NY-26 Special Election: Democrats Win On Fear & Cowardice (In The Short Term) – 5/25/11
The failing status quo prevailed in New York’s 26th congressional district yesterday as the Democrats picked up a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives with Kathy Hochul defeating Republican Jane Corwin and third party candidate Jack Davis. Hochul received 48 percent of the vote, Corwin 42 percent, and fraudulent millionaire tea party candidate Davis spent about $3 million and received an unfortunate 9 percent (probably the difference in the race). Disgraced former Rep. Chris Lee’s behavior, Jack Davis’ money, and Kathy Hochul’s lies about Medicare made it next to impossible for Corwin to win. We can only speculate about whether or not a candidate with better conservative credentials would have made it impossible for Jack Davis to run on the Tea Party line. Maybe it’s time for GOP leaders in NY to rethink their candidate selection process.
At the end of the day, Hochul’s victory is nothing more than a very short term win for the Democrats. Her message – that Medicare is healthy and shouldn’t be touched – was enough to win this small battle, but it won’t win the long term war of ideas. Why? Because everyone knows Medicare is seriously ill. Hochul’s “Medicare should not be touched” campaign secured 48 percent of the vote. It was enough to win the seat, but 52 percent of the voters disagreed with this disingenuous and irresponsible message.
Medicare needs serious reforms, reforms that only one side (House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan and Co.) has been courageous enough to lead on. So the Democrats might be happy today, but deep down inside, they know they have serious problems on the horizon with no plan to fix them. The problems are central to the survival of their liberal ideology: Americans have had it with runaway debt, record deficits, and wasteful spending. What’s left of the Democrat platform when there is no more money to spend? Ponder that one for a while.
Interestingly enough, this election reinforced the growing phenomenon that the party of Obama has become the party of anti-change. Hochul and her liberal allies dumped millions into the district and succeeded in scaring voters into thinking that Jane Corwin would be taking away their Medicare benefits with her plans for reform. The attack was blatantly false, but unfortunately, sometimes in politics taking the low road wins. The Democrat platform has become “Fear Change” and everyone from President Obama on down has signed onto it.
Lying about Medicare for political gain is not a viable strategy for the Democrats in 2012. What happened in this Western New York special election showcased a desperate Democrat Party willing to do anything in order to hold on to their precious (and failed) tax and spend ideology for one more election. Courageous Congressman Paul Ryan and his fellow Republicans in the U.S. House put forth a plan to save and reform Medicare before it goes bust. The Democrats used the uncertainly that comes along with a new plan like this to their advantage. At some point down the road however, when Medicare goes belly up, the Democrats will be the ones trying to explain why they opted to do nothing about it when they had the chance.
Republicans now own the label of change, and that’s a good place to be when you’re country is $14 trillion in debt and entitlement programs, left unreformed, driving us into bankruptcy.