Posted on 06/17/2011 5:24:51 AM PDT by statestreet
As disgraced Rep. Anthony Weiner, once a major player in New York City politics and a prominent Democratic Party attack dog, enters the X-rated dustbin of history, the question of who will replace him in the state's ninth congressional district now takes center stage.
Normally, the only question regarding Gotham congressional races is how left-wing the Democratic victor will be. In anything now regarding Anthony Weiner, the circumstances are hardly normal.
On its surface, NY9 is bedrock Democrat. A Republican has not represented any portion of it in decades—and Weiner's predecessor was none other than his mentor, Sen. Chuck Schumer.
But NY9 possesses certain oddities. For an urban district, its population is decidedly non-diverse: 71% of its voters are white. Only a miniscule 4% are African-American. In recent presidential elections, the Republican vote has not only held steady, it has trended upward, from 30% in 2000 to 44% in both 2004 and 2008. More significantly, compared with the national GOP vote percentage, it has soared from a deficit of -18% to -7% to just -2%. And in 2010, Anthony Weiner's unknown, 70-year-old Republican oppponent, Bob Turner, polled a respectable, and actually startling, 40%.
(Excerpt) Read more at humanevents.com ...
The NY-09 gave President Bush 45% (IIRC) in 2004, a huge uptick from the 30% or so he got there in 2000. I believe that it was the biggest increase for President Bush in the nation—Bush did much better among Jewish (particularly Orthodox Jewish) voters the second time around, due not only to September 11 but to the fact that Orthodox Jewish Democrat Joe Lieberman was not running for VP. McCain did a bit worse than 45%, but not much worse. In the Brooklyn portion of the district (which is heavily Orthodox Jewish), I believe that both Bush and McCain got 57%.
So the district could be competitive for the right Republican. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that a Jewish Republican would give us a better chance, and an Orthodox Jewish Republican would be ideal. While it is true that neither Bush nor McCain is Jewish, the Democrats will run a Jewish candidate, not run a haughty patrician from Massachusetts not a black crypto-Muslim from God knows where, so a generic GOP candidate would start off with less than the 45% that Bush got. We need a Jewish Republican to have a chance. Mr. Ulrich may be a terrific candidate (I don’t know), but he won’t get the type of Orthodox Jewish support and turnout needed to pull off the upset.
And as for the theory that the district will be “eliminated” in redistricting, I doubt that Nadler will want even more Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in his CD, and the black-majority districts to its north would be a bad fit as well. It would make more sense to place the Brooklyn Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods that are currently split among Weiner’s and Nadler’s CDs in the same district, which would make it (i) even more competitive for the GOP and (ii) even more unlikely to elect a non-Jewish candidate. So redistricting is yet another reason why we should run an Orthodox Jewish candidate.
Re the redistring math..suggets you read Costa’s piece about it in nationalreview.com...He say that a neighboring Dem wants to grab white Catholic neighbrhoods from the 9th...
I assume that it’s Crowley wanting to grab Catholic neighborhoods from the Queens part of the NY-09; and I’m sure that Ackerman wouldn’t mind Jewish neighborhoods in Queens going over to his CD. The problem is that the Brooklyn part of the district, where all the Orthodox Jews live, is fast-growing, as are the adjoining neighborhoods in Nadler’s CD. The only CDs that could absorb the Brooklyn neighborhoods are Nadler’s, the two black-majority CDs in Brooklyn, the Hispanic-majority NY-12, and the GOP-held Staten Island/Bensonhurst NY-13. The NY-13 doesn’t have to grow by all that much, and none of the Dems would want those neighborhoods, so I think they’ll have to draw a Jewish CD in Brooklyn.
It may be winnable, but what happens if Ulrich wins? The district may dissappear in 2012.
You're from the future! Does Obama win??
Ulrich could run in the new district against the “incumbent” Dem but a GOP win here would wipe the NY26 Dem win out. They love to crow over that one.
I find it hard to believe that voters who would vote for Weiner to represent their “values” would ever vote for a Republican.
Yeah this is one of those seats where going from 44/45 to 50 will be hard. We need every advantage.
Our “goyim” candidate in 2010 got 39%.
He was a “goy” candidate (”goyim” is the plural). “Goyim” is one of those foreign plural words that is often used in singular form in English because it doesn’t end in an S and since the plural form is more common. Similarly, the thin sandwich at a salumeria is a “panino” (”panini” is the plural) and one piece of information is a “datum” (”data” is the plural).
And that’s my grammar tip of the day. : )
Thanks. ;-D
I didn’t know that about the sandwich.
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