Sorry about the headline,* but it’s a sensible reaction to a new internal poll from Republican Bob Turner’s campaign in New York’s 9th district, the one opened up by the resignation of Anthony Weiner. According to McLaughlin and Associates, Turner is tied with Democratic Assemblyman David Weprin, 42-42. I credit this to Turner’s focus on the important issues.
Send A Message from Bob Turner for Congress on Vimeo.
Actually, I do! Turner, a former television executive, has tried to make the race a referendum on Barack Obama’s Israel position (two-state solution with land swaps, which happens to be Netanyahu’s position, but never mind). Ed Koch has endorsed him, and blocked Weprin’s accurate attacks on Turner’s libertarianism, purely out of support for that Israel stance.
So there’s some likelihood that Democrats will wake up on September 14 and discover they’ve lost the Weiner seat to a businessman who wants the Ryan plan and a Balanced Budget Amendment. Will the GOP get a bigger boost than this than Democrats got from their big win in NY-26? Yes, because the Democrats’ win was knocked out of the news cycle by… Anthony Weiner! Hochul won her race on May 24. Three days later, Weiner sent an errant Twitter photo of his erect, boxers-clad penis. Instead of getting a week or so to drive home their Medicare message, Democrats had to answer questions about whether they 1) believed Weiner and then whether 2) they wanted him to resign.
*Not really.
