Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Why I Remain Pessimistic About November

The Democrats managed to hold onto Rep. Giffords' House seat in a special election.  Okay, a Democrat wins a seat already held by a Democrat.  Why is that a surprise?

With 86 percent of precincts reporting, Barber was winning about 52 percent of the vote while Kelly had 45 percent.
Both candidates have promised to run for a full term in the fall, setting up a possible November rematch in a redrawn district that is friendlier to Democrats. Republican voters outnumber Democratic voters by about 26,000 under the current map. That edge will narrow to about 2,000 under redistricting.
We outnumber Democrats in the district and we still can't win the election?

4 comments:

  1. I'd like to think that this is an unusual election--after all, it's to replace someone who can rightly be viewed as a hero, for her determination and courage as she recovered from being shot by a madman.

    On the other hand, it's a reminder that Republicans shouldn't be too cocky. They had better be ready to fight tooth and nail to get the Presidency.

    On yet another hand (I guess I'm becoming a Martian!) we ought to be pessimistic even if Romney wins. Will he do the right things to save the country? Will he destroy the Republican party? (There are those who believe that the answer will be "yes" to the second, no matter what, but I'd like to think that the American Public is mature enough to give Romney a second term if he saves the country, even if Romney has to do hard things...)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm more concerned about the Republican Congressional leadership than Romney; whatever he wants to do after January 20th, assuming he wins, will have to be filtered though those Profiles in Courage.

    At least the biggest things, like curtailing our "trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see". That's an existential threat to our system of government, and one that might change from "someday" to today Real Soon Now and very possibly in the next 4 years.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Errr... Gifford's district is notoriously liberal in Arizona. It is the home of U of A, the birthplace of Earth First!, and had the official Al Qaeda office in the US before they were kicked out. It has a very high Hispanic population along with the guaranteed far left university crowd and hangers on.

    ReplyDelete
  4. It probably has to do with the 124,000 independent voters in that district, which is more than enough to swing *any* election.

    The Democrat that won was also a former member of Gabby Giffords' staff and had her endorsement and she is very well-liked down there.

    ReplyDelete