Tuesday, November 3, 2009

NY-23 Unpredictions

Nate Silver has right-winger Doug Hoffman as the favorite, but admits that it's unpredictable. I'm clueless, so you'll have to rely on Nick for any Donkeylicious crystalballery.

Neither do I have much of an idea what happens in the aftermath of this election, following either an Owens or Hoffman victory. The sheer crazy of the national GOP at this point makes it hard to figure out exactly what happens next -- at one point I think Stu Rothenberg was saying that a Hoffman win would embolden Republicans to do the self-destructive thing and run lots of third party candidates. But I think that was before Scozzafava dropped and endorsed Owens. Now they'd probably blame a defeat on Scozzafava and get even more furious at their party's moderates, which could also have exciting consequences. The party base is unmoored from mainstream news sources and attached to quirky political celebrities who have their own interests, and may push their followers into tactical absurdities.

Really I'm just hoping Owens wins. That'd counter any bad press we get if New Jersey abruptly stops working, and it's one more vote for Speaker Pelosi. I don't think we'll need it, but Nate sometimes seems worried, so I worry too.

3 comments:

ikl said...

Good thing Owens won. Otherwise it would have been a very grim night.

I figured that Hoffman would collapse if the election was a week or two later, but I can't say that I was confident about NY-23 going into tonight. Have to give the Dem strategists and poloticos some credit on this one. Looking at the results, it looks as if the Scozzafava endorsement really moved some votes and the DCCC spending and whatever ground game there is kept Dem turnout solid.

Neil Sinhababu said...

I'm with you. Curious to see what happens in the next few days, though Republicans may be excited enough about NJ and VA not to care.

Glenn Fayard said...

Well, Owens winning certainly didn't change the narrative. The media clearly have lined up a week or two of "Democrats are losing start panicking hippies" bullshit.