AND GOOD NEWS IN NEW YORK-- REALLY GOOD NEWS

So while I was watching our two candidates subjecting themselves to a series of humiliating questions from one of the truly worst-- and least accomplished-- blowhards in the mainstream media, there was something stupendous happening in my ole home state. New York may soon be joining Massachusetts as a state free of primitivist right wing politics on a national level. With the victories of John Hall, Kristin Gillibrand and Mike Arcuri in 2006, and with what looks like big victories building this year for Jon Powers, Eric Massa and Dan Maffei, there will only be 3 Republican members of Congress in New York's 31-member delegation. The guys over at the Albany Project did a great job of explaining what happened before they started celebrating tonight. But tonight really is an historic occasion in New York.

New York's 48th senatorial district is literally "the north country." It is a huge district, up along the St. Lawrence Seaway that separates the U.S. from Canada and it is bigger than many congressional districts and as big as the state of Rhode Island. There are 78,454 registered Republicans and only 46,824 Democrats. When state Senator James Wright announced his resignation (too late to coincide with the presidential primary on Super Tuesday, which Republicans correctly feared would attract far more enthusiastic Democrats to the polls than dispirited Republicans), a special election was scheduled for today. The Republicans had every reason to believe they would have little trouble holding onto the 48th; they had for over 100 years and the Assemblyman they picked to follow Wright was William Barclay, whose dad had once held the senate seat. But they got a very rude awakening this evening, when the Republicans 40 year hold on the state Senate-- which includes an oft-used ability to obstruct progress-- is now dangling precariously by just one wing-nut. Assemblyman Darrel Aubertine beat Barclay and the GOP machine 52-48%.

It augurs the end of the GOP in New York State. Aubertine is extremely popular and respected in his Assembly District and Democrats relied on the Working Families Party, a union backed group specializing in awesome GOTV operations. Aubertine was also helped when Barclay's typically negative Republican campaigning backfired in his face and turned off GOP and especially independent voters. Local media is terming it an upset, but the only ones upset are the Republicans, who are likely to lose control of the state Senate in time for the 2010 redistricting session, a session that is likely to get rid of one red congressional district altogether (McHugh's) and shift the boundaries of the Brooklyn/Staten Island district currently held by Bush rubber stamp Vito Fossella. That will leave the erratic Peter King in an increasingly blue Long Island district as the sole New York Republican in Washington. He'll probably get a lot of focus if he doesn't retire before then.

Meanwhile, if you are wondering how do you talk to right wingers, Darrel Aubertine's campaign showed the way-- very clearly: