Last November, a Republican acquaintance of mine gave me the URL to the website of the National Republican Trust, the PAC responsible for those misleading ads claiming that Obama supports driver's licenses for terrorists. I urge partisan Democrats to visit this site now, if they want a good laugh.
What is currently the featured article on its main page--and has been for the past several weeks--gloats about "Why Obama Lost" the recent special election in New York's 20th District.
The problem? As anyone who's been following the news knows, Obama (or, more precisely, the Democrats) didn't lose that election--they won.
Talk about living in a dream world!
How did the article reach this bizarre conclusion? It was written after the election, but before the absentee ballots had been counted. At that point, the race was literally a tie. Nevertheless, the article boldly proclaims: "We are confident that Republican Jim Tedisco will be certified the winner."
The article goes on to argue that Tedisco's victory represents a "stunning blow" to Obama and the Democratic Party, because a Democrat carried the district with 61% of the vote just months earlier, and because Obama "beat McCain handily" in the district.
Of course, the article conveniently leaves out some facts, and even what it does state is distorted.
The district has long been overwhelmingly Republican. Blue Dog Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, first elected in 2006 with 53% of the vote, was the first Democrat elected there since 1988.
As for Obama "handily" defeating McCain, that is, to put it charitably, a rather flexible definition of the word "handily." Specifically, Obama got 50.7% of the vote, McCain 47.7%--a difference of three percentage points.
Most importantly, the article neglects to mention that a month before the special election, polls showed Tedisco with a double-digit lead over his opponent. The National Republican Trust PAC poured nearly a million dollars into ads, but in that time his lead shrank to nothing, and the Democrat ultimately won.
As of this writing, the PAC hasn't issued a correction or taken down the article. It's like they're asking to be mocked.