My first thought at a Democrat winning the 26th district congressional race in upstate New York was one of deja vu. Didn’t this happen two years ago, with that seat up near Watertown, when McHugh was appointed Army Secretary? Bill Owens won, then won again last fall – the only Democrat in my little backwater region of upstate to manage reelection, as it turned out. Dems and liberal commentators tried to read that race as a bellwether, too, but it didn’t turn out to be predictive at all of the 2010 election. What matters is what the party does in between. If the Dems sit on their asses and wait for the check to arrive, they’ll be sorely disappointed.
There’s no denying, though, that this speaks to a strong undercurrent of distrust in the Medicare “reform” cooked up by Paul Ryan and company. As much as they try to dress up their voucher / privatization 
program, it’s still just a pig with way too much lipstick, and any fool can see it. I am a bit heartened that their attempt to buy off the elderly by saying their privatization scheme would only affect people under 55 (i.e. me) has thus far failed miserably. Perhaps they neglected to consider that eighty-year-olds might have fifty-year-old children. In the midst of all their yak about family values, they apparently forgot about families. Nice try, mothers!
This should be a gift to Democrats, but if they keep participating in the GOP narrative about deficit reduction, any political benefit will evaporate. Democrats have to overcome the generalized distrust people tend to have for all politicians, and they won’t do that by agreeing to choke off the sick, poor, and elderly person’s lifeline a little bit more gradually than their colleagues across the aisle. If they’re truly on the side of ordinary people, they should say to the Republicans: Want to cut the deficit? Bring tax rates on the wealthy at least back to where they were prior to 2001… or wherever they need to be. Shut down the wars, shutter the overseas bases, and cancel the over-the-top weapons programs. And join the rest of the developed world in building a single payer health care system for everyone, not just the oldest, poorest, and sickest people in the country. And by the way – insist that everything the U.S. government purchases is made in America.
Do all that, and if there’s still a massive long-term deficit, I’ll eat my shoes. (I don’t have a hat.)
luv u,
jp
