With everyone declaring Democrats’ victory in NY-26 a simple indictment of Republicans’ Medicare plans (with the requisite special election caveats), it’s worth remembering that by most accounts, victor Kathy Hochul was the better all-around candidate. So, who is the congresswoman-elect?
So what did the GOP loss in NY-26 really mean? For the Republicans trouble, and an opportunity to pivot to a better message as they face the 2012 elections. First, it is indeed true that special elections are not reliable predictors of the future. And the NY-26 race was a strange 3-way contest, with a [...]
The incredibly boorish grilling of Elizabeth Warren by Republican members of a House subcommittee on Tuesday raises two interesting questions: After a decade in which money lenders raped and pillaged homeowners, home-buyers and credit-card holders, why are Republicans so intent on gutting an agency that would protect the American middle class from such persistent sleazebags? [...]
Hoping to take the sting out of his proposal to radically change Medicare, Paul Ryan released a video Wednesday morning explaining his plan with the help of some visual aids. Ryan is in desperate need of new messaging after a Democrat prevailed in special election to represent New York’s 26th district. The election was largely [...]
I dissented from the old conventional wisdom that Paul Ryan’s budget plan was substantively courageous. But even after the Democrats won control of a Republican congressional district Tuesday night by bashing Ryan’s proposed Medicare cuts, I’m not quite ready to endorse the new conventional wisdom that his plan is politically fatal. Because if springtime special [...]
A “ two-hour-long, sweeping epic” film about Sarah Palin, designed to “serve as a galvanizing prelude to Palin’s prospective presidential campaign,” will debut in Iowa in June. Republicans’ claim that third-party candidate Jack Davis cost them New York 26′s special election is not credible; it may not be predictive, but Democrats overperformed. Senator Olympia Snowe opposes Paul [...]
Democrat Kathy Hochul won a special congressional election in Western New York on Tuesday night, riding a wave of discontent over Paul Ryan’s budget to an upset victory in a staunchly conservative district. The Associated Press called the race a little after 10:00 p.m. With 66% of precincts reporting, Hochul captured 48% of the vote, [...]
As Swampland’s new South Beach correspondent, I plan to abuse my power every now and then to highlight the infuriating insanity of my adopted state. I kicked this off a couple weeks ago with a post on Florida’s more-booze-for-the-drunk approach to growth management. Today, to continue this auto-dependent, dumb-growth, sprawl-everywhere theme, Transportation for America has [...]
Arizona’s rocky red deserts are certainly a long way from Lake Lucille in Wasilla, Alaska. But, if the reports are true, it looks like Sarah & Todd Palin may have just bought themselves a new second home.
