About New York, I noticed, to my surprise, that we nearly knocked off Michael Arcuri. He won by just 4,000 votes. That was a surprise. I figured the Gillibrand and Hall seats would be much closer, if not outright pickups. Plus Tim Bishop in NY-1 scored 58%, not exactly a huge win for a seat that we didn’t contest strongly.
Yeah, I heard about the close race of Arcuri vs. Hanna. Hanna should definitely try again in ‘10. I was expecting us to take at least around 5 seats in the Northeast (Hall, Gillibrand, “Che-”Porter in NH, and, of course Kanjorski & Murtha). Interestingly, another close race was in the open ME-1 district. The Republican, Charlie Summers, got 45% (he got 40% against Allen in ‘04) to Chellie Pingree’s 55%. Pingree is a WORLD-class moonbat (she ran against Collins in ‘02 and got 42%) and could be a potential target again in 2010.
I spotted the close loss by Hanna on election night. Everyone called this race “Democrat Favored” and it was not on the radar. Party slept on this one. Hanna didn’t even have money to spend and still nearly won. I don’t know if McCain won the seat, doubtful, but it was a Bush district in 04 and tied in 00.
Ray Meier in ‘06 was a bad candidate. and this year Acuri did not get the Independence party nod, Hanna did, it’s a must the Republican gets that ballot line.
In my final house analysis I was not expecting any gains in New York. I thought Kuhl could hang on, he almost did. Gillibrand’s huge margin against a fairly strong opponent was shocking.
Since Shea-Porter was ahead in the polls her win did not surprise me. I had bad feeling in the back of my mind about Barletta’s chances. Very disappointing. That would have been a real “pickup” not just an take back of an ‘06 loss. Non remap aided pickups for the GOP in recent elections that we still have include KY-04, a heavily conservative seat lost in ‘98, and LA-07, that is all. 2004 would have been a net loss without Texas.
I noticed the close race in ME as well. Pingree is indeed a complete wackjob. The GOP mustn’t fail to challenge her in ‘10. Allen was hard left but didn’t have the rep of being a radical moonbat like Pingree, Maine doesn’t tend to like “extremism”.