Reactions To Undecided House Race
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- April
- 1
Here’s some reactions to the too-close-to-call 20th House races between Republican Jim Tedisco and Democrat Scott Murphy:
National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions:
“As the latest vote totals reflect, there still remain thousands of absentee and military ballots that have to be counted. Rest assured that Republicans will ensure that the integrity of the election is protected and every vote is counted. As it stands now, there is a Republican advantage in the number of absentee and military ballots that have been returned.”
DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen: “From 21 points down to securing a majority of the vote tonight, congratulations to Scott Murphy who ran an extraordinary campaign focused on his record as a successful businessman who helped to create jobs and his strong support for President Obama’s economic recovery act. As votes continue to be counted, we’re confident that Scott Murphy will expand his lead.”
State GOP Chairman Joseph Mondello: “I congratulate Jim Tedisco, our dedicated county chairs and all our Republican volunteers and supporters in the 20th Congressional District for a hard fought race. Even in this district that was won by a Democrat by 70,000 votes just four short months ago, I am confident that Jim Tedisco will be our next Congressman once all the ballots are counted.”
State Democratic Chairwoman June O’Neill: “Over the past two months, Scott Murphy has run a remarkable campaign – closing a 21 point deficit against his opponent. Scott’s proven record of creating jobs, and his support of President Obama’s economic recovery package, have resonated with voters across NY 20, a heavily Republican district. We congratulate him on his efforts and will continue to extend our support to his campaign.”
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 8:56 am by Joseph Spector.
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Interesting that Tedisco filed a motion to prevent Murphy from being certified the winner (no matter what the actual vote tallies were) ELEVEN hours before the polls closed.
Oh yeah, real classy, the mark of a campaign with an overwhelming populist mandate….not.
(Besides which, he still doesn’t even live in the 20th.)
What is truly remarkable about this race is that the district is republican by registration…Tedisco should
have romped..but as a congressional candidate he couldn’t
cut it…Republicans in new york are not monolithic…they
understand that to serve in the congress you need to have
some conviction..when tedisco was asked his position on
the stimulus package..he refused to answer…thus he
saw a 21 point lead dwindle to nothing….the one
thing you can’t do in these difficult times is punt
Consultant, interesting statement. Tedesco might have wanted to read the stimulus package before he answered any questions on it. If you were in his situation would you respond to something you are unsure of or would you vote on something that you did not read?
The question was asked to him long after the stimulus
package was voted on…he could have answered in any other
way ..but a failure to respond directly to the issue
demonstrated he was simply unsure of where to come
down poltiically…and the issue was too important to
treat that way..it ended up destroying his 21 point lead
Long after how much time was it? I don’t think it was long after.
Tedisco should have had an answer ready to the question
since he was in a race for the US congress..not to anticipate that it would be an issue is a major strategic
error…and I believe it was at least two weeks after
and certainly there were public discussions about the pros
and cons in the interim…its not so much the time between
the vote and the question put to tedisco its his total
and complete failure to deal wtih it
If there is ONE Washington politician (or ONE politician anywhere on the planet), never mind an upstate drone who read this stimulus plan en toto, or even a middling part of it before voting on it, I’d like him to stand up and be questioned under oath and under penalty of perjury, and then tested. When Murphy said he would have voted for it, he’s doing nada but admitting that he’s another useless, rubber-stamp Party magpie who has no idea of the intricacies of what he expounds upon. I’d rather have a Congressman who admitted he had no idea of which way he would vote upon billions of dollars of taxpayer outlay and hyper- inflationary probability, the contents of which he could have little, if any, knowledge of.
All he had to do was to say that…instead he opted not
to answer…..
One can only wonder why he didn’t have an erudite “consultant” briefly prep him on how to answer this question, which was palpably inevitable to be asked of him. It just exemplifies the misplaced confidence and ineptitude of this candidate. The other guy is worse, if that’s possible, because his comments and answers proved him to be nothing but a blind member of a uniformed parade, seeking power by association, without the personal confidence to produce a single original thought.
one of the problems is the people that the republican state
committee puts its faith in to “handle” the candidates
they are not strategic..they are not particularly
smart..they are good at repeating talking points
but they don’t get the nuances of the issues…Tedisco
is an upstate representative with not a whole lot of
exposure to economics, banking and national issues…
ie the new york state republican party outside of the
city is quite parochial in its approach …
I would rather have a guy in office who says he will not know how he would vote until he read the bill. Then support a guy who would follow blindly what the president and his fellow party members vote for.
What would you prefer? The reason he lost so many points is because the people in the 20th are hurting and they believe that this stimulas plan will help.
Hey, Tedisco didn’t fall off the turnip truck last night! He’s the REPUBLICAN LEADER of the ASSEMBLY. Why couldn’t he answer an obvious question? Because he was trapped between Republicans in Congress’ unilateral opposition to the stimulus package which was POPULAR in the 20th C.D.
We will keep losing elections (tho Tedisco hasn’t lost and will probably pull this one out by a smidgen) until we start playing smart and flexible. This is a very Democratic state, and wailing out loud on blogs doesn’t make us any more successful on Election Day.
I am on board with the elite elephant whose analysis is
right on!!