WASHINGTON — Republican Bob Turner’s stunning upset in the New York special election badly shook Capitol Hill Democrats and opened their eyes to a growing dissatisfaction with President Obama.
“It’s a wake-up call,” Rep. Elliot Engel (D-Bronx) said yesterday, acknowledging that the election was a referendum on Obama and the sour economy.
The balloting gave Democrats another reason to fear they would remain the House minority and lose the Senate majority and maybe the White House.
At the same time, it emboldened Republican opposition to the president’s $447 billion jobs bill.
Engel dismissed the party’s excuses for the gut-wrenching loss, such as blaming the district’s “unique” demographics or fallout from the Anthony Weiner sexting scandal that created the vacant seat.
“There is no excuse. We got beaten,” Engel said. “If we put our heads in the sand and pretend it wasn’t a wake-up call, we do it at our own peril.”
Even Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), an outspoken liberal voice in Congress, conceded the election “means something.”
“People are real upset,” she said.
But White House Press Secretary Jay Carney downplayed wider implications of Democrats losing a race in a district where Dem voters outnumber Republicans by 3 to 1.
“It’s a very specific case in a specific district in, obviously, a very low-turnout election,” Carney told reporters.
On the campaign trail in North Carolina, GOP presidential contender Rick Perry said it signaled that Obama would be a “one-term president.”
“For the first time in almost 90 years there is going to be a Republican representing that part of New York City,” the Texas governor said. “I just think that’s awesome.”