Republican wins safe Democratic seat on national issues in sign of the times for Obama
September 15th, 2011 at 03:53am
In the district infamously recently vacated by the aptly named Anthony Weiner, a special election was held yesterday (we would call it a by-election). The district, New York 9, has been held by a Democrat since 1923 and is generally considered to be a very safe district for Democrats, and is also a district in which Obama won by 11 percentage points in 2008.
Enter Bob Turner, a former television executive with no political experience, who ran on a platform opposing Obama’s disastrous economic policies and Obama’s dangerous cuddling up to the Palestinians at the expense of America’s important ties with Israel.
Republican Bob Turner was called as the winner of the special election for the 9th Congressional District, held to replace disgraced former Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner, who resigned in June after admitting he sent sexually-charged messages to women he met online.
[..]
After being introduced as Congressman Turner — while Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” played in the background — the retired media executive and political novice told his supporters at the Roma View restaurant in Howard Beach, Queens, that he was ready to get to work.As his supporters chanted, “Yes we can!” — a jab at Obama’s 2008 campaign slogan — Turner told the crowd, “It’s still me up here,” WNYC reported.
“Maybe we started something. I sure hope so,” he said.
“We’ve been told this is a referendum and we’re ready to say, ‘Mr. President, we are on the wrong track,” he said, according to the New York Daily News.
“We’ve been asked by the people of this district to send a message to Washington and I hope they hear it loud and clear. We only hope that our voices are heard. We can start putting things right again.”
(h/t Fox 5 New York)
Bob Turner won on national issues. He turned a safe Democratic seat in to a Republican seat…or to be more precise, Obama’s horrid policies and the effect they are having on the nation did that, Bob Turner is just the loud and clear voice of the people on this one.
This victory follows a number of other recent Republican victories and reflects national polling which shows that Obama is on the nose and would lose to “Generic Republican” 49% to 42% if the election were held today and the Republicans would wipe the floor with the Democrats in congressional elections.
So, in light of that, plus another day of bad economic news (Retail Sales flat in August – Wall Street Journal), and yet another court ruling that the individual mandate in the Obamacare law is unconstitutional and an abuse of the Commerce Clause (Legal Newsline.com has the details), and a continuing investigation in to the very dodgy dealings of the Obama Administration in pumping money in to a solar company which went bankrupt not long after (h/t The Hill newspaper) how does the White House respond?
Well, Obama gave another speech about his so-called “jobs plan” which would raise taxes and kill more jobs in the process and his press secretary Jay Carney ran the Democratic National Committee line of the week “oh, elections don’t actually matter”.
Q And Jay, what’s the reaction to the elections last night? How can they be viewed as anything other than a referendum on the President and where he stands with voters?
MR. CARNEY: I know I’m a little older than you, but you’ve been around long enough to know, as a reporter, as I was, that special elections are often unique and their outcomes do not tell you very much about future regularly scheduled elections. And I’m sure that you and everyone else here did not write, after Democrats won all, I believe, the special elections in 2009 and 2010, that that foretold a certain outcome in the 2010 midterms. Certainly, this election has no other bearing.
Q But those 2009 elections were before major administration policies were passed; it was before health care, it was before financial regulation. These seem more like a referendum on what’s going on, but if you’re —
MR. CARNEY: Hans, you can make those predictions and look foolish in 14 months or not. I’m simply saying that we do not view it that way.
Q Okay. Do you view these elections as a wakeup call, then? That you need to reach a —
MR. CARNEY: I think that the — one election in what had been a Democratic seat is unique to that district, to the circumstances around what created — that caused the special election to take place. And judge it as you will, I think it’s a very specific case in a specific district in, obviously, a very low turnout election.
Q So, not an indicator species at all? Won’t it all —
MR. CARNEY: I think I’ve answered the question. The answer is no. I mean, if you’re asking me — if you’re asking me, are Americans in general anxious, not happy with Washington, the answer is yes. And I would say, as we’ve said, that every elected member of Congress — elected official, rather, who is up for election in 14 months needs to take that mood very seriously. And the President certainly does, because he knows he works for the American people — that’s why he’s out there pushing the jobs act. And he believes that members of Congress need to take it seriously as well.
(h/t WhiteHouse.gov).
Regardless of their public bleatings, Obama and friends are obviously concerned, because they’ve launched yet another website asking people to report on the bad things which people say about Obama so that they can “stop the attacks on the President before they start” and “arm you with the truth so you can share the facts with your friends and family”. It’s a bit like a citizen-powered version of Julia Gillard’s inquiry in to how to make Andrew Bolt and The Australian newspaper be nicer to her (h/t TVTonight.com.au) in that the problem with both of these things is that attacks on Barack Obama (and Julia Gillard) tend to be on the factual basis that their policies are causing ongoing problems. If attackwatch.com wants to arm people with facts, it will simply forward the “attacks” to people.
It’s all a sign of the same thing. Barack Obama’s policies are running America in to the ground and people have had enough.
Samuel
Entry Filed under: General News,Samuel's Editorials
