Dead heat in New York #20. I think right now its Murphy by +60 votes? Maybe? absentee ballots to be counted plus recount upon recount.
stay tuned
Archive for March, 2009
New York #20 congressional election to be continued
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009New York #20-final thoughts
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009Okay I am back from taking my brother to the Dentist. Final thoughts and a link or two.
1. There are 44,911 “inactive voters” in this district. The SOS’s defination of an inactive voter is one who has not voted in 8 years. Most election board don’t purge voter lists (no purges are not Stalinist they are good) so voters stay around forever.
2. Murphy is from Wayne County (roughly 10% of the total voters) and Tedisco is from Saratago county (roughly 32% of the voters). So the GOP would appear to have the edge in what I call the friends and family vote or the “I vote for the local guy” edge. Still roughly 60% of the vote will come from outside of home counties.
Here’s the 2008 county by county vote totals
Columbia 27,403 votes or 9.54% -Obama 54-McCain 45
Delaware 15,273 votes 5.32% Obama 46-McCain 52
Dutchess 41,763 Votes 14.54% Obama 53-47 McCain
Essex 5,203 Votes 1.81 % 56 Obama 43 McCain
Greene 20,452 Votes 7.12 % Obama 44 McCain 55
Otsego 4,677 1.63% Obama 51- McCain 47
Rensselear 28,842 Votes 10.04% Obama 53-45McCain
Saratago 93,736 Votes 32.63% of votes Obama 50 48 Mac
Warren 27,568 9.60 % 49 Obama 49 obama
Washington 22,394 Votes 50 Obama 49 McCain
The votes are from the congressional race. Keep in mind those Obama percentages are for the whole counties in question. So Dutchess, Essex, Rennslear, delaware and Ostego are split. I think the 20th seems may have the slightly more democratic parts of these counties.
Voting results link(unless Tim V or Dave does better)
http://66.195.74.98/
Plus here? Albany still has a paper
http://blogs.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/13044/new-york-20th-cd-election-results
Various points on NY 20-Analysis found only at Hedgehog
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009Yes today is election day in NY 20. Here is a few points on NY 20 and let me start with voter registration stats. These are active voters as of 11-01-2008
GOP 180,810
DEM 113,354
IND 22,020
CON 8,425 (conservative party)
Other 3,000
Blank 105,059
I say thank you Worker Voter ACT and the Internet as 1/4 of the voters in district 20 are blank. The old New York forms for Voter registration (and all other states with party registration) had a party designation box. The Motor voter and internet forms do not have party designation boxes. So while currently registered voters heavily lean towards the GOP how do these “blank voters” lean? Do the polls have 1/4 of the voters polled as “blank”? I suspect most blank voters, as New York elections do not feature primaries, have no idea they are not registered in a party. I suspect many of these “newer” voters lean towards the democrats as for years the democrats in this district have done better in congressional, state and national elections then their registration voter numbers would suggest.
If Murphy, the democrat candidate, wins this seat look for the press to tout those registration numbers. I say not so fast as the registration numbers are really do not lean 2-1 GOP as so many voters “blank”. No I am not saying that “blank” or “clueless” voters are heavily democratic. The voters have just registered in the last twenty years on forms without being able to designate a party choice.
Let me also say that to change a party registration requires a little effort on one’s part. You either have to go to the courthouse and change your party at the election board or you have to fill out a form at a voter’s registration table or local library. This takes a little effort so voter registration stats often lag behind party trends. So as the GOP has lost elections in Upstate New York for congress and President over the last 20 years their margin in party ID has slipped but has not fallen off the end of the world. Folks may have stopped voting GOP but are too lazy to change their voter registration status. Or they may believe that they stay a Republican and never actually vote for a Republican.
I am not saying that the GOP will lose this seat. There are just this that you are not reading this media about this election.
The Majority of the voters in this district are not registered as Republicans. The GOP voter registration of 42% for this district. Its certainly more republican then New York state as a whole but as the Press has reported it did vote for Obama in 2008.
NH: Hodes Over Sununu By 6%
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009American Research Group has a new poll out for the US Senate race in New Hampshire and it shows Democratic congressman Paul Hodes with a 6% lead over former US Senator John Sununu.
US SENATE – NEW HAMPSHIRE (ARG)
Paul Hodes (D) 42%
John Sununu (R) 36%
This poll was done March 27-30 among 535 registered voters.
NY 20 Election is Today
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009Today’s election has been touted as a referendum on Obama’s stimulus package and the first test between the GOP and Democratic Party since Obama’s election. It is also viewed as a test of RNC’s Michael Steele’s effectiveness.
Tommy Boy is predicting a narrow win for the Republican, Tedisco. Below are a couple of recent articles on the race…
tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/03/the-latest-from-the-ny-20-special-election.php
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29882949/
Discuss…
Obama is now the de-facto GM CEO
Monday, March 30th, 2009Wielding unprecedented Presidential powers ( besides FDR ) over an American Business icon, the President in some ways is sort of the new CEO of GM.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House says neither General Motors nor Chrysler submitted acceptable plans to receive more bailout money, setting the stage for a crisis in Detroit that would dramatically reshape the nation’s auto industry.
You can read 3-4 stories about this at yahoo.finance. Here is the link… finance.yahoo.com/
My expectation is that the stock market will experience another down day, based primarily on the fact that Asian markets were down roughly 4% and European markets are down around 2%.The key support level that I will be watching is whether the qqqq’s find some support at their 50 day moving average.
Congratulations to the Final 4 in the March Madness Tournament:Villanova, Michigan State, U Conn, and UNC !!!
I will be busy with my grandchildren today. Have a blessed day…
From the “Do As I Say, Not As I Do” File
Sunday, March 29th, 2009Did you know last night, all us humans were supposed to turn off all of our electricity in our house to show support for something they call “Earth Hour”. I didn’t realize it until this morning when I read it in the Washington Post and apparently, the man who is single-handily supposedly going to save our planet from the evils of “global warming” was unaware as well. This is the report from the President of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research.
I pulled up to Al’s house, located in the posh Belle Meade section of Nashville, at 8:48pm – right in the middle of Earth Hour. I found that the main spotlights that usually illuminate his 9,000 square foot mansion were dark, but several of the lights inside the house were on.In fact, most of the windows were lit by the familiar blue-ish hue indicating that floor lamps and ceiling fixtures were off, but TV screens and computer monitors were hard at work. (In other words, his house looked the way most houses look about 1:45am when their inhabitants are distractedly watching “Cheaters†or “Chelsea Lately†reruns.)
The kicker, though, were the dozen or so floodlights grandly highlighting several trees and illuminating the driveway entrance of Gore’s mansion.
I [kid] you not, my friends, the savior of the environment couldn’t be bothered to turn off the gaudy lights that show off his goofy trees.
The man who claims the rest of us common folk need to cut our carbon footprint actually wastes electricity to light up trees?! Sometimes, the jokes just write themselves.
Personally, in order to save the planet, I continue to do actual tangible things as opposed to these utterly useless and purely symbolic rituals like Earth Hour. Yes, I continue my self-imposed ban on travel by private jet and still am refusing to purchase any house greater than 25,000 square feet in size. Oh, and I don’t light up my trees in my front yard either. I figure it is the least I can do to save the world from “global warming”….
“I’ll start acting as if it’s a crisis when the people who are telling me it’s a crisis start acting as if it’s a crisis” – Instapundit
By the way, Barack Obama is flying 500 people…500 PEOPLE!…to the G20 summit. I wonder what type of carbon footprint that creates….
Thanks, But I am Moving On
Sunday, March 29th, 2009Eight plus years ago, Al Gore told everyone in this country that he felt Joe Lieberman was the best person to be one breath or heartbeat away from the presidency. Four years later, he decided to endorse Howard Dean for President over his former running mate, not even letting his former running mate know about until he announced it in the press.
Four plus years ago, Vietnam Veteran John Kerry told everyone in this country that he felt John Edwards was the best person to be one breath or heartbeat away from the presidency. Four years later, he decided to endorse Barack Obama for President over his former running mate. At least Kerry did give Edwards a heads up before announcing his endorsement.
And now, about seven months after telling everyone in this country Sarah Palin was the best person to be one breath or heartbeat away from the presidency, John McCain doesn’t exactly give a full endorsement of his former running mate today on Meet David Gregory.
MR. GREGORY: In terms of future leaders of the Republican Party, would you like to see Sarah Palin become president?SEN. McCAIN: I’d like to see her compete. I think we’ve got some very good candidates: Jon Huntsman and–the problem when I run down these names, I always leave, leave out a, a name–Bobby Jindal, Tim Pawlenty. There’s, there’s so many. There’s a lot of good, fresh talent out there.
MR. GREGORY: But would you support Palin?
SEN. McCAIN: Oh, I’d have to see who the candidates are and, and what the situation is at the time. But have no doubt of my respect, admiration and love for Sarah and her family.
If you want to take this to the extreme, while it has family connections, you could even say George HW Bush endorsed another candidate (his son) for President rather than his own former running mate Dan Quayle.
On a humorous side note, check out this exchange further in the interview.
MR. GREGORY: This is your 54th appearance on MEET THE PRESS. Now, I know you’re a competitive guy. Bob Dole still holds the record at 63. And so we’ve been doing the calculations here. We think we can make this up, maybe within a year’s time.SEN. McCAIN: I’d love…
MR. GREGORY: If you’re game for that.
SEN. McCAIN: I’d love to try. Thank you, David.
Great, that’s just what Republicans need – John McCain as the Republican standard bearer for the next year….
Obamanomics
Sunday, March 29th, 2009I read two differnt articles this morning discussing Obamanomics from opposing points of view. On the one hand, Robert Reich argues that Obamanomics is not about BIG GOVERNMENT while Mark Steyn argues that Obama is offering a “false Choice” between “a chaotic and unforgiving capitalism†and “an oppressive government-run economy.â€
I recommend reading both points of view before making your comments.
The articles can be read here…
article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=YjBlNjQyNzYzNzk2YjBhNjg4NDM2Y2I5MjJkMDYzNjQ=
online.wsj.com/article/SB123819895769662043.html
Discuss…
HT:RCP
Sunday Morning Open Thread
Sunday, March 29th, 2009Sports: 2 Big March Madness Games Today.
www.espn.com
Awards: Best Post From Yesterday- Frank (the educator in CT), Humor Award for Last Week- Howard Dean, for his Obama joke
Today’s Bible Verse: Matthew 1:23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
Selected Music for your listening pleasure:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMjXFFhCUo8
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpfsZZ9X5n8&feature=related
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgFrH07S6AM&feature=related