A Democrat WON that district in November, by a much wider margin.
How can you say it was a huge defeat for the GOP to come so close, now?
Because the Democrat who "WON that district in November" WASN'T running this time around, and INSTEAD we lost to a little-known limousine liberal Dem who had never held office.
I can't believe some freepers are STILL trying to spin this as a "moral victory" and a "bad sign for Obama" when we're down to a pathetic THREE Republicans (out of a delegation of 29 Congressmen!) and we failed to take back a REPUBLICAN drawn district with a 75,000+ REPUBLICAN majority after Patterson gave us a golden opportunity to do so by removing the lone Democrat who was hugely popular and well liked in that district.
It's time to face reality, folks. This election was ours to lose, and Tedisco and the RNC managed to lose it. The district is SUPPOSED to go Republican "by default", as Sweeney and Bush comfortably won this district in the 2000s AFTER it had been redistricted. Tedisco started the race with a solid lead in the polls, and SHOULD have won by a margin of at least five percentage points. If Tedisco had "only lost by 400 votes" against extremely popular incumbant GILLIBRAND, that would have been a good sign things are picking up. Instead, he lost by 400 votes to a unknown RAT who had never held office. The "reason" the Dems lost 76,000 votes between November 2008 and April 2009 is blantantly obvious: Gillibrand wasn't their candidate this time, and Obama wasn't on top of the ballot to ensure huge black Dem turnout. They SHOULD lost a great deal more votes, since again, this district has a REPUBLICAN majority.
We're never gonna gain in 2010 if we can't win special elections for seats that were drawn to elect Republicans in the first place.
The RNC made this race a priority, and had the advantage in district demographics the entire campaign. Clearly their stragedy of running against "AIG" instead of Murphy himself didn't work. Tedisco is well-known, popular State Senator with an impressive track record. He too, had a clear advantage the entire campaign and managed to screw it up with a weak, mushy debate performance against Murphy and no clear stand on the current issues.
I agree heads should roll over this failure to win back a normally GOP-controlled district, and Tedisco should not be the party nominee in 2010.
And does anyone know when the NYGOP chairman took office? I looked up his bio on the state party website and it seems he's one of the ol' moderate party hacks who got the job after years of loyalty to the GOP big wigs. Seems to me we could use some new blood there, too.
Chairman Joseph N. Mondello <--- RINO?
You must not have read my post that I linked to. Do so or read the post Billyboy linked to you.
Incumbents win big all the time, it’s irreverent what Gillibrand got in 2008, she was not the nominee.
There are several heavily (way more than this NY seat) Republican seats that have popular RAT incumbents who win huge majorities in Utah, Mississippi ect. If when one is next open the GOP loses with 49.9% would you consider than good cause it was better than the last result? Of course not because the GOP would be heavy favorite to take it back. Just like Tedisco was the strong initial fav here in aBush district (that narrowly went Obama because McCain did not compete in NY.) that only elected Gillibrand in the first place cause the Republican incumbent smacked his wife.