People Wondering Why John Boehner Was Weeping In Public Again

Avid crier, John Boehner, was at it again: sobbing when the statue-- or, in his case, idol-- of Ronald Reagan was unveiled in Statuary Hall this morning. Or maybe his mind was just wandering towards what today's Politico termed the stealth war to keep moving the GOP along the road to oblivion as a serious national party. It's not so much that the wing-nuts will miss John McHugh (R-NY) or even the likelihood of being embarrassed again when they lose a seat-- after a costly battle they can't afford-- with a tremendous GOP registration advantage (120,887 Democrats to 167,272 Republicans). Obama won the district 52-47% last November.

“Boxing the Republicans into a South-dominated party is very good strategy, because the more you reduce the Republican Party, the more conservative and reactionary it will become, and thus less attractive to moderates,” said Tom Schaller, a University of Maryland-Baltimore County professor and the author of Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South. “The Midwest and the Northeast are the places where there are still remnants of old-line Rockefeller Republicans. And these are the places where the Democrats will build durable majorities.”

The NRCC, sounding a little paranoid, blames the whole thing in Rahm Emanuel. And here I thought I was the only one that blamed everything on him! Last night CQPolitics put out an analysis of the likely contenders to replace McHugh. State Sen. Darrel Aubertine is being mentioned most but if he abandoned his just-won Senate seat, it could through NY Democrats into turmoil because of the closeness of the numbers in Albany. Syracuse-based attorney Daniel French, a former aide to Daniel Patrick Moynihan is another possible candidate, as are 2008 nominee Michael P. Oot, state party Chairwoman June O’Neill and John Rhodes, who considered a 2008 run.

Aubertine, of Watertown, won a 2008 special election for a Senate district based an hour or so from Ottawa, Canada, that covers all of two counties in McHugh’s district and part of a third.

But even an Aubertine victory could be a net loss for national Democrats. New York is set to lose at least one seat in the reapportionment of congressional districts after next year’s census, and his influence in the state Senate may be more valuable to the party than an extra vote in the U.S. House that could disappear after the 2012 election.

For that reason, several Democrats said they thought it was unlikely that Aubertine would run.

“It’s too early to comment right now,” said Aubertine’s spokesman, Drew Mangione. “The senator is committed to his work in the New York state Senate.”

A slew of Republican names also surfaced Tuesday: Assembly members Will Barclay, who lost to Aubertine for the Senate seat, Janet L. Duprey and Dede Scozzafava; Terry Gach, vice president of institutional advancement at the Trudeau Institute; Michael F. Joyce, the head of Hargrave Custom Yachts; former state Sen. Jim Wright; and Franklin County District Attorney Derek Champagne.

With a bunch like that in the wings, it's no wonder Boehner was weeping-- especially with the best of the lot, Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava thinking about running as a Democrat! Someone should get him and Glenn Beck together.

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: