"Craigslist Congressman" Chris Lee's decision to let out his inner idiot gives us a chance to frame the national debate on the Ryan plan and set the tone for 2012, if we jump into the special election campaign in the district in New York's 26th District on May 24. We have just over a month to help the Democratic candidate Kathleen Hochul send the message that the extremist Republican agenda, specifically the Ryan plan which the GOP candidate is eagerly embracing, is a bridge too far, even in deep red upstate New York. The bonus? Crazy Jack Davis (remember him?) has bought his way on to the ballot, and his presence actually helps us this cycle. Follow below the fold to get a look at this race.
The GOP chose their candidate with unseemly haste, designating Jane Corwin as their nominee before Governor Cuomo had even called the special election. Her qualifications? A 1-term member in the puny Assembly minority, Corwin is a self-funder (in BuffaloPundit's coining, a "million-heiress") who reliably parrots Republican talking points. And what a fine parrot Corwin has proven herself to be! Her first statement as a candidate was to attack President Obama over the decision to give up the attempt to defend the constitutionality of DOMA. And, for the last week, Corwin has gone all in with the Ryan plan.
But hasn't the Ryan plan been around longer than that? Yes. Corwin tried to say nothing about it, but the Hochul campaign peppered her day after day, asking whether Corwin supported the GOP proposal to gut Medicare. Late last Friday the Corwin campaign finally answered in a classic Friday news dump that Corwin would have voted "yes" had she been in Congress. She did it in an email to a reporter and, knowing the reporter (Liz Benjamin), she turned it around almost immediately, posting it at 5:46 last Friday. Maybe no one would notice? Not hardly! Thanks to folks like BuffaloPundit, various Twitter warriors, and Kathy Hochul's campaign, Jane Corwin couldn't get away with her attempt to escape attention for an unpopular position. (Yet another GOP candidate who doesn't quite get that this new wired world doesn't conform to old expectations.)
So Jane Corwin has spent this week doubling down. Monday she said the Ryan plan actually protects Medicare. And in another interview, Corwin (subconsciously?) echoed the comi-tragic Vietnam explanation that "we had to destroy the village in order to save it."
She supports the recent federal budget proposal of Wisconsin Senator Paul Ryan to cut federal spending by $6.2 trillion dollars over the next ten years. “We have to get our country’s debt under control, and Paul Ryan’s budget is bold enough to do that,” she said. Ryan’s proposal has drawn criticism for its cuts to Medicare and plan to assign health care vouchers seniors can use to purchase private health insurance. Corwin says cuts to Medicare may be necessary to save it.
New York's 26th district covers parts of 7 counties in upstate western New York, and the population is struggling economically and the district is hemorrhaging people. We are aging, and without Medicare and Medicaid we are in very deep trouble. This is THE issue that will make voters stop voting against their own interests, if we help give Kathy Hochul the resources to make Corwin own the fact that she clearly cares more about the needs of her party for a united front on the disastrous Ryan plan than the needs of her potential constituents for reliable, accessible health care. Corwin clearly intends to follow in the NY26 tradition of representing the interests of the national GOP, NY26 be damned, just like Chris Lee, Tom Reynolds, and Bill Paxon, the 3 previous occupants of this seat.
Kathy Hochul is Corwin's worst nightmare, and Corwin's advertising has been distorting and negative. It has to be, because Kathy Hochul won re-election as Erie County Clerk this past fall with 80% of the vote (in Carl Paladino's home county no less). But wait! It gets worse for Corwin, because the zombie that is Crazy Jack Davis is back. Jack is mad that he didn't get the GOP nod, as he has reverted to his original Republican spots. So he bought himself a ballot line by paying an army to collect petition signatures, and he has chosen to call his shiny new line the Tea Party line, so he's clearly no longer looking for Democratic votes as in previous cycles, and he has declared his target is Jane Corwin. Add to that the fact that another tea partyish faction in this part of New York is furious that their favorite, David Bellavia, was kept off the ballot, and Corwin's denials that she had anything to do with that don't pass the smell test.
Jane Corwin, then, could have her goose cooked for being such a good parrot. But it's going to take attention and money, which we can help provide. The narrative this will create will devastate the GOP going into 2012. Just imagine the pundits: "the GOP has overreached so badly in the majority that voters in even the reliably Republican seat of NY26 are rejecting their candidate. Obviously, the Ryan plan is too extreme for American voters." And, in addition to that fantastic narrative, people like me will get a representative who actually believes in good government and in serving her own constituents.