President Obama’s aides downplay the Democratic Party’s loss of a U.S. House seat Republicans have not held since the 1920s.
Republicans play it up, saying Bob Turner’s win in a special election shows that voters — even Democratic ones — are turning against the president.
White House spokesman Jay Carney attributed Turner’s win in New York’s 9th congressional district to local factors that do not apply nationally.
“Special elections are often unique, and their outcomes don’t tell you very much about future regularly scheduled elections,” Carney said.
Turner and other Republicans made the campaign largely a referendum on Obama and his handling of the economy. Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee, called the outcome a “clear rebuke” of the president’s policies.
“An unpopular President Obama is now a liability for Democrats nationwide in a 2012 election that is a referendum on his economic policies,” Sessions said.
Obama carried the district in 2008 with 55% of the vote. Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., represented the district before his resignation during the summer.
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4 Responses
An experienced elected legislator from a well known family – and well funded at that versus a Republican who was unknown and unfunded (and little more than a retired person whose hobby was running for a office under hopeless conditions).
Imagine if the Yankess played the Orioles, with the penant on the line, and the Orioles play their September call-ups, and the Yankess get swept and it wasn’t even close.
Imagine if the Yankees played the NY Knicks and the Knicks won the World Series. That’s what this election is like.
except to a lot of people who came out to vote the issue was not anti Obama (although that was a nice plus), the issue was a moral one.
#1, please stop bashing my Orioles!!!