Posted on 06/08/2009 1:29:17 PM PDT by eleni121
Updated, 4:15 p.m. | ALBANY – Democrats appeared to have lost their majority in the New York State Senate on Monday, in a stunning and sudden reversal of fortunes for a party that has controlled the chamber for barely five months.
(Excerpt) Read more at cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com ...
Note the two Dem Senators who voted to hand control of the NY Senate to the GOP are not switching parties, not even becoming indy's. They are simply voting to make Dean Skelos the Senate leader and voting with the GOP for organization purposes.
The article notes the Senate pubbies had been working on this for at least five weeks and had enlisted political Independent (and zillionaire) Tom Golisano to help after the RAT controlled NY government was promising to raise taxes on "the rich". Sounds like Senator Monserrate agreed to this probably to get revenge on the RATs for throwing him to the wolves after he got indicted.
I'm impressed. This type of strategic thinking is almost never employed by the GOP. It appears they were several moves ahead in a chess game and probably have been looking for creative ways to take back control of the Senate since the moment the RATs took over.
Of course this wouldn't have been possible if the Dems had a safe majority to begin with. Instead, it's a narrow 32 Dem-30 GOP arrangement in the NY senate, and that's after two elections where the Dems had huge turnout and nonstop upset wins. I can't figure out why the NYGOP is so pathetic in federal elections considering how effective they are at local elections. In order to have controlled the Senate for last 40+ years and having 30 seats today, my guess is they probably hold a lopsided huge majority upstate and even have a few Republican Senators within NY city limits, probably most of the Long Island and Staten Island areas. Compare that to the practically nonexistence presence they have at the national level, with a mere 3 out of nearly 30 Congressional seats from NY (with a good chance of that being reduced to 2 soon), no Senators, and the state going 2/3rd Dem in presidential elections without the Dems even lifting a finger to spend money there.
Seems to me the national party could use some tips from the NY Senate Republicans on how to win elections there.
I second that. I live in Western North Carolina. They move here, vote socialist! They want to raise the standard of living so they have the appropriate class of people in their neighborhoods. I cannot figure it out. They don’t like high taxes when it affects them, but as long as it keeps out the “undesirables”, red necks, people of different ethnicity, farmers. They are ruining the South, by turning it into the North and then argue that Illegals should come here and integrate. These socialist do not know anything about integration.
The thing is, in places like the NY Senate, the majority leadership can completely block any bill they want to. In this case, they likely will be blocking the gay marriage bill.
As a former New Yorker, I am in agreement with much of your post. BUT the same people who run state legislative races also run the Congressional races, that is, the local county and city party organizations.
I hope more than just party affiliation changed. If the attitudes/votes remain the same “under new management”, then the state is still screwed.
I escaped from Outer Bingolia (Binghamton) 7 years ago.
Malcolm Smith Ousted As Senate Majority Leader; Dems Turn Off Lights, Cut Internet Power In Attempt To Stop Coup Paterson Goes Ballistic: I'm Here To Stand Up For Democracy
1. GOP = Moderate Democrats everywhere else.
2. Democrats = Marxist Leninists.
Basically, the national GOP is not liked in New York due to their identification with evangelical protestantism, gun rights, hostility to government employees and unions, etc. NY State GOPers tend to be conservative on "law and order" issues only, moderate on economics, and leftist on gun laws. They kind of remind me of the Catholic paternalists in the old European Christian Democrats in western Europe and Latin America.
I escaped from Outer Bingolia (Binghamton) 7 years ago.
We’re gonna make the escape move soon too. This state of dysfunction is ridiculous.
Heh..
Its like you idiots have a f-—ing script you read off of...
I heard the exact same sh-t from “small-minded” POS’s during the Arnold - McClintock war that raged on this forum.
Here is a reminder of those days...
“Prominent California Republicans are sharply increasing the pressure on state Sen. Tom McClintock to drop out of the gubernatorial recall election, clearing the field for Arnold Schwarzenegger after a poll showed the actor’s performance in Wednesday night’s debate was well-received.
“It’s everyone’s preference to have one Republican on the ballot,” said Mike Wintemute, spokesman for the California Republican Party. “How we get there is still in dispute. Will it happen on its own, or will it take more pressure in terms of endorsements?”
That pressure increased greatly yesterday.”
Well, I guess its easy to find out how THAT turned out... Pretty much EXACTLY like conservatives like me said it would.
Have fun with that whole thing. Well see how it turns out for you. Hint: New York is f-—ing doomed to a socialist hell. bet on it. Whos living in a god damn fantasy land? No matter how hard it might be to get lazy ass limited government type conservatives up and moving in the same direction for any length of time it is still more likely than squeezing blood from a turnip or expecting “liberal” “republicans” to somehow give you a federal government that is as limited in scope and size as was intended.
Regardless, all its going to take to push the rest of the limited government types over the edge of radicalization is one or two more un-f-—ing-believable usurpations by the fedgov. Were almost there now...
“The Left doesn’t even understand what’s happening yet.”
Doesn’t the left understand everything?
(At least they say they do.)
Those fascist dems love to cut the power when it all goes wrong for them, don’t they?
I remember what House Speaker Pelosi did last summer.
that is a very good point!
-keep your friends close, and your enemies closer...but watch out for friendly enemies.
From the sounds of it, the Rats are completely stunned. Have to give credit to Golisano. Sounds like he may have orchestrated this.
Pretty damn awesome no matter how you slice it.
All the initial comments from the Rats sounds like the captain of the Titanic.
Huh? Putting a D->R in as the Senate President is "pretty damn awesome"?
Sorry, but it's mere power-sharing and game-playing amongst liberal factions, not any positive conservative move. Look for votes on gay marriage, etc., to start moving forward.
bout time.
this state is really heading in the dumper faster than California.
ping
If only this would start to happen at the Federal level!!!
Finally some good news. Let’s pray this is a trend.
2) I wouldn't say all Republicans within New York are basically "moderate Democrats". They tend to be less conservative than the GOP as a whole is nationally, but just as there were a handful of good conservatives in their national officials, so it must be true in their state officials. Rudy Giuliani is basically a "moderate Democrat" who is conservative only on law-and-order issues, but he was elected mayor of a large city metropolis and was elected on the Liberal Party line. It's probably quite different for upstate Republicans. Since this is United States and they have to fit into a political party with a national identity. Dean Skelos certainly seems considerably more conservative to me than Malcolm Smith, and I am optimistic the NY GOP will stop tax hikes and move to block gay marriage from going to a floor vote. Freepers are comparing this to the defeat of the left in Europe. Well, this is definitely better than what we get out of European "conservative" parties. Personally the only reason I think the "Socialists" can't win in France is that the "conservative" President Sarkozy has simply co-opted their agenda so you don't have to vote Socialist anymore to get socialism. They should make him head of the Socialist Party, he can impliment their agenda better than they can.
3) The Conservative and Right-to-Life parties exist precisely because the NYGOP at the state level got too liberal, and in some ways they've had a success since it's almost impossible to win statewide as a "Republican" unless they're on a fusion ticket with those parties. Of course the Conservative Party itself has now gone squishy, but even so a state Senator from New York who was elected on "Republican/Conservative/Right-to-Life" ticket is likely to be much more conservative than one simply elected on the "Republican" ticket
4) I don't know if the national GOP having a large number of southern Evangelical protestants is hurting the NYGOP's efforts to win elections, since nationwide the amount of big name Catholic officials in the party is considerably large as well. It's funny, before Bush was elected President, the RATs accused him of being secretly anti-Catholic because he visited Bob Jones University and all that, after he became President they flipped 180 degrees and accused him of being a puppet of Catholics because of all his Supreme Court appointments and opposition to embryonic stem cell research and so on. Although you might have a point that some of the more vocal "fundamentalists". We have freepers who refer to anyone who believes in evolution ("evil-ution" as they call it) as being "non-Christian", those that insist the civil war ("war of northern aggression" as they call it) having "nothing whatsoever to do with slavery", etc. My guess is they probably wouldn't find too many New Yorkers (regardless of party) who share their views.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.