting of over $500,000 raised (over $350,000 in personal loans to her committee) but Republican insiders have suggested that no amount of money can buy a populist edge in this distinctly conservative tea party district.
Apparently, the NRCC agrees that Hayworth is missing something but so is most of New York's Republican establishment if they can't win back these seats.
Update on this post: We spoke too soon. NRCC now has "on the radar" candidate in the 29th, 24th and two in the 13th -- but News Copy believes most of them are contenders.
New York Getting More Attention In Six Congressional Races: Seven Candidates Upgraded By NRCC
The Baltimore Sun had this review of Sarah Palin's SNL visit.
Karol at Alarming News is sad that Republicans are losing ...
... To "a guy who 45 percent of voters don't believe is qualified to be president."
McCain is up in Georgia, tied in North Dakota and it's still close in Florida.
But the electoral map/math is bad.
North Carolina is still close but Virginia looks as good for Obama as it looked as bad for George Allen in 2006.
Ohio is a dead heat.
Pennsylvania looks lost, by 15 points.
Missouri is still close, six points.
Even little Maine (4 electoral votes) that seemed possibly a lynchpin state has John McCain down five points.
New York?
20 points ahead for Obama and probably growing since there is no visible campaign for McCain in this state.
We haven't given up on John McCain but one of News Copy's earliest friends, Robert George of the New York Post thinks Obama won the last debate.
Robert also reported that William Buckley's son, Christopher, has endorsed Obama.
National Review then proceeded to throw Buckley under the bus, so he resigned.
This is a "What would William Buckley have done?" moment.
From Governing magazine's 13th Floor comes a story about Washington, D.C.'s schools chancellor, who drew praise from both Obama and McCain last night -- except they couldn't agree on whether or not she supports vouchers.
OBAMA: I’ll just make a quick comment about vouchers in D.C. Senator McCain’s absolutely right: The D.C. school system is in terrible shape, and it has been for a very long time. And we’ve got a wonderful new superintendent there who’s working very hard with the young mayor there to try…
MCCAIN: Who supports vouchers.
OBAMA: … who initiated — actually, supports charters.
MCCAIN: She supports vouchers, also
Her name is Michelle Rhee and she does apparently support vouchers, with reservations.
With all the hot button political talk on education, it's good to see some agreement (almost) by both sides of the aisle on schools.
Governing ran this profile on Rhee last August.
Ouch.
Joe the Plumber wasn't even an apprentice. He doesn't have a license, reported The New York Times.
Daily Kos reports he owes back taxes.
It seems Joe is already growing weary of his own 15 seconds of fame.
“I’m kind of like Britney Spears having a headache,” he told The Associated Press on Thursday. “Everybody wants to know about it.”
Republicans obviously didn't vet this one.
Joe's going to win this national election.
Joe Wurzelbacher, an Ohio man looking to buy a plumbing business is interviewing Presidential candidates -- and he seems to like the less-tax, more-money-in-your-pocket approach of John McCain than the steal-from-the-rich/give-to-the-poor socialism of Barack Obama.
It's nothing personal.
Just show Joe the Plumber the money.
The Huffington Post reported tonight how John McCain pleaded Joe the Pumber's case:
"You were going to put him in a higher tax bracket which was going to increase his taxes, which was going to cause him not to be able to employ people, which Joe was trying to realize the American dream," McCain said.
The Wall Street Journal viewed the economic plans of both candidates.
"Both candidates' plans are in line with their parties' orthodoxy and their own prior initiatives. Sen. McCain is relying largely on traditional Republican tax cuts. Sen. Obama uses a big government stick -- a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures for banks receiving assistance through the federal rescue plan -- and traditional Democratic talk of keeping jobs in the U.S."
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal also reported today that the market slump has not been slowed -- and loss of fiscal confidence threatens to make matters worse.
I can agree that modern conservatism began as "a movement of dissident intellectuals" but there's too much self-loathing in this column by David Brooks in The New York Times on the class war.
I can even agree that Republicans are dumb. But Democrats are dumber, and this "none of the above" sort of thinking is political scorched earth.
" ... Over the past few decades, the Republican Party has driven away people who live in cities, in highly educated regions and on the coasts. This expulsion has had many causes. But the big one is this: Republican political tacticians decided to mobilize their coalition with a form of social class warfare. Democrats kept nominating coastal pointy-heads like Michael Dukakis so Republicans attacked coastal pointy-heads."
Democrats are still nominating urbane pointy heads.
What's driving people away are higher taxes implemented by Democrats. People are voting with their feet, moving away or not voting at all. It may take time before the voter angst is re-focused but it won't be on Republicans.
Maybe this smatters of self-loathing on my own part but a lot of those "highly educated regions and on the coasts" (and academia) are self-entitled elistist lemmings whose politically correct voting patterns have taxed themselves into oblivion.
Like the suburbs of New York City; Westchester County and Long Island, Connecticut and New Jersey.
Yeah. Right here.
We did this to ourselves, not the Republican Party and not middle america.
Why can't the media stop copping out the class war on the GOP -- and take some responsibility for this delusional Greenspan-esque spiral sucking us down?
Silicon Valley, northern Virginia, the suburbs outside of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Raleigh-Durham. The West Coast and the Northeast are "mostly gone" because those liberal elitist sections of the universe were out of touch governmentally -- and won't that be clear in the coming days as California's default ($7 billion!!!) is front page news.
New York is next.
Yesterday, Forbes reported markets watching the LIBOR rate overseas.
By Friday afternoon, Reuters had reported the rate dropping by half -- apparently signaling a thaw in the credit freeze -- but there's no clarity whether this is the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end. It was the worst week ever for the Dow.
The Street summarized today's volatility.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average swung violently throughout the session. The Dow suffered a sharp selloff of nearly 700 points early in the session to fall briefly below 8000 for the first time in more than five years. It heaved briefly into positive territory two times, before ending the day down 128 points, or 1.5%, at 8451.19.
The DOW industrial average suffered a loss of 1874 points or 18.2% over the past week, handily above the 16.7% loss from October 1932, and the 13.2% decline completed on Oct. 23, 1987, the week that started with Black Monday.
Politics has been pushed to the side, upstaged by economic realities and its fueling unstable reactions from voters and politicians alike.
Tough week to be a candidate, for sure, and New York's politicians weren't helped by Mike Bloomberg's term limits troubles and the usual budget sniping between bureaucrats. The people are looking for a target. They need/want/demand someone to vent their rage upon. President Bush spoke to the country today -- after an initial positive flurry on Wall Street -- and markets nearly tanked again.
Amid this all stands Obama, an unproven cult of personality whose associations with Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers, ACORN and the usual suspects in Congress (and Chicago) make him seem too shady. The liberals are accusing Republicans of preying to hate, misplaced anger.
The liberals are preying on fear.
John McCain finally told the angry crowds to temper their rage, reported The New York Times.
When a man told him he was “scared” of an Obama presidency, Mr. McCain replied, “I want to be president of the United States and obviously I do not want Senator Obama to be, but I have to tell you — I have to tell you — he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States.” The crowd booed loudly at Mr. McCain’s response.
This is different.
With a little over three weeks left before a nation votes, that rage could be headed anywhere.
Right now, it's aimed at George Bush and the GOP. It's a dangerous mix of panic and opportunism -- and it's time for Obama to stop fanning the flames of the Dow's drop.
Ever the Wonkette, Ana Marie Cox of Radar Online had a more dire analysis of the hate on the campaign trail.
There's no one left but the hecklers. Ms. Cox had her own explanation why.
"Because McCain's gonna lose. To a black guy."
It's a political campaign turned upside down.
William Kristol of The Daily Standard this morning mistakenly ties McCain's fate to the Bailout.
"The situation was made worse by the perception that the GOP (the Bush administration) was both presiding over a financial meltdown and obstructing efforts to deal with it (House Republicans). Republicans lost both ways. If you disliked the bailout, you were angry the Bush administration--and if you thought the bailout necessary, you were angry at the House Republicans. All in all, it was a bad three weeks for the Bush administration and congressional Republicans--and the Republican presidential ticket suffered."
The House passed the bailout 263-171 -- but it's still the economy, stupid.
AP reports McCain's pulling everything out of Michigan.
On the same day his former Republican Presidential primary opponent Mitt Romney affirms his statement that McCain can win there, the plug is pulled.
That's ostensibly more honest than what has transpired here in New York, where there are rumors that McCain has an active campaign -- and no active campaign. President Bush did this in 2004; Signs were hard to come by, writing off the state early yet both 2000 and 2004 numbers through Upstate New York were surprisingly better than 1996 and 1992.
Jonathan Martin at Politico had the story:
"McCain will go off TV in Michigan, stop dropping mail there and send most of his staff to more competitive states, including Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida. Wisconsin went for Kerry in 2004, Ohio and Florida for Bush."
Interesting how only today Mitt Romney had been talking up Michigan for McCain, repeating comments he made last week.
Politico made it sound like McCain had once believed he could win in Romney's former stomping grounds.
"Republicans had been bullish on Michigan, hopeful that McCain's past success in the state in the 2000 primary combined with voter dissatisfaction with Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm and skepticism among blue-collar voters about Barack Obama could make it competitive."
Republicans in Michigan responded to McCain's departure much the same way Republicans have felt in New York State about national races since ... gosh ... 1992?
McCain's decision didn't go over well with at least some Michigan Republicans.
"We want him in Michigan. We want him to hear our issues," said Mike Bishop, the top-ranking Republican in the state Legislature.
Like Politico, The Atlantic had its own analysis of McCain's resource-driven strategy but no mention of Romney's comments about winning in Michigan last week and again today.
Before the debate between Palin and Biden, News Copy's numbers crunchers started sifting through the poll data from Siena College's most recent survey.
This is one instance where the numbers are worse than the spin.
Our focus is more out of the suburbs, where I'm hearing from local and regional races depending on the vote from the soccer moms (and the same wage earners about to be hammered by more layoffs on Wall Street). In other words, "It's the economy, stupid" -- and it's not good around here. In addition to now officially being the highest taxed county in the country, the fiscal sinkhole is only a commuter train ride away.
Obama leads McCain 58-36 percent. That's not unusual for New York State but the numbers in the suburbs aren't pretty.
Obama is ahead 60-31 percent in the sleepy suburbs. That's Long Island and Westchester, areas that have slipped from being Republican strongholds to bases of power for the Democrats in less than 20 years.
On "Revitalizing the Economy" -- 30 percent of New Yorkers think McCain would be effective and only 37 percent in the suburbs. Half of suburban voters rated Obama higher and 57 percent statewide.
That means the bleeding on the economy, politically and perception-wise, is happening right here in Westchester County. And Republicans are getting it right between the eyes, even though Democrats control the County and State governments (who should be held responsible for picking people's pockets).
On the bailout being on people's minds "a great deal" -- nearly 70 percent of suburbanites admitted to "paying attention" (63 percent statewide).
Sarah Palin?
The numbers were painful.
53 percent unfavorables among independent voters. 55 percent unfavorables, women. 58 unfavorables, 55+ age group.
56 percent unfavorables in the suburbs. Biden had 56 percent FAVORABLES in the same areas.
So the majority of the highest taxed county in America is voting for two liberal "tax and spend" Democrats ...
Liz Benjamin of The Daily News was kind enough to post the cross tabulations on that newspaper's blog The Daily Politics. The "cross tabs" indicate a familiar story for Republicans in New York. But Palin and McCain are not resonating with suburban voters and Palin is not resonating with women in this state.
By the way, Palin's still getting good spin from the "talking heads" at this late hour (except George Stefanapolis, whose calling Biden the winner) ...
Let's see where all those negatives go now.
Both Barack Obama and John McCain want Congress to approve the bailout, reports Reuters.
Why do I feel as though the Presidential election just became irrelevant?
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