Posted on 10/13/2009 6:40:05 PM PDT by LdSentinal
Republicans seized another Democratic seat in the state House tonight in the special election to succeed Rep. Curt Cobb. Trucking company owner Pat Marsh beat Cobb's brother, Ty, handily by a vote of 4,931 to 3,663. That gives Republicans a 51-48 advantage in the House and makes it that much harder for Tennessee's beleaguered Democrats to return to power in the high-stakes 2010 elections.
Democrats poured everything they had into this race to hold this seat. Many observers described the election as a bellwether for 2010, a strong indication of just how much Barack Obama's unpopularity here might hurt Democrats in state elections.
Watch for a circular firing squad with Democrats blaming each other for the debacle. A few targets:
(1) It's truly an embarrassment for new state party chair Chip Forrester, who won his job by boasting of his skills as a grassroots organizer. This low-turnout election was all about identifying your voters and getting them to the polls, and Forrester obviously failed.
(2) Cobb basically ran as a Republican, even winning the Right to Life endorsement. So progressives will claim Democrats screwed up by running to the right, although the district's clearly conservative and it's hard to imagine how a liberal could have done better than Cobb.
(3) The House Democratic Caucus led by Rep. Mike Turner sent a controversial mailer claiming Marsh favored cloning humans. It was an absurd accusation on its face, and it might have backfired.
(4) Curt Cobb, the incumbent, will take heat as well for putting the seat in jeopardy in the first place by resigning to take a higher paying county job. It's like the resignation of Democrat Rep. Randy Rinks, whose West Tennessee seat also was lost to Republicans in '08.
For Republicans, the victory boosts fund-raising, helps candidate recruitment and builds momentum for 2010, when legislative elections will determine which party wins the right to try to gerrymander its enemies into oblivion for the next decade.
We’ll take it...
:)
and so it begins, must be Bushs fault
ARF
Good. Things are finally trending towards sanity.
Evil Dems. Notice how the Dem had his brother running for his seat. These people are disgusting.
Thsi is what it is gonna take folks. We are gonna have to take it back block by block.
Ty Cobb?
He must be about 130 now.
He was supposed to have been quite the jerk, but the Tigers sure could have used him earlier this month.
Do they have to wait until January to vote on SOH? When can they regroup and kick Williams to the curb?
Looks like a Gubernatorial (R) win will be registered here in VA, and NJ will follow.
So much for the commies who thought the Republican party was done.
What is sad is that if more Republicans were Conservatives we would never have lost control.
Cobb is the brother of the Dem who held the seat previously. This district used to be hardcore Dem but over the last ten to fifteen years it has “grown”. Nice job by the state GOP on this one.
And dead
He would be considered racist by today’s standards but I don’t think he was so racist for his day. There was no political correctness in his day.
Ty Cobb ended his remaining years living on-and-off his car, carring a .38 revolver, and pissing off his last few remaining friends.
Excellent point! Thanks!
“Tennessee might get an extra seat in Congress after 2010, so this makes a difference nationwide.”
But if the GOP controls redistricting in TN it can change the current 5-4 RAT advantage in the U.S. House of Representatives to a 7-2 GOP advantage. That’s pretty huge right there.
They dont go back till January...
We The People are Pissed; News Flash to the RATs/RINOs everywhere!
Even though this election was held in Tennessee, this is a good sign that the dynamics may be changing in our favor nationally. Let's keep pressing and not give up.
WOW!! Now if only we can SOMEHOW continue the streak and get Girly Lindsey GramCRACKER boot off the party!! THINK FOLKS there must be a way to get rid of him and Snowe!! A lawsuit perhaps? They sure aren’t representing the folk that voted and GIVE them money...SURELY there must be something, someway...you know like something like a return policy!
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