The Post-Standard in Syracuse reports on a special election result that will warm liberal hearts:
The Democrat rode a wave of voter discontent over the national GOP’s plan to change Medicare and overcame decades of GOP dominance here to capture Tuesday’s special election in New York’s 26th Congressional District.
Well, that settles it – the American people want limitless entitlement spending and are willing to accept the necessary punishing tax increases. At least, that’s the narrative donkey Democrats will ride to next November.
Don’t read past the second paragraph, and the NY-26 special election paints a dire picture for the GOP. As sometimes happens, though, all the good news for the left is loaded into the first few sentences…
Hochul defeated Republican state Assemblywoman Jane Corwin on Tuesday night, capturing 47 percent of the vote to 43 percent for Corwin, to win the seat vacated by disgraced Republican Chris Lee. A wealthy tea party candidate, Jack Davis, took 9 percent.
Democrat Kathy Hochul “rode a wave of voter discontent” over GOP budget proposals… to a 4 percent victory with a conservative* third-party candidate taking 9 percent. In a special election necessitated by an outrageous sex scandal involving the previous GOP congressman. But we know Medicare is the reason, because the Democrat’s supporters say so!
The special election that became a referendum on the health care plan for the nation’s seniors may serve as a warning shot to further GOP efforts to cut popular entitlement programs.
“The three reasons a Democrat was elected to Congress in the district were Medicare, Medicare and Medicare,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Steve Israel, D-N.Y., said in an interview.
This stuff goes both ways. When Scott Brown won in Kennedyland, conservatives made a fuss about what it meant for the future. In that case, the GOP victory was surprising. In this case, the Democrat’s victory is surprising. In neither case does a single issue tell the whole story – though it’s worth noting that Scott Brown took the seat of America’s most beloved leftist dynasty, didn’t have a tabloid scandal on his side, and didn’t have a third-party candidate pulling 9 percent of his opponent’s likely voters.
At least Hochul has some bold ideas for New York’s future!
“How about ending big handouts for Big Oil?” she said. “How about making millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share? We can do all that and not decimate Medicare.”
The victory of another Democrat who’s wrong about nearly everything isn’t good news, but the only tragedy here for conservatives would be accepting the left’s hollow rhetoric.
* Apparently the “tea party” candidate was a Democrat? Stay classy, New York.
Follow me on Twitter: @jasonahart
Cross-posted from that hero.
