PolitickerNY

Colin over at the Brooklyn Politics points us to his analysis of the race, which came out even before the first votes were cast but is pretty prescient on what went down last night:

This district was never as Democratic as people thought it wasJust because Weiner was a liberal firebrand while yelling on MSNBC doesn’t mean that he had the same political brand when campaigning back home for reelection.

This is simply not an overwhelmingly progressive district, especially given the right circumstances. This was Michael Bloomberg’s best district in his 2009 reelection campaign, where he scored an astronomical 70% of the vote.

And things are trending away from the Democrats too! The district’s Russian and Orthodox Jewish populations have been trending hard to the Republican Party in recent election cycles(while the district’s Irish & Italians were already with the GOP).

So, yeah, the Democratic registration numbers are deceiving. Read More

Tony Perkins, the head of the Family Research Council, is touting David Weprin’s loss last night in a heavily Democratic district as proof of what a vote in favor of same-sex marriage can do to legislators who back it:

The polling makes clear that David Weprin’s vote for same-sex marriage was the key factor in his defeat. A plurality of voters in the district are opposed to same-sex marriage and 29 percent saw the marriage issue as ‘very important’ to their vote. Read More

From a progressive activist and organizer:

NY9:  The state of the economy and Middle East politics clearly played a role here.  But candidates themselves really do matter.  If you pick a candidate based on who can be controlled and not who has the best chance of winning, you are bound to get beat.  Unfortunately, this has become a pattern with Queens County.  Read More

Even though he left the presidential race four months ago, Donald Trump is still taking pot-shots at the president. The latest is an unusual lease agreement at one of his properties, 40 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan. For the $176,000 deposit on a new 10 year lease, the Journal reports that the tenant will be handing over three 32-ounce bars of pure gold each “about the size of a television remote control.” (Would that be one of those big, multi-system ones, like you get with the cable box, or something slimmer?) Read More

From a Democratic operative, unaffiliated with the race:

David Weprin was a bad candidate regardless of what his “favorables” in the polls were.  No one leaves after meeting him remembering him as anything but a politician. Not likeable, but not hatable, which arguably is worse.
Additionally, Weprin can rub colleagues the wrong way. He is Read More

Big news last night out of Queens, with the Republican Party wrenching another Congressional seat out of the Five Boroughs.

We gave our take, and are curious to hear yours? Why did Bob Turner win? Why does it matter?

Email us at dfreedlander [at] observer.com, and we will print some of the sharper responses. Read More

Talking Points Memo reporter-blogger-videographer Ryan J. Reilly believes he caught former Pennsylvania senator and liberal whipping boy Rick Santorum in an incendiary gaffe during the GOP debate Monday night. "Rick Santorum Explains How GOP Can Attract ‘Illegal Vote — I Mean Latino — Voters’ (VIDEO)," screams the headline on the story, which was picked up by the Huffington Post and repeatedly promoted on Twitter by Mr. Reilly, TPM publisher Josh Marshall, and on the blog's official feed.

But upon a casual listen, Mr. Santorum's quote is ambiguous at best. In fact, it sounds like Mr. Santorum--and this is not an endorsement of that candidate, mind you--merely stumbled over his words and said, nonsensically, "the legal voters," then immediately corrected himself to say "Latino voters." Read More