Nice.
NY Democratic Rep Bill Owens not seeking reelection.
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) January 14, 2014
This was that thoroughly contested seat (the one involving Doug Hoffman) that drove the GOP nuts in 2009 and 2010 in trying to take it back. As Politico implies, Bill Owens hasn’t really been fitting in in Congress and the Republican party has been actively planning to go for it in 2014; we just took a large step towards retaking it.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
PS: Circumstances in 2009 (GOP assigning candidate) and 2010 (loser of the GOP primary making an abortive third-party run) are what gave Owens his chance in the first case; his 2012 win against a regular GOP candidate was razor-thin. Without incumbency, this race shifts in the GOP’s direction pretty much immediately.
They’re dropping like flies!
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Mew
And boom goes the dynamite.
Owens had his chance in 2010 because the brain-dead GOP chose Dede Scozzfava, a RINO among RINOs. In case you’ve forgotten how big of a disaster she was, when the Conservative Party candidate started catching fire, she dropped out and endorsed the Democrat.
Any Republican that drops out and endorses the Democrat isn’t a Republican we want in our caucus anyways.
Nominate the most conservative candidate who can win the general.
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Dede was, quite clearly, *not* that candidate… although I’m sure many of us would find just how far left we have to go to win this district .. less than good.
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The *point* is to push the entire chamber to the right, not just playing onesie-twosie.
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Replacing the former idiot from Utah with Mike Lee, replacing McConnell’s sock puppet Trey Grayson with Rand Paul, and replacing Dewhurst with Ted Cruz push the Senate to the right, we need to do this elsewhere as well.
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(stares at Tennessee and South Carolina)
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Mew
This district is GOP leaning. Scoffazza and Hoffman combined got over 50% of the vote. In some cases Owens was more conservative then Scoffazza.
Mrs. RINO was pro- public option, pro union card check legislation, pro abortion, pro-gay marriage, pro higher taxes, pro more spending.
I mean there was very little to distinguish her as a Republican.
Owens was actually running as a Blue Dog and was to the Right of her on several issues.
Hoffman was endorsed by C4G and while I’m disappointed his candidacy helped lead to a Democrat victory, I’m not upset that we prevented another Lincoln Chafee.
Yep, once a squishy-leech gets in, they clamp on and resist replacement by threatening to “turn the seat blue”.
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Pock them.
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Mew
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(as always, Moe has the right to kick/ban me for expressing this opinion of nominal republicans)
Bill Connor or Lee Bright in SC.
Joe Carr ( while not my preferred challenger would do a much better job then Lamar)