Plan B Forum

A heavily Republican seat has gone Democrat in a special election to replace Chris Lee (who resigned after his internet flirtations). Much is being made of Jack Davis, the Democrat-turned-Tea Partier, acting as a spoiler by supposedly siphoning off Republican votes, but Republican Jane Corwin drew a huge target on her own back by her early and unquestioning support for Paul Ryan's plan to gut Medicare, and Democratic winner Kathy Hochul took full advantage and ran a fantastically focussed campaign in what was seen as an unwinnable seat (it had been held by Republicans all but 16 of the previous 154 years). Chris Lee took this seat with 73% of the vote in 2010; Republicans can yak all they want about three way splits but following on huge Democrat upsets in state legislative special elections in Wisconsin, Maine and New Hampshire, and now this congressional race in New York, voters are sending a clear message of what they think of the GOP's budget plans.

Republicans can yak all they want about three way splits

Yeah, well forgive me while I do a little of that yaking...

Hochul defeated Republican Jane L. Corwin, a Clarence assemblywoman, 47 percent to 43 percent, with 97 percent of election districts reporting, while the Tea Party's Jack Davis mustered only 9 percent in his fourth try for the seat. Ian L. Murphy of the Green Party recorded 1 percent, while overall turnout was about 25 percent.

The math here is not complicated. Laying aside the question of drawing conclusions from an election with a 25% turnout, if the Tea Party candidate isn't in this race, the Republican candidate wins; period. There's no way to dispute that.

However, that having been said, a 52-47 percent margin of victory for a Republican in this district would not have been anything to write home about, and wouldn't have been particularly good news.

I'm not a big fan of the Ryan Plan. Nor am I impressed with Obama's timorous proposals, or any of the other plans circulating on the Hill.

As a matter of fact, though I wasn't crazy about it at first, now that I'm seeing the alternatives that are being presented, the Bowles Simpson Commission plan looks better and better. In retrospect it's unfortunate that Obama didn't embrace and push that plan when he had the chance.

Lord Jim wrote:The math here is not complicated. Laying aside the question of drawing conclusions from an election with a 25% turnout, if the Tea Party candidate isn't in this race, the Republican candidate wins; period. There's no way to dispute that.

Jack Davis ran as a Democrat in this district three times, and the Tea Party publicly disavowed him and endorsed Jane Corwin, so there is no way of determining how his vote would have actually split without him in the race. It could just as easily be said he attracted a lot of disaffected Democrats by his name recognition. And by itself no, this race doesn't necessarily mean all that much. But when a Wisconsin state assembly seat vacated by Scott Walker's chief hatchet man in the legislature is won by a Democrat, when Maine Gov. LePage's most vocal opponent in the state house wins a state senate seat with 68% of the vote, and when a New Hampshire house seat that had been Republican by 7 points since 2004 gives a Democrat 58% of the vote, it's clear that voters are starting to push back.

The Ryan plan is Kakotopian, which is not surprising, but it is so obviously a stupid idea that it cannot be spun by all the liars in the Republican party as attractive, and that is surprising.


This is the party who induced the 80% of the country who will never be in the top 5% in income that borrowing a trillion dollars to make the rich richer is a good idea. And then said we had to make the borrowing permanent.



yrs,
rubato

No real surprises here. Discredited incumbent, weak candidate, spoiler in the mix, campaign based on typical Democrat lies and nonsense.

The candidate erred in believing that the Mediscare strategy was so absurd as not to be taken seriously, but she was wrong.

One can never ignore the stupidity of retired people voting. It never matters that the proposals on the table don't apply to them, or that they may be merely proposals that may never see the light of day, or that they may be necessary to avoid disaster. Say anything that can be distorted or construed into the thought, "change retirement bennies," and the Oldsters will vote uniformly in a panic.

The basic philosophy behind the Ryan budget proposal will win the day over the non-serious approach of the National Dem party. One insignificant seat in NY is only a harbinger of the emptiness of the the Democrats' program in 2012.

Weak candidate? You obviously have not been following this race at all. EVERY Republican with national ambitions in western NY was after this seat, and yet from the start the one name on everyone's lips was Jane Corwin. She had the backing of Erie County Executive Chris Collins who put his entire political machine at her disposal (and yet, she was completely clobbered in both Erie and neighbouring Niagara County - perhaps Collins should be wondering whether voters were sending him a message as well). She spent $9 million on her campaign, three times as much as Hochul. She had a commanding lead that withered away as Hochul continually ate into both her and Davis's support.

Spoiler in the mix? I guess you missed the part where Davis had run as a Democrat in three previous elections and had sought the Democratic nod in this one, and decided to run independently when he failed to get it. Look where Hochul's lead developed from over the course of the campaign, almost all of it was support that bled from Davis who started polling at 23% and ended up at 9%. Perhaps we should be saying that Hochul would have won 56% to Corwin's 43%, had Davis not been in the mix. It's just as probable a scenario as the reverse.

Typical Democrat lies? You mean like the ads Corwin ran, taking a comment Hochul had made that "everything should be on the table" in hammering out the budget, and twisting it into the claim that she wanted to gut Medicare even more than Ryan was proposing.

The candidate erred in believing that the Mediscare strategy was so absurd as not to be taken seriously, but she was wrong.

On that you are absolutely correct. She had no clue how absurd Ryan's plans for Medicare would sound to voters before she decided to hitch her wagon to that star, and it was her undoing.

One can never ignore the stupidity of retired people voting. It never matters that the proposals on the table don't apply to them, or that they may be merely proposals that may never see the light of day, or that they may be necessary to avoid disaster. Say anything that can be distorted or construed into the thought, "change retirement bennies," and the Oldsters will vote uniformly in a panic.

I don't suppose any of those retirees recognize how much Medicare has meant to them, and voted to ensure their grandchildren could benefit from it as well. Nah, that couldn't be it (at least from the perspective of a certain old fart who would sell his own kids for sausage meat if it would make him a buck).

One insignificant of the safest Republican seats in NY the entire country

Fixed that for you.

Here's the one I like:

dgs49 wrote:The candidate erred in believing that the Mediscare strategy was so absurd as not to be taken seriously, but she was wrong.
...
Say anything that can be distorted or construed into the thought, "change retirement bennies," and the Oldsters will vote uniformly in a panic.

Death panels much?

Remember the ads run by the insurance industry during the Clinton attempt at health care reform? Those weren't steaming piles of bs intended to cause seniors to panic?

Tend to the log in your own eye, Dave.

Am I the only one that's noticed that dgs is a complete charactachure of a right winger? I mean on the odd ocasion he's on the right side of an issue his argument for the position is so horrible that it would make any rational person question their beliefs out of fear of being associated to his drivel.

If the concept of major changes to Medicare is what swung this election, then the American people are the losers. Every politician will take this as a sign that Medicare is untouchable, and by implication Social Security, and those programs will continue to gobble up ever more of the federal budget and economy. What is worse, with Medicare, it will continue to distort the healthcare industry, making a reasonable policy to address medical needs even more difficult.

As expensive as Medicare is, a huge portion of Medicare's costs are never even felt by the taxpayers, so the situation is even worse than it appears at first blush. The ongoing method to make Medicare slightly less expensive is to reduce provider payments, now somewhere between 70% and 50% of the amount private insurers reimburse (depending on whether you believe Medicare officials or private health plan consultants). The providers who can cost-shift -- big providers like hospitals, pharmaceuticals and in-demand medical groups -- do so by increasing the charges to regular folk, like most of us. The providers who are not able to cost-shift, end up reducing their Medicare patient load, making it more difficult for Medicare members to get the care they need.

The Ryan plan is out there for all to take pot shots at. But it is a starting point that actually addresses the budget deficit issue. To my knowledge there is no other serious plan from a serious player to address the budget, which includes taking on things like Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, military spending, and everything else, as well as how to increase tax revenues. So everyone who wants to hammer on the Ryan plan, should point to the alternative plan that will accomplish the goal of getting to a reasonable budget. I'll guarantee if that plan is ever put on the table, it will be as easy to attack, and at least as unpopular, as Ryan's plan.

My Medicare plan is unassailable.

Long Run, you are missing the point.

The Democrats are totally oblivious to the concept of fiscal responsibility. Their view is that the Government must meet their view of kindness and compassion, then derive the cost - whatever it is - out of OPM. In their world, there is no need to consider whether any cost can be paid, because "The Rich" are an inexhaustible source of funds.

To a Democrat, the question to be answered about any program is whether the beneficiaries really, really, really like it. If so, then it is sacrosanct and cannot be amended. The concept of "unsustainability" doesn't enter into the "thought" process. Medicare, shmedicare. Why change it?

Crackpot: Buy a dictionary, or learn how to spell. Make substantive comments. Then you might not look like an idiot.

A few more stray thoughts on this election (not mine):

This seat was in play for three primary reasons: (a) The popular, married sitting Congressman couldn't control his libido and chose to broadcast this fact to the online world on Craigslist, (b) a Democrat-turned-fake-tea-partier muddied the waters considerably and pulled nearly ten percent of the vote, and (c) upstate New York Republican officials once again selected a candidate who was unable to unite the center-right. One of the first polls in the district that raised major red flags for Republicans came out roughly two weeks ago. The Sienna survey showed a near dead heat in the strong Republican-leaning district. What did the very same poll also show? Voters in NY-26 -- including independents -- favored the Ryan plan by a significant margin:


First of all, Kathy Hochul is running a campaign strictly as a referendum on the Paul Ryan budget. The problem is that the Republican plan is creaming the Obama plan. According to the poll, 53-36 people want to see the next NY-26 candidate support the Republican plan. This includes a 55-31 split for Republicans amongst Independents.


This contradicts the new conventional wisdom that supporting the Ryan plan sunk Jane Corwin. In addition to the three factors listed above, Hochul relentlessly focused on the Republican Medicare plan as her primary means of attack, while Corwin ran a more boilerplate anti-tax-and-spend campaign (and was distracted with the additional task of to fending off Tea Party phony Jack Davis all the while). Corwin now admits that it took her far too long to hit back on the Ryan budget, allowing Hochul to dominate that narrative:


“I probably would have addressed the Medicare message coming out of my opponent quicker,” Ms. Corwin said before a small group of elderly New Yorkers and dozens of local and national journalists in Amherst. “I have to admit, when she started making these comments I thought, ‘This is so outrageous no one would ever believe it.’ Apparently some people did.”

Sue U wrote:My Medicare plan is unassailable.

When are you running for Congress?

Don't think I haven't considered it. In the last Congress, my district was represented by a childhood friend of mine who, after a lengthy career in the state legislature, was the first Democrat elected in over 120 years. He was narrowly defeated last year in the Teabagger surge by a former professional football player who is, quite frankly, an idiot. (It was the most gracious and good-natured concession speech I have ever seen; I don't know how he managed it.) Anyway, he was the presumptive candidate for 2012, but a few months ago he contracted a bacterial infection in his heart and it killed him. Really tragic -- wife, four young kids, etc. So now the party power brokers are likely to look to someone with a lot more name recognition than me, and who has paid their dues of service in both the party and in government; the seat is too important -- and too much in play -- to nominate a novice like me.

dgs49 wrote:A few more stray thoughts on this election (not mine):

Then why were you afraid to provide appropriate attribution? To make it more difficult to see where they were getting their horseshit? Sorry, didn't work.

This seat was in play for three primary reasons: (a) The popular, married sitting Congressman couldn't control his libido and chose to broadcast this fact to the online world on Craigslist

My, the right wing is obviously getting desperate. Trying to blame Chris Lee for why his successor couldn't get elected? I'm sure they have polling data to back up the claim that this had any bearing on the election (not).

(b) a Democrat-turned-fake-tea-partier muddied the waters considerably and pulled nearly ten percent of the vote

Of course what he meant to say was a former Democrat who once polled 48% and still has considerable name recognition that would have caused a split in the Democratic vote, if anything.

and (c) upstate New York Republican officials once again selected a candidate who was unable to unite the center-right.

As I said above, there were MANY dogs coming after this bone, but from the start, the name on everyone's lips was Jane Corwin. Why can't this blogger name a candidate he believes would have done better? He can't, because there wasn't one.

One of the first polls in the district that raised major red flags for Republicans came out roughly two weeks ago. The Sienna [sic] survey showed a near dead heat in the strong Republican-leaning district. What did the very same poll also show? Voters in NY-26 -- including independents -- favored the Ryan plan by a significant margin:

And now here we go right into cloud cuckoo land. Here are the results of the Siena polling. There is no question that mentions Ryan or any sort of "plan". It does ask a question on who the newly elected rep should support on "fiscal" issues, and indeed 53% said he/she should support "House Speaker Boehner and the Republicans". Well, no shit Sherlock. Imagine an overwhelmingly Republican district saying it supports the Republicans on "fiscal issues". Stop the presses, someone has discovered America.

What your illiterate blogger (who couldn't even fact check enough to get the name of the poll correct) neglected to mention was that a specific question was asked about whether voters supported "cutting federal spending by lessening entitlements like Medicare and Social Security". A whopping 59% said no, and even Republicans were evenly split 48% for and 48% against. Once could only imagine how many Republicans would have said they supported a plan to completely gut Medicare as Ryan has proposed.

Hochul relentlessly focused on the Republican Medicare plan as her primary means of attack, while Corwin ran a more boilerplate anti-tax-and-spend campaign (and was distracted with the additional task of to fending off Tea Party phony Jack Davis all the while). Corwin now admits that it took her far too long to hit back on the Ryan budget, allowing Hochul to dominate that narrative

So let's see if I am getting this right:

Most voters in the district supported Ryan's Medicare plan.

Hochul ran a campaign focused almost exclusively on attacking Ryan's Medicare plan.

Therefore Hochul was elected because voters believed what she had to say about Medicare????

I guess that is what passes for logic among Republicans these day. I guess they have to take comfort however they can when dealt such a chilling rebuff by the voters.

Long Run wrote:If the concept of major changes to Medicare is what swung this election, then the American people are the losers. Every politician will take this as a sign that Medicare is untouchable, and by implication Social Security, and those programs will continue to gobble up ever more of the federal budget and economy.

Perhaps politicians will take it as a sign that moronic plans to reform Medicare won't fly, and they might get motivated to come up with something better.

The providers who can cost-shift -- big providers like hospitals, pharmaceuticals and in-demand medical groups -- do so by increasing the charges to regular folk, like most of us. The providers who are not able to cost-shift, end up reducing their Medicare patient load, making it more difficult for Medicare members to get the care they need.

I confess that I have no idea how hospitals and other providers may or may not juggle their books to make up the difference on Medicare payments, but this I do know: among all insurers, Medicare is the only one that is prohibited by law from negotiating the price it pays for pharmaceuticals. So on pharmaceuticals Medicare is subsidizing everyone else, and not the other way around.

The Ryan plan is out there for all to take pot shots at. But it is a starting point that actually addresses the budget deficit issue.

Oh please. By those standards, a plan to completely eliminate the armed forces and hire mercenaries as they might be needed from time to time would constitute a "starting point". It would be treated as the idiocy it is and dismissed out of hand. But when someone proposes an analogous plan for Medicare, hey, that MUST be taken seriously.

the seat is too important -- and too much in play -- to nominate a novice like me.

Well that's just a damn shame Sue....

When you ran you could have touted your support for that "Socialist International Declaration Of Principles" (or whatever the hell that thing you said you supported is called...I do distinctly recall the word "Socialist" being in it)...

I can't think of a better way to assure that the seat remained in GOP hands....

Would anyone care to link the current Democrat plan to salvage Medicare?

I seem to have missed it.

As opposed to completely gutting it in the name of "saving" it, you mean?

George Orwell would be proud.