Erie County Clerk Kathy Hochul’s upset win over Republican Assem blywoman Jane Corwin in the Buffa lo-area 26th congressional district has left Democrats crowing and the other party haplessly seeking explanations.
Here’s our basic explanation: The New York GOP is brain-dead.
Here are a couple more:
* Democrats believe the race hinged on their attacks on the House GOP’s Medicare reform plan — and Corwin’s support for it.
* Republicans blame the presence in the race of a “Tea Party” independent, who siphoned away votes from Corwin in the historically solid-GOP district.
Maybe. But we’ll stick with the brain-dead-GOP theory.
This is the third straight such special election the party has lost; the streak predates current party chair Ed Cox, but there’s little evidence he has a clue how to stop it.
Here’s one suggestion: Be more creative in recruiting candidates.
In all three elections, the GOPers were state Assembly members; Democrats ran people with no connection to Albany.
When New York sent six new Republicans to Congress last year, the winners were fresh faces largely recruited by the national party — with not a state legislator among them.
Cox needs to take note.
Now, to be sure, Medicare played a huge role in Corwin’s loss. When the issue was first broached, she just couldn’t deal with it.
More fundamentally, it has become clear that the Democratic Party intends to demagogue on Medicare for as long as it pays dividends. And that could be right up until the point when the nation’s entitlement infrastructure — including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — collapses of its own weight.
In that sense, Tuesday’s election needs to be read in the context of one basic question: Do Americans have the ability to control their social-welfare appetites?
To the extent that reasons for Kathy Hochul’s win extend beyond Republican Party incompetence, the answer would appear to be: not in New York’s 26th Congressional District.