Posted on 03/12/2014 5:55:05 AM PDT by Hojczyk
If I'm a Democratic House member in any competitive district in America or a Democratic incumbent senator up for re-election this year in a moderate-to-conservative state like North Carolina, Arkansas, Colorado, Alaska or Louisiana, I'm waking up more than a little anxious about what happened in Pinellas County on Tuesday.
In Alex Sink, Democrats had a better-funded, well-known nominee who ran a strong campaign against a little-known, second- or third-tier Republican who ran an often wobbly race in a district Barack Obama won twice. Outside Republican groups — much more so than the under-funded Jolly campaign — hung the Affordable Care Act and President Obama on Sink.
It worked. A special election always promised to be tough for Democrats. Given the president's approval ratings, November is likely to be challenging, too, but if Sink opts to run again she at least could be assured a stronger Democratic turnout.
On the other hand, Roll Call has a statistic likely to give the former banking executive pause about taking on Jolly a second time: So far this century, 85 percent of congressional special-election winners win at least two subsequent general elections.
Two invisible political players stand out in this race: Obama and Gov. Rick Scott. Both sides wanted them as far away from Pinellas County as possible.
In their stead, Bill Clinton starred in robocalls for Sink, and Jeb Bush starred in TV ads and mailers for Jolly. Maybe that's yet another sign that Clinton and Bush remain the most formidable names in politics.
We watch mostly Tampa TV stations here in Central Florida and this race featured a LOT of ads around the clock. Only remember seeing Jeb Bush a couple of times.
Sink's ads tried to portray Jolly as a Washington Insider Lobbyist who was only for big business and against the "little man and seniors." Typical Demonrat scare tactics aimed at LIV and seniors.
Sink, "I have a history of bringing Democrats and Republicans together and I'll do the same in Washington to protect social security and medicare." "Jolly wants to privatize social security using risky investments and cut medicare."
Jolly did a smart counter ad appearinug with his Mom and another older relative to assure seniors that was not the case. And hammered home that Obamacare, which Sink wanted to keep and "fix" the parts of it that weren't working, had raided medicare of $716 billion dollars.
Late in the campaign, which polls showed Sink being up by almost double digits, Sink's ads got more and more desperate as she had been cast as being the representative of Pelosi and Obama rather than a representative of the people of the 13th District. Her own ads had professed support for Obamacare as if it just needed a little tweaking to make its wonderful awesomeness come to fruition through her bipartisan experience of bringing folks together through "common sense."
Note: this "common sense" phrase was also used by Charlie Crist in some of his interviews espousing his views for the good of all things Democrat Governor's campaign.
Be interesting to see if this "common sense" phrase is the latest DemonRat, focus-group-tested talking point.
I’ve said this before — You can’t just beat on Obamacare and propose nothing.
Newt Gingrich had the right formula when he united the Republicans around the CONTRACT WITH AMERICA.
The GOP has to UNITE around a plan to replace Obamacare.
And NO, simply saying we will repeal it and go back to where things were before won’t appeal. People were not exactly happy with the way things were before Obamacare.
“Obama at this point looks like a drag for Democrats in November, just as he consistently has been for Sink.”
Obama, at this point, is a drag for America and maybe FINALLY Americans are GETTING THE POINT!!!
That the GOPe would rather split the vote and LOSE than put up an actual conservative suggests to me that they don't really want to win at all. They would rather have dems in office than conservatives.
This sounds identical to the two state elections in Colorado.
Tons of DNC money flowed into the state and they still lost.
2014 could be really big.
“That the GOPe has opted for open warfare against the conservative wing of their base suggests to me that the wake-up call is being ignored. I don’t think this November is going to be anywhere near as rosy for the Republicans as they expect.”
I agree; they can’t publicly hold any conservative positions without being trashed in the media, and they can’t motivate their base without those positions. After 2012, I can’t believe any Republicans see anything as “rosy”; Obama’s win against McCain was understandable as he had little to offer, but the re-election (after four horrible years economically) indicated the Republicans might as well close up shop.
It must be really bad... The paper is a democrat rag...............................NOTE!!
“Maybe that’s yet another sign that Clinton and Bush remain the most formidable names in politics.” Read between the lines, its all there.
The sentence is not complete. Let me help...
Bill Clinton starred in robocalls for Sink stains.
Sink is a prototypical "play-by-the-Obama-rules" Dummycrat---a lock-stepping pro-infanticide, pro-sodomy, pro-welfare state, O/Care fixer progressive/liberal.
Enough is enough. The perverted Obama/Dummycrat agenda is dead and buried.
No kidding...the “amnesty-and-kill-the-Tea-Party” crowd is about as far removed from reality as you can get. Whenever I see Karl Rove or one of the camp followers from the Romney campaign, offering their own version of a triangulation strategy, I literally scream at the TV: “how many elections have you won lately?” Don’t get an answer, but it makes me feel better for a few seconds.
The current class of GOP consultants are (for the most part) cut from the same “inside the beltway” cloth as the GOPe. More concerned about moving in the right social circles (and keeping their cushy consulting jobs) than winning elections.
If the GOP had a brain (jury’s still out on that one), they would be grooming a new consultant class among the Tea Party activists who retook the House in 2010, and have carried the day for more Republicans than I can count. Sure, there have been some clunkers, but most Tea Party groups are smart, engaged and they know how to organize. Heck, if the GOP would look close enough, they might even find some sharp IT/data analysis/messaging folks who could erase the Democrats advantages in those areas.
I would say at least 3-1. I spent last week in Pinellas County. Every time I had the TV on there were endless ads by Sink on every channel. I don't remember seeing an ad by Jolly.
Some of the ads were vicious, some laughable. There was an ad for Sink that accused Jolly of wanting Pinellas and FL to flood due to the rising waters caused by man-made climate change. It showed a graphic of the various coastlines of FL disappearing dues to rapidly rising water. I had to laugh at that one.
Huh? The evil left's agenda is very far from dead and further from buried.
Remember, Obamacare and Dodd Frank is the law of the land. Don't you think the GOPe will roll that back?
Remember, 100's of thousands of Marxist, sadistic bureaucrats infest the EPA and other agencies. Do you think panty wearing McConnell or crybaby Boehner will roll that back if they are present under a Conservative President?
The left dominates most of our institutions.
True restoration of our Republic as Founded will take a concerted effort at the State level via the Article V process to roll-back the evil Federal leviathan.
The reality is that even the Article V process is a long shot.
Now, there are more ways than one to finish off these lib/progs.
Much as I hate to admit it---Obama has changed the political spectrum. We have to think of newer ways to remove the lib/prog pestilence from the face of the earth.
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