April 01, 2009

4/1: It's A Walk-Off

Liberal bloggers are "cautiously optimistic" that businessman Scott Murphy (D) will defeat Assemb. Jim Tedisco (R) once all of the absentee ballots are counted in the NY-20 race. However, while the netroots are rooting for Murphy, many are annoyed that ActBlue has raised nearly $360k for him despite the fact that he plans to join the Blue Dog Coalition if he wins. Chris Bowers complains: "We can criticize Blue Dog behavior all we want, but as long as we keep funneling their members millions of dollars every two years in small, online donations, then we will actually be ratifying, not criticizing their behavior." On the right side of the blogosphere, Jim Geraghty thinks that Tedisco has "a great shot at making up the difference in absentee ballots." That said, several conservative bloggers are complaining that Tedisco ran a poor campaign and are criticizing him for "blowing a 16-point lead."

NY-20: Lookin' Good For Murphy?

Many liberal bloggers are cautiously optimistic that Murphy will prevail once all of the absentee ballots are counted:

• Daily Kos' Arjun Jaikumar: "This was a remarkably high-turnout special election, and Scott Murphy's performance already is nothing short of amazing in a district where the GOP enjoys a huge registration edge. We haven't won anything yet, but there's every reason to be cautiously optimistic."
• TPM's Josh Marshall: "This ain't over. But you'd rather be Murphy than Tedisco."
• Firedoglake's Attaturk: "It looks like Scott Murphy might pull off victory in NY-20, up by 65 after all today's votes are in. Absentee ballots still need to be counted (just short of 6,000 of them), but the old canard about that being by definition 'good for the GOP' has pretty much died. So at this moment, in a district with 70,000 more registered Republicans than Democrats -- a seat the GOP had desperately hoped and committed resources to pick up -- things are looking mildly up. Because now there's a very good chance, but not certainty, we'll have a blue dog Democrat to frustrate us, rather than another Republican to make us angry. So there's now a guarantee of no worse than disappointment."
• BooMan: "[I]n a way, [Republicans have] already lost since it's clear that Obama was a huge strength to the Democratic challenger. In any case, we're headed for recount territory and the Republicans will try to steal it. I didn't really care who won this race but I really don't like it when Republicans don't respect the will of the voters."

Meanwhile, FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver analyzes the implications of the race: "From an analytical standpoint, whether Scott Murphy remains ahead of Jim Tedisco after absentee ballots are counted (and that is anything but a sure thing) is largely immaterial. One of the candidates is going to win by not more than a hundred, maybe a couple hundred votes (and possibly by quite a bit less than that). The difference between winning and losing could be because someone's daughter got an ear infection and they drove her to the doctor instead of going to the polls, or someone happened to turn on their TV five minutes after a Tedisco commercial aired rather than five minutes before. When elections are decided by hundredths of a percentage point, there is a lot of luck involved. [...] What this very narrow fragment of evidence suggests -- it may be dangerous to overgeneralize -- is that not much has changed since last November."

NY-20 II: Another Blue Dog In Congress. Great.

While most liberal bloggers want Murphy to win, many of them are annoyed that ActBlue has raised nearly $360k for him, considering that he plans to join the Blue Dog Coalition if he beats Tedisco:

• Open Left's Chris Bowers: "I hope the Democrat, Scott Murphy, wins. However, I am also frustrated that Murphy has received nearly $360,000 on Act Blue from around 2,000 donors. Given that Murphy has made it clear that he will attempt to join the Blue Dogs if he wins the election, the progressive small donor world should not have given him a single dime. [...] In politics, money speaks a lot louder than either voting or public criticism. We can criticize Blue Dog behavior all we want, but as long as we keep funneling their members millions of dollars every two years in small, online donations, then we will actually be ratifying, not criticizing their behavior. We will be supporting their efforts to push the party to the right, not working to push the party to the left. We will be sending a clear signal of support for their votes, not working to hold them accountable for those votes."
• Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas: "I have no interest in raising a single dime for any Blue Dog wannabees. It's no longer 'more Democrats'. The biggest danger to a progressive agenda in the House isn't the irrelevant Republicans, but obnoxious Blue Dogs. It's time for Better Democrats."
• digby: "I have nothing against Murphy and I'll be happy if he wins, but the Blue Dogs have their own financing system and they can pay their own freight. I ask for financial support only for those congressional candidates whose values and positions on the issues are truly progressive. Somebody's got to do that or there will never be anything but Blue Dogs in congress."
• dday: "There are definitely national implications to Tedisco losing this seat, in a Republican-leaning area, to a virtual unknown in the district, especially because the race has turned in many ways on Murphy's support for President Obama's stimulus package. And on taking joy in watching Republicans flail about and continue their losing streak I take a back seat to no one. However, I never asked readers to support Scott Murphy financially, only wrote about the race a few times, and whenever I did I included the caveat that Murphy has planned to join the Blue Dogs. And I completely agree with Chris Bowers that we cannot keep supporting Democrats just because of the D next to their name, especially after they announce their intentions to undermine our values."

Meanwhile, other liberal bloggers are annoyed that there was a special election for this seat in the first place:

• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "Picking Kirsten Gillibrand to be the U.S. Senator was a dumb move by NY Governor David Paterson. It put a Democrat seat (in a Republican area) at risk. For what? A Senator who keeps flipping and flopping on core Democratic issues. A lot of time and money went into trying to save this seat for the Democrats and it never should have happened. Can't Democratic Governors think through the political implications of their moves? This election really never had to happen in the first place (and, yes, I know this is Monday morning quarterbacking, but it bugs me.) And, now, thanks to David Paterson's poor judgment, it's going to go on and on for weeks."
• TAPPED's Dana Goldstein: "Another recount? Say it ain't so. But that's what Gov. David Paterson served up for the NY-20 Congressional district when he sent Kirsten Gillibrand to the Senate in the most infuriating (legal) nomination process known to man (or woman). With her Republican upbringing and center-right messaging on various social issues, Gillibrand was a good fit for a district that just barely supported Obama. As a Senator, though, Washington has heard mum from Gillibrand so far, and I'm not holding my breath. Simply stated, in terms of profile and policy experience, she is a poor replacement for Hillary Clinton."

NY-20: Who Knows...

Conservative bloggers don't seem to have a strong feeling one way or the other as to whether Tedisco will win:

• NRO's Jim Geraghty: "Republicans think they have an advantage in absentee ballots, both in terms of voters they know who used absentee ballots, and traditionally in the district. [...] The good news for Tedisco is that he's got a great shot at making up the difference in absentee ballots, and he seemed to shift momentum back in his favor in those last couple days. The bad news is, he lost a lead, and the race is probably going to end up very, very close."
• RedState's Moe Lane: "[J]ust because we haven't lost yet doesn't mean that we've won, either. Don't assume that the absentee ballots are going to flip this race dramatically."

A few conservative bloggers are complaining that Tedisco ran a poor campaign:

• Michelle Malkin: "Obvious bottom line: The winner will overstate the significance of victory. The loser will downplay the ramifications of defeat. And conservatives will be left wondering why the best their candidates can do is punt on fundamental questions about whether they are for generational thievery or whether they are against it. Sigh."
• AmSpec Blog's W. James Antle, III: "Wake me when the Republican Party can handle something in an even remotely competent fashion. [...] For those who don't get what I'm bellyaching about, I'm referring to the Republicans blowing a 16-point lead in New York's 20th congressional district. I'm also not sure that being too moderate or too conservative was the biggest problem in a race where the Republican candidate was a career politician who didn't live in the district, took almost a month to take a position on the stimulus package, and then campaigned like it was 2002. Tedisco could still pull it out from the absentee ballots and Republicans are going to point to how much better he did than Gillibrand's 2008 challenger, but it really shouldn't be this close."

In a separate post, Geraghty argues that RNC Chair Michael Steele's job is secure even if Tedisco loses: "The result won't be the panic-button moment for Michael Steele's reign at the RNC; in fact, with the race so close, Steele can argue that every penny the committee spent in the district was money well spent -- would Tedisco be trailing by a lot more than 65 votes without that money?"

SEBELIUS: Here We Go Again

Conservative bloggers are mocking Sebelius after she paid $8k in back taxes:

• Malkin: "Another day, another Obama nominee with tax problems."
• Hot Air's Allahpundit: "By CBS's count, this is the sixth nominee to have tax trouble. Yes, really."
• RedState's Jeff Emanuel: "Given President Obama's track record in terms of nominations for high positions and of character judgment as a whole, it would have been surprising had Sebelius turned to be clean, on both the tax-error and lobbying front. Unsurprisingly, the former lobbyist and now-repaid back tax ower isn't clean on either. All that remains is the question of whether or not the Senate will bring itself to confirm yet another Obama nominee who has a history of tax issues."
• NRO's Victor Davis Hanson: "[T]here is a real ethical crisis among the liberal elite who, we are learning for the nth time, suffer the additional wage of hypocrisy, by calling for higher taxes on the upper-middle-class (often punctuated by self-serving qualifiers that they themselves are willing to pay more in taxes), only to scheme to find ways to cut down their tax liability contrary to the law."
• NRO's Veronique de Rugy: "[E]ither these nominees are cheating on their taxes because they are dishonest, and we should not want to have them in office, or the large number of nominees with tax issues is the reflection that the tax code is too complicated and needs to be reformed."
• AmSpec Blog's Doug Bandow: "Worried about the explosion of debt under President Obama? Don't be. Another Obama Cabinet nominee is paying her taxes."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Why The Democrats Can't Govern

The New Republic's Jonathan Chait explains why Senate Dems are "killing Obama's agenda":

"Unless you are a high school student reading this article in your civics course, in which case I'm sorry to dispel your illusions, you will not be stunned to learn that the affluent carry disproportionate political weight with elites in both parties. So, while people who earn more than $250,000 per year make up just a tiny slice of the electorate, they make up a huge chunk of any congressman's friends, acquaintances, and fund-raisers.

What's more, whatever their disposition toward business in general, Democrats feel it is not just a right but a duty to slavishly attend to the interests of their home-state businesses. That is why [ND Sen.] Kent Conrad upholds even the most absurd demands of agribusiness, or why even a good-government progressive like Michigan's Carl Levin parrots the auto industry's line on regulating carbon dioxide.

Taken as a whole, then, the influence of business and the rich unites Republicans and splits Democrats. A few Republicans no doubt felt some qualms about supporting [George W.] Bush's regressive, extreme pro-business agenda, but their most influential donors and constituents pushed them in the direction of partisan unity. Those same forces encourage Democrats to defect. That's why [NE Sen.] Ben Nelson is fighting student-loan reform, coal-and oil-state Democrats are insisting that cap-and-trade legislation be subject to a filibuster, and Democrats everywhere are fretting about reducing tax deductions for the highest-earning 1 percent of the population."

LEST WE FORGET: Twitter Switch For Guardian, After 188 Years Of Ink

The Guardian's Rio Palof (h/t Kevin Drum):

"Consolidating its position at the cutting edge of new media technology, the Guardian today announces that it will become the first newspaper in the world to be published exclusively via Twitter, the sensationally popular social networking service that has transformed online communication. [...]

A mammoth project is also under way to rewrite the whole of the newspaper's archive, stretching back to 1821, in the form of tweets. Major stories already completed include '1832 Reform Act gives voting rights to one in five adult males yay!!!'; 'OMG Hitler invades Poland, allies declare war see tinyurl.com/b5x6e for more'; and 'JFK assassin8d @ Dallas, def. heard second gunshot from grassy knoll WTF?'

Sceptics have expressed concerns that 140 characters may be insufficient to capture the full breadth of meaningful human activity, but social media experts say the spread of Twitter encourages brevity, and that it ought to be possible to convey the gist of any message in a tweet. For example, Martin Luther King's legendary 1963 speech on the steps of the Lincoln memorial appears in the Guardian's Twitterised archive as 'I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by', eliminating the waffle and bluster of the original."

Posted by Ian Faerstein at April 1, 2009 12:25 PM