New York election a referendum on Obama, GOP says

Republican Bob Turner speaks with the media at a polling station on September 13, 2011, in New York City.

/ Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Updated at 12:35 p.m. ET

Republican Bob Turner's upset victory Tuesday in the special election for the heavily-Democratic congressional seat in New York's ninth district is a referendum on President Obama's economic policies and his relations with Isreal, GOP leaders are saying.

"We have been told this is a referendum," the former cable television executive said after defeating Democratic State Assemblyman David Weprin for the seat vacated by disgraced Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner. "And we're ready to say, 'Mr. President, we are on the wrong track.'"

On paper, the district looked like a shoo-in for Democrats: Mr. Obama's party holds a three-to-one registration advantage in the heavily-Jewish district, and Democrats have represented the district for more than eight decades. Mr. Obama won the district by 11 points in 2008. But a poll released just days ahead of the election showed that voters in the district are displeased with the current direction of the country.

House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement Tuesday night that New York voters "delivered a strong warning to the Democrats who control the levers of power in our federal government. It's time to scrap the failed 'stimulus' agenda and the misguided policies on Israel and focus on getting America back to creating jobs again."

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In its first reaction to the Democratic loss, CBS News White House correspondent Peter Maer reports, the Obama re-election campaign dismissed the 2012 implications. When it comes to gauging Mr. Obama's re-election prospects, a campaign official said, "The main point is to take a look at... the president's national standing in battleground states."

The official noted New York's 9th district was Mr. Obama's second-worst New York City district in the '08 election. "There are a high proportion of voters in this district who voted for Bush and McCain - so this is not a new trend it is a continuation of a trend," the official said.

The campaign is also downplaying any notion that the results indicate Jews are turning against the president. "President Obama performs extremely well among Jewish voters overall," they said.

The White House has not commented on Tuesday's special election, but on Monday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney disputed the notion that the race would be a referendum on the president's Israel policies by pointing to a statement from the prime minister of Israel, who said Mr. Obama has shown a historic level of assistance and cooperation toward the Middle Eastern country.

Nevertheless, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions also said in a statement that the race demonstrates that "voters are losing confidence in a president whose policies assault job-creators and affront Israel."

Sessions added that Mr. Obama is "now a liability for Democrats nationwide."

While Weprin, the Democrat in the race, is an Orthodox Jew, Turner (a Catholic) managed to put him on defense on Jewish issues. Former New York Mayor Ed Koch, for instance, said this summer he was endorsing Turner as a way to "send a message" to Mr. Obama on his policies toward Israel. Weprin was challenged on his support of the Islamic community center and mosque near ground zero.

Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said in a statement that "without question, Obama's policies are causing significant numbers of Jewish voters to re-examine their loyalty to the Democratic Party."

Meanwhile, National Jewish Democratic Council president David Harris said, "This election was about many things --but not Israel." He pointed to polling that suggested voters weren't voting on that issue, and he said both candidates supported a strong U.S. relationship with Israel.

Other Democrats, like the president's campaign, downplayed the race.

"This is a special election that is purely reflective of who showed up to the polls and the makeup of the district," Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, told the Washington Post.

In a conference call later, Wasserman Schultz said the Democrats' prospects for 2012 -- including Mr. Obama's -- remain strong. The president's head-to-head numbers against Republicans have held up both nationally and in key states, she said.

"While Republicans are spending the year courting the Tea Party... the president's out there fighting every day to create jobs," Wasserman Schultz said.

Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, who represented New York's 9th for 18 years, said the district has never been a bellweather.

"It's among the most conservative districts in New York City, and it's changing rapidly over the years," he said. "Anybody who tries to extrapolate [national implications from] what happened in this district... is making a big mistake."

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Steve Israel said in a statement that special elections are always difficult. "The results in NY-09 are not reflective of what will happen in November 2012 when Democratic challengers run against Republican incumbents who voted to end Medicare and cut Social Security while protecting tax loopholes for big corporations and the ultra wealthy," he said.

While Democrats are now downplaying the implications of special elections, earlier this year they said their special election victory in a conservative upstate New York district was a referendum on Republicans' Medicare proposals. Robert Costa of the conservative magazine the National Review points out that Turner didn't back the GOP's controversial Medicare proposal, so he avoided the "Medi-scare" that occurred in the upstate race.

Though the race is over, the future of New York's 9th district remains to be seen: as a result of the 2010 census, New York is losing two congressional seats, and New York's 9th, which covers parts of Brooklyn and Queens, may be at risk of elimination. That means Turner may quickly be out of a job.

[noloyalisti]

You would think that after 30 years of tragically failed Reaganomics that the current Republicons are still pushing they would never get anyone elected.

I mean The Boners job creation plan is to cut taxes on the rich. Idiot Bozo Boner, WE TRIED THAT. For 10 failed years since 2001, now 11. What is wrong with these Republican animals? Their brains appear to have atrophied.

[markag55]

This election just goes to prove that politics makes "strange bedfellows." Who would have thought a Republican would win in a mostly Jewish district because the President has made known that Israel must try harder to come to peace? What did George W. Bush do, other than to start two wars, totally unrelated to the Israel/Palestine issue, while working the fundamentalist right-wing evangelical Christians to push for blocking a Muslim Palestinian (with a few Christians mixed in for good measure) state, all the while feeling his way blindly through the mess he and Dick Cheney created? And Dick Cheney, evidently from his book, doesn't feel anything, right or wrong. That's the problem with Cheney--he's not immoral, he is amoral. He has no concept of right or wrong. And to think he ran this country for the 8 years that the puppet George W. was President. Sad, sad, sad.

[noloyalisti]

Wasn't the election of Obama a referendum on the failed Reign of Terror of the Bush Crime Family and their Republicon cronies?

[noloyalisti]

Wasn't the previous NY State election this year a referendum on the GOP policies?

[prohb]

The well-financed Republican messaging machine has succeeded in convincing unintelligent and fearful Americans and media that it is all Obama's fault.

[noloyalisti]

Didn't you know that 911 was Obama's fault? And he was also responsible for the 2008 Second Great Republican Depression, the Bankster Bailout in 2008 and also starting the illegitimate wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

[moretruthnow]

I think this election was much more about the amount of money in the millions that was spent to make sure that the Democratic candidate did not win. It was all about making sure that the GOP would win in spite of their corruption and Grover Norquist no tax increase for the wealthy which makes republican useless and just wanting to cut benefits for those who need Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid. The GOP will harm this country more and more with Mitch McConnell in the Senate making sure nothing passes his filibusters that are now constantly required. Evil policies of the GOP making it impossible for President Obama to make recess appointments which is about the only way any of his appointments will ever be possible. The GOP is a rotten bunch of millionaires and billionaires making sure they don't pay more taxes and that their corporate backers pay little to no taxes. I am sick of the rich ruining this country with their greed, arrogance and hateful agenda against the middle class and working poor.

[verifiabletruthmatters]

The GOP has engaged in a Campaign of DECEIT since the 1980s when an "Unholy Alliance" was formed between the GOP, the large multinationals that now own 90% of the GOP, and 100 million Fundamentalists. Perry met with 30,000 Fundamentalists on 8-7& 8-8-2011. He is advised by Donald Rumsfeld and the Neoconservatives on Foreign Policy, who dominated the Bush-Cheney Administration and fabricated the 935 lies to invade Iraq. They created the Wolfowitz Doctrine in 1991 to justify the Dept. of Defense Budget making the Mideast the next target. Bush-Cheney all over again. 3 major groups involved in this Campaign of DECEIT. 1)War Hawks=keep the U.S. at war permanently. Conservative, retired Colonel Andrew Bacevich warns in Washington Rules. 2) The 100 million Fundamentalists intend to create a Christian Theocracy. Warnings from Conservative John Dean and Barry Goldwater, or AU.org, or SPLC about strategies. 3) The T.E.A. Party, funded and scripted by $100BILLION/YEAR oil conglomerate Koch Industries. (NPR, Fresh Air, 8-26-2010 about"Covert Action"; PBS, Frontline, Operation Greystone).

WHERE CAN THE RESEARCH BE FOUND ON THE GOP CAMPAIGN OF DECEIT
***NPR, Fresh Air, 9-15-2005,talks to Chris Mooney about the Infrastructure of DECEIT described in Republicans War on Science
***NPR, Fresh Air, 12-16-2009, talks to Jeremy Scahill about Blackwater bilking U.S. taxpayers out of BILLIONS and funneling millions of those BILLIONS into Rt. Wing Fundamentalist causes. Erik Prince sold Blackwater in 2010,is a Fundamentalist Catholic who thinks he's on a Messianic Mission against Islam, so do 100 million Fundamentalists. Scahill has since followed up with numerous other reports on Blackwater activities and Erik Prince in the U.A.E. Prince is acting on A PLAN devised in 2008. Rove has already corrupted two elections we know about, in 2000 and 2004.
***NPR, Fresh Air,talks to Jeff Sharlett, 11-24-2009, 9-23-2010 about THE FAMILY: the Secret Fundamentalism At The Heart of Power and C-Street. Motto: "Totalitarianism For Jesus". They dominate T.E.A. Party illustrated by Michelle Bachmann, who said Jesus told her to run for the Presidency in 2012. She heads up T.E.A. Party Caucus in Congress and brought in David Barton to tell 87 GOP Freshman, the U.S. Constitution is "divinely inspired"; therefore the word of God. They dominate 90% of the Chaplains in U.S. military, told they're "God's Army, Doing God's Work". Rewrote textbooks in Texas in 2010 to make them historically inaccurate & push the notion that the Founding Fathers were "Christians who wanted a Theocracy", which they weren't, and that Creationism is a "Science", which it isn't. They've engaged in three decades of domestic terrorism against women and their doctors to push the religious ignorance that "Life Starts at Conception", which Science addressed in 1992;no, it doesn't. They want to use the Book of Leviticus as Rule of Law. (Republican Gomorrah by Max Blumenthal) Members include: Jim DeMint, Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Pastor John Hagee head of Christians United For Israel.
***NPR, Fresh Air interviews Pastor John Hagee on 9-19-2006 about the "End of Days"; Prophecies of the Book of Revelations and why the Right Wing will be taken into heavens in The Rapture. Also John Dean when Conservatives Without Conscience came out, Michelle Goldberg's Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, The Theocons by Damon Linker, American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips, and her talks with Richard Armitage about the investment in the End of Days scenarios. PBS, Bill Moyers Journal talked to Hagee 11-30-2007.

Global Warming MUST be stopped, just as the economic meltdown of September 2008 could have been averted. It was the 3rd time Derivatives Stuffed With Junk damaged the economy---1987 (S&L), 1998 (LTCM--PBS Frontline's THE WARNING), 2008 (Subprime)---because of 3 decades of deregulation. The meltdown of 9-2008 is well-documented. 1) Documentary that won the Oscar in 2011, "Inside Job"(SONY), 2) PBS'Frontline "THE WARNING" released Oct 2009 about the 1998 Derivatives stuffed with JUNK with Long Term Capital Management (LTCM), 3) All the Devils are Here--the hidden history of the economic meltdown of 2008 by Joe Nocera and Bethany McLean, 4) Reckless Endangerment by Gretchen Morganson who also did an investigation with Louise Story for the N.Y.Times about why no one is being prosecuted for the Wall Street corruption 2003-2008. The BIG Short by Michael Lewis author of Liar's Poker,or House of Cards by William D. Cohen, and 13 Bankers by Simon Johnson, who PBS' Charlie Rose has interviewed with many others & also a dozen of the three dozen economists who designed The Stimulus 9-2008 to 1-2010. We know based on the discrepancies, what the GOP did to undermine the Intent to patch a $1.4 TRILLION contraction of GDP. $830 Billion, was effectively $600 Billion by ineffective tax cuts, to patch a contraction 3 times that size. Also cut out help to the States.

[verifiabletruthmatters]

Addressing Global Warming also addresses--Energy, THE DEBT, a way out of the RECESSION, and shuts down a horrific acceleration that's going to make the planet uninhabitable and kill BILLIONS.

There are 8-16 million GREEN JOBS and Infrastructure Jobs waiting for a GREEN BANK to provide them loans,Obama has tried to get off the ground since 2009. GOP has worked hard to destroy RECOVERY to continue HIDDEN AGENDAS. U.S. gets full employment. It grows GDP making the DEBT a smaller portion of GDP. More people paying more taxes, which is more money to pay down the DEBT. If the U.S. and China go head-to-head to get to 80% Renewable Energy--wind, solar, geothermal by 2025 we can shut down this horrific acceleration the GOP has set up. The construction and operating costs on Nuclear are prohibitive as Amory Lovins at Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI.org) has repeatedly calculated and explained. We can generate 6 times the current U.S. electrical use just from reliable wind in South Dakota, Kansas and Texas, plus wind offshore in the Atlantic and Pacific and solar in the west. THIS NEEDS TO BE HANDLED LIKE A "MANHATTAN PROJECT" They've been dumb enough to lie for 3 decades about the physics that governs a planet. PHYSICS RULES, PHYSICS WINS; WHEN YOU CROSS IT, IT DESTROYS. Decades of bald-faced lies, about Global Warming, is the butchering of verifiable Truth, the violation of the associated Physics, and the violation of God's World. That's the cause of every accident and virtually every tragedy on this planet. Physics doesn't tolerate being violated and the DECEIT coming out of the Right Wing owned by the multinationals, is a violation of the Physics that governs a planet.

We have a small but quickly closing window of opportunity to shut down the horrific acceleration underway, because two precious decades have been lost due to the Campaign of DECEIT by the GOP & Dirty Fossil Fuels.

Millions of people will migrate to find food and water sparking wars and death. It will be a HUGE National Security issue. BIG OIL, especially Exxon Mobil and $100 BILLION/YR oil conglomerate Koch Industries who funds and scripts the TEA Party, are currently those pushing the Disinformation Campaign. BIG OIL and the GOP need to be charged with: "CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY" AND "BREACH OF NATIONAL SECURITY". Permafrost melting containing TEN TIMES what is already in the atmosphere, oceans turning into vats of acid, one city in the US already with millions of dollars of damage followed by many many others, weather going to the extremes, HUGE National Security issues. Where's the research proving all this?
***NPR, Science Friday, Jan 22, 2011, the 11th Annual "Changing Climate, Changing Oceans Conference" with 69 papers delivered, covered for the hour by NPR also 3-4-2011 and many other Science Friday programs. Extensive discussion of ocean acidification and destruction of the life forms.
***NPR, The World (PRI) March 8 and 9th, 2011, talking to Mark Hertsgaard who has covered Climate Change for at least two decades.
***PBS, Need to Know, Feb 25, 2011 and June 24, 2001 Norfolk VA inundated with sea level rise, the millions in damage and which cities are next, discussion with Mark Hertsgaard about his latest book, HOT: the Next 50 years on Planet Earth
***Storms of My Grandchildren by Dr. James Hansen one of 3000 Climate Scientists frustrated that they are fighting against ignorance and incessant lies about the physics that governs a planet
***Science As a Contact Sport by Dr. Schneider, colleague of Dr. Hansen, also frustrated to be fighting against lies backed by hundreds of millions of dollars by corrupt corps like Exxon and Koch Industries
***Field Notes From a Catastrophe by Elizabeth Kolbert--all the damage being done in Alaska
***The Heat is On and Boiling Point--3 decades of Dirty Fossil Fuels "Disinformation Campaign" and the Mainstream Media totally failing the American People on a matter this serious and deadly when they fail to stick to the science and the physics by Ross Gelbspan
***The Climate War by Eric Pooley; 3 decades of GOP and BIG OIL's "Disinformation Campaign" because BIG OIL wants to sell TRILLIONS in oil products, because just like Wall Street these greedy guts, sick, dysfunctional psychotics are willing to destroy a planet and will succeed on the current trajectory
***PBS, NOW, 2010, How the Muldees Islands are being inundated with water and all their residents have to move; 300,000 people in Bangladesh who have already been displaced as they lose about 1/3 of their country. 90 metric tons of pollution dumps into the atmosphere/day.
***Our Choice--3000 Climate Scientists explain the problem after 50 years of study
***Eaarth by Bill McKibben--how our planet has already been changed forever because Americans won't be responsible to the physics governing a planet, 350.org
***NOVA, "Secrets Beneath The Ice";How dangerous is the melting of Antarctica? Very Dangerous
*** 350.ORG; many, many others

[bourbonstdon]

An election in a single district is a referendum on President Obama? That's a statistical absurdity and an obvious propaganda ploy. Regardless of the outcome, the simple fact that the state of Wisconsin held multiple recall elections was an indictment of Republican policies and practices. Most of the fuel for all of this "conservative" backlash of the last 30 years is the horrible prospect of the "browning of America". WASPs will be in the minority by the middle of this century and that scares millions of folks into voting Republican against their own working class economic interests. I guess "conservatives" clinging to the past, trying to stop the clock, don't care if true [economic] Republicans (another minority) polarize the country into just rich and poor, with no middle class, as long as WASPs maintain "control". If working class WASP "conservatives" finally get the GOP "futureworld" they keep voting for, it is simple-minded to assume that you won't be standing in soup lines with the unemployed masses of ALL COLORS just because you're WASP. In fact, WASPs will be the majority in those unemployment lines. Just look at who attends tea party and GOP rallies before you try to call this a "racist" observation. The "tribal" appeal of the so-called "conservative" movement is expressed in the composition of those tea party and GOP crowds and not in this post.

[prohb]

Exactly

[prohb]

Someone doesn't like this post...maybe because it rings true...so read it fast:

The well financed Republican messaging machine has convinced fearful and unintelligent Americans and media that it is all Obama's fault not the Republican wrecking crew these past three years (who want no jobs to be produced till 2013). Americans, more and more, are beginning to resemble the ancient Roman mob that were swayed by right-wing demagogs' and fear-generating speeches. Also, Americans are beginning to resemble the German people in the 1930's. Then, in a time of fear, anxiety, and economic hardship the German public and media was swayed by a right-wing demagogue who gave them simple answers. What was his name again?