From the state that put Allen West on the political map, and sorta-kinda gave George W. Bush the White House in 2000, comes last night's House special election. The Dems had Alex Sink, a well-respected lady who ran for governor in 2010 and had the full backing of the party machinery. The Republicans had former Washington lobbyist David Jolly who apparently ran a terrible campaign, to the point where there was anonymous sniping in the media leading up to the election, per Politico:
Over the past week, a half-dozen Washington Republicans have described Jolly’s campaign against Democrat Alex Sink as a Keystone Cops operation, marked by inept fundraising, top advisers stationed hundreds of miles away from the district in the state capital and the poor optics of a just-divorced, 41-year-old candidate accompanied on the campaign trail by a girlfriend 14 years his junior.
And yet somehow Jolly won the race by about 3,500 votes. Oh Florida.
Why is this a big deal? Well, it was a special election to replace Rep. Bill Young (R), who died recently, leaving behind a loving family and another family. And all the media-political pundits were having a politigasm about it because it was supposed to be a ‘bellwether’ race that would provide insight into the 2014 midterm elections that are happening in November.
So let’s look at the district. According to Politico, the district is “older, overwhelmingly white, and politically moderate.” It had more Republican voters than Democrats, and had elected Bill Young for like 800 years, so it was clearly a district that favored Republicans, despite the fact that Obama carried it in 2008 and 2012. However, it would have been nice for Dems to pick up the seat, just to gain momentum.
Additionally, Alex Sink would have been the 100th woman in Congress. As it stands, there will only be 99, at least until the elections in November. So despite being 50% of the population, women make up less than a quarter of Congress, so it is no wonder why bills like the Violence Against Women Act take so long to get passed.
Tang-tinged Speaker John Boenher discouraged Democrats from even trying to find a positive spin about this race, per The Hill:
“Listen, I’ve stood here after losing some special elections. I’ve tried to put lipstick on a pig, and it’s still a pig,” the Speaker told reporters at the Capitol, a day after Republican David Jolly defeated Democrat Alex Sink in a campaign to replace the late Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.). “You can bet they’ll try to put lipstick on it today, but you all know what the facts are.”
Wait a minute. Didn’t Supreme High Holy Lord Barack H. Obama get in trouble for that whole lipstick-on-a-pig thing back in 2008, because it was an obvious slam on part-time governor and Word Salad World Champion Sarah Palin? Why yes, yes he did!
Sen. Barack Obama's reference to "lipstick on a pig" has Republicans demanding an apology and Democrats accusing Sen. John McCain of a "pathetic attempt" to play the gender card.
Of course, it is fine for Boehner to use the phrase, even though a male candidate was running against a female candidate, because hypocrisy. We look forward to Sen. McCain calling for Boehner to issue an apology for his pathetic attempt to play the gender card. Hahahaha, just kidding. Because politics without hypocrisy would be no fun at all.
[ Politico / Politico / The Hill / CNN ]
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I had a sinking feeling about this race when all the Koch money started to flow in
unfortunately, the tide had turned in the campaign