Posted on 11/04/2009 2:54:16 PM PST by giotto
In New York's 23rd Congressional district, Democrat Owens finished with 49% , making him the winner of a plurality of the votes. What's being overlooked by Republicans and conservatives is that Scozzafava, despite having withdrawn from the race, still garnered 6% of votes, with Hoffman getting 45%. I'm guessing that most of Scozzafava's 6% were absentee ballots which had already been mailed before she dropped out. Other votes could have come from die hard fans of hers, or voters who simply didn't know she was no longer in the race.
Whatever the reason, the fact remains that Owens won with less than 50% of the vote, which means that a majority of voters did not want a Democrat congressman. In fact, there may have been Scozzafava supporters who voted for Owens in protest.
Today, for some reason, it's proving to be very difficult to find the actual percentages in this election. Most news stories simply say Owens 49%, Hoffman 45%--completely ignoring Scozzafava's 6%. Call it "spinning by omission."
No, I’m wrong: the margin between the total votes for Hoffman and the total votes for Owens was 6317 votes, Owens of course having that many more than Hoffman.
Scozzafava garnered a total of 6567 votes, whatever source they came from, write ins , absentees, etc.
So SHE had a margin of 250 votes over Hoffman’s deficit relative to Owens.
There are a few ways to look at it. If you could eliminate ALL Scozzafava’s votes, as if a “nullification”,then Owens would still have beat Hoffman by 6317 votes, but as it is,
the triangulation created a situation of such messiness and outright treachery, that it’s impossible to know what the outcome would’ve been had she just dropped out and kept mum, and NOT directed her votes toward someone of the “other” Party.
The RNC Screwed this one up Big Time and let a Democrat get 49% of the vote and win a district that had been Republican for 140 years.
That’s right—suspect. I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt. My only alternative is to assume that 6% of Watertown’s voters were either clueless or vindictive.
Yes - and the tea party groups did amazing work this year. When we do something for our country, we get results!!
I so wish we had extra cash, I’d be in DC tomorrow. Now is not the time to think we’ve accomplished anything. It’s just beginning. We have to be relentless, and NEVER give up.
This loss was probably a good thing for the GOP. If you guys go to the extreme with this libertarian stuff, you are going to run a chance of getting clobbered in 2010 and 2012. And, if you do win by the negative reaction to Obama, you will find yourself hobbled by the philosophy that gov’t is supposed to sit on its rear end and do squat.
parsy, the democrat who is offering brotherly advice
Bill Owens Dem. 65,908 49.3%
Doug Hoffman Con. 60,442 45.2
Dede Scozzafava Rep. 7,385 5.5
Doug down 5466 w/96% reporting.
Didn’t the ROP buy these RINO Votes..7,385
And another lefty idiot offers great words of advice to the real conservatives at FR...oh no wait, its the same old lefty idiot. My mistake.
I’m guessing that most of Scozzafava’s 6% were absentee ballots which had already been mailed before she dropped out. Other votes could have come from die hard fans of hers, or voters who simply didn’t know she was no longer in the race.
I don’t think absentees were counted in the totals that has been given by the media. Concrete numbers are hard to find as you say. I’ve read reports that there were something over 10,000 absentee ballots requested and something just under 6,000 returned.
Most of the “real” conservatives I run into on FR aren’t “real” conservatives, they are “real” libertarians instead. For some reason, those kind of people seem to be real sensitive to anybody questioning their conservative credentials, so they like to throw “real” into their self-descriptions.
From little I read about Hoffman, he was conservative on some issues, but on economic issues he was pretty much another dyed-in-the-wool libertarian. But you guys can keep on ignoring me. I tried to tell you this back in 2001 and you didn’t listen then either.
parsy, the conservative who defected to the democrat party out of hopelessness about the GOP ever using its brain
Parsy, who probably has it wrong.
NEVER! Keep the heat on.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | Pct. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winner: Bill OwensBill Owens | Dem. | 65,908 | 49.3% | |
| Doug Hoffman | Con. | 60,442 | 45.2 | |
| Dede Scozzafava | Rep. | 7,385 | 5.5 | |
What an amazing man. He’s us, he’s just a regular American. He could have been any freeper.
Conservatives have brains and can think. Libertarians walk around in a mental muddle murmuring “no taxes, no gov’t, no regulations” under their breath.
Conservatives are appropriately pessimistic to not really trust anyone with power, the poor, or the rich, unions or management. Libertarians have had their minds washed by reading Ayn Rand and Von Mises, so they live in happy happy libertarian la la land, where if only the mean ‘ol gov’t would go away then we would all live in the Garden of Eden.
Conservatives look upon Wall Street the same way they look at welfare bums, as people who will screw you over if they get the chance. Libertarians OTOH look on Wall Street as heroic incarnations of Dagny, and John, and Hank, and that viking pirate dude...
Libertarians do not spank their children because that is the “initiation of force” whereas conservatives do not spare the rod, lest their children grow up and become libertarians.
parsy, who hopes this explains it
Libertarians walk around in a pot induced mental muddle murmuring “no taxes, no gov’t, no regulations, legalize drugs” under their breath.
I said this last night:
The margin of Owens victory over Hoffman is smaller than Scozzafava’s vote total. If the GOP had put a conservative up in the FIRST PLACE then the conservative would have been in FIRST PLACE.
Hoffman’s defeat is squarely in the lap of the moderate GOP and Newt the Nuisance.
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