Republican Jane Corwin’s loss to Democrat Kathy Hochul for the NY-26 U.S. House special election on Tuesday was a telling event. A friend on the ground in New York said voter turnout on special Election Day was low, except for in Erie County, where Hochul had been elected county clerk. It was the afternoon, so one could hope things would turn around in the race, but this blogger knew already that Corwin would loose.
But the race did not turn around and Kathy Hochul won with the Democrat-masquerading-as-Tea Party candidate Jack Davis taking nine percent of the vote.
My friend on the ground said the main problem was that the Democrats ran a campaign which focused on scaring seniors into thinking Jane Corwin would take Medicare benefits from them, a tactic known as “Mediscare.” While the Republicans ran a campaign on Obamacare that did not really work with the district because, for some reason, the lies about Medicare were believed. And Corwin spent her campaign time fighting dirty rumors instead of getting to talk about her background and ideas, which were solid.
Moreover, Democrats are claiming the win in the district was a referendum on House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-Wisc.) budget plan.
Well, the fact of the matter is that the district is very conservative and had a strong Tea Party presence, which Jack Davis managed to manipulate as a “fake-o” Tea Party candidate. The district should have been amenable to the Ryan budget.
Which only leaves us with one conclusion: the district was swayed in a close race by the Craigslist scandal – which prompted fmr. Rep. Chris Lee (R) to resign the seat, triggering the special election – leaving voters angry at Republicans.
Another conclusion from the result: the GOP needs to change their message on the Ryan budget, as well as Medicare. For other districts, the GOP budget and Medicare message has worked, but the message must be clarified for districts like NY-26. In other words, if the Democrats are going to play dirty and spread “Mediscare,” the GOP has to focus on a broad agenda which puts the focus of the message on itself.
Instead, this time, the GOP allowed itself to be cornered into arguing lies which were about as meaningful as childhood fairy tales. And the focus of the debate was handed to the Democrats for the race, as well as the win.
Deborah Kay Corey is a writer in the Washington, DC area. She has been published in The Washington Times, Human Events and National Review Online. She is the Blog Director for GOP Rockstars of the DCYRs. She runs her own site at www.deborahcorey.com which receives 250,000 – 290,000 hits a month.
