That’s the word from Rep. Pete Sessions (R., Texas):
National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions called Turner’s victory a “clear rebuke of President Obama’s policies” and said that it “delivers a blow to Democrats’ goal of making Nancy Pelosi the Speaker again.”
Sessions continued, “New Yorkers put Washington Democrats on notice that voters are losing confidence in a President whose policies assault job-creators and affront Israel. An unpopular President Obama is now a liability for Democrats nationwide in a 2012 election that is a referendum on his economic policies.”
And from the Washington Post newsroom:
With his outcome of his own reelection effort 14 difficult months away, President Obama suffered a sharp rebuke at the polls Tuesday, when voters in New York elected a conservative Republican to represent a Democratic congressional district that has not been in Republican hands since the 1920s.
Bob Turner, the winner, cast the election as a referendum on Obama’s stewardship of the economy and, in the state’s 9th Congressional District, which has a large population of Orthodox Jewish voters, the president’s position on Israel.
UPDATE: A reader notes that Politico is leading its home page with that word, too.
This is why I feel so strongly that if we nominate ANY credible candidate, Obama will go down in flames. We should nominate the most conservative, credible candidate we should.
I'm not entirely sure who that is yet. Perry is still at the top of my list, but he needs to do better in the debates. He needs to present specifics. The one thing I love about Romney is that he has specific ideas and plans on the economy and foreign policy. His thoughts don't just stop at the water's edge. What I like about Perry is that he's a conservative on economic issues. I'm not sure Romney is.
So Perry needs to fight back and present real concrete ideas, and he needs to take Romney head on. I still think he's the most conservative candidate we can nominate who can still be elected.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis was essentially a single issue election... Obama's handling of Israel... but as others have pointed out, the Orthodox anger at the gay marriage vote opens up some interesting possibilities for the GOP here. Can a mix of pro-Israel policies and pro-social morality policies start luring more of the traditional American Jews to the GOP? History is against us, but again, the possibilities are interesting.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt is true that Israel was a big part of this, but that's part of what makes this amazing. Jews vote very largely Democratic everywhere. A district that is mostly Jewish should be a slam-dunk for the Dems. And this is New York! Obama and his staff should be really disheartened by this. The Democrats are in way worse shape than anybody thought if even a reliable voting block like New York Jews have walked away.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseA loss by 8% in a district Democratic since 1923 is rather striking.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt is more than Israel. It is also disgust with Weiner AND with the way the national Democratic party tried to support him before he finally had to quit. And, for those who harbor stereotypes about us Jews*, well...who better to know that this Administration and his party know bupkis about how to handle money!
Mazel Tov, Bob!
(* What, you didn't know? Okay, at Ellis Island my great-grandfather DID Americanize it from Changewitz...but still...(smile))
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBut seriously...my real grandparents came through Ellis Island in 1920...and lived in this district until they moved to California two years later....not, as far as I'm able to tell, because it went Democrat in 1922, but you never know, y'know?
By the way....not only Jews will be voting Republican in 2012. I predict a lot--and I mean a WHOLE lot--of blacks and latinos who voted Obama out of solidarity last time will see the results effect on their own families and, quite quietly and without telling pollsters or pundits, go into that voting booth and vote their kids' futures.
This will reduce Obama's "base" to the far Left, who are always a minority, and the govt. union workers, who are the majority OF a minority in America today.
Now all we need to see is a far-left 3rd party candidate who will run as a protest to Obama's perceived weakness and tepid Leftism, will take away 10-20% of his vote, and will be used by his/her losing followers to suggest that the reason the Dems lost is that they were not Left enough. I doubt anyone currently in a presumed-safe or borderline district in the current House minority or Senate majority will look at tonight's results and think that, do you?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePart of the confusion was that Hope, like Faith, is a really Protestant first name. :-)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThese four fresh hands should only enhance the boldness and tenacity of the Republican collegiority's next reach across the ailse in a spirit of bipartisal cooperation.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe White House and the DNC are spinning the loss of NY-9 as completely meaningless and not a referendum on Obama at all.
I really hope they believe that. It will make 2012 so much easier.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYeah, the outcome of this NY-9 special election will be about as "meaningless" as the outcome of Scott Brown's special election a year preceding the general election of 2010 ... and we all know how that turned out.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDeny, deny, deny is what the Obama administration has done since the President's first day in office and that denial has been made easier by compliant supporters in the mainstream media. Unquestioning support by the liberal media is the reason President Obama had the nerve to recycle tried-and-failed economic policies before a joint session of Congress as part of his historic jobs plan and then set off on a campaign tour (at taxpayer expense, of course) to promote it.
While some Obama-supporting journalists are somewhat less enthusiastic about his Presidency today than they were in 2008, there are those who will continue to deny, deny, deny for as long as the President needs them to, i.e., until the 2012 election. They will claim his economic policies are working, that most Americans have confidence in Obama's leadership and that he will beat any GOP contender.
This morning Jim Lehrer, a respected PBS journalist (not my description), Presidential interviewer and frequent political debate moderator, was interviewed on WLS. When asked what he thought about the Republican win in NY, he said he takes the results of one election in one district with a "political grain of salt." In other words, deny, deny, deny.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt would be interesting to see what Lehrer's comments were on that special election in upstate NY a while back that was a ringing endorsement of Obamacare and a stinging rebuke of the GOP on doing away with medicare when the democrat won.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseObama claimed in his campaign he'd reverse the rise of the oceans. In office he's unbridled a surging tide of conservatism.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGreat news!
I had forgotten this was yesterday ... Too swept up in the O's quest for 100 losses.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLet's see just how powerful President Obama's endorcement is...
I want him to endorse whoever the Browns are playing Sunday.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThere is another aspect of this that we should remember: "down ticket support". Weprin waffled in his support of Obama. I suspect that many Democrats facing tough elections in 2012 will waffle too.
Isn't it possible that a lack of enthusiasm on the part of the congressperson will result in a lack of enthusiasm from the voters as well?
We often talk of "coat tails" but I wonder if the oppasite is true as well. Will the top of the ticket be hurt by lack luster support from the bottom of the ticket?
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