What Happened in the 9th Congressional District of NY is Really Stunning

Any way you cut it, the victory of Republican Bob Turner in the 9th Congressional District of New York is stunning.  Democrats had a 3 to 1 registration advantage in the district, which has been in Republican hands for only 9 years out of the last 150 and hasn't had a Republican Congressional victory for 70.  Also, this is probably one of the most Jewish districts in the country with about 33% of voters being Jewish, making it even more amazing that a Catholic Republican was able to beat an Orthodox Jewish Democrat there, partly due to the subject of Israel.  If an Orthodox Jew can't convince other Orthodox Jews that a vote for him is good for Israel, there is a problem somewhere (most likely in the White House).  Hopefully this is a sign that Jews are finally waking up and realizing that voting for Democrats is not in their interest.  Jews are least likely to benefit and most likely to be hurt by Democratic economic policies and as we've seen from Obama, the Democratic leadership is pretty hostile towards Israel.

I know that Democrats and their minions are trying to minimize what happened in this district.  I guess all politics is local especially if there is a Republican victory.  But the arguments make no sense.  Debbie Wasserman Schultz said this is a "very difficult district for Democrats" and pointed out that Orthodox Jews, where Obama has very low approval, make up a disproportionately high percentage of the district.  The "tough district for Democrats" argument would make sense if this wasn't the district of Chuck Schumer and Geraldine Ferraro and didn't vote 67% for Al Gore in 2000 (or 61% for Anthony Weiner in the Republican landslide year of 2010 against the very same Bob Turner).  The Orthodox Jewish argument would only make sense if the Republican were an Orthodox Jew and the Democrat a Catholic, not the other way around!

Then you have partisan hacks pretending to be objective like Steve Kornacki at Salon arguing that this is election is meaningless because it didn't vote for Obama as much as it should in 2008(though he did carry it by a margin of 55-44).  It's funny that back in May, he viewed the Republican loss of the 26th district in NY in a special election as proof of "Republican overreach".  In that district, the Republican Congressman resigned due to a scandal very similar to Weiner's, involving pictures sent over the internet.  But this district was much less firmly Republican than the 9th, with a Democratic Congressman holding the seat from 1993-2003 and the election featured a fake "Tea Party" candidate who was able to get 9% of the vote, allowing the Democrat to win with only 47%.  There was no such third party in the 9th district, with the Republican winning 54-46, with a margin of 67-33 in Brooklyn!

Any way you cut it, this election is bad for Democrats and should have them worried about what is going to happen in 2012.