Why Democrats Did Much Better On Tuesday Than Everyone Thinks

[displacedyankeedem]

Make no mistakes about it, Democrats won the two big prizes last Tuesday.

Contrary to what the media will tell you the big prizes that were up for grabs on Tuesday were the Philadelphia Mayorship and Allegheny County Executive(Pittsburgh).

These two posts, along with the Democratic held Governorship cement Democrats as the leadership of Pennsylvania. I think that with these victories, Democrats have largely secured PA's 2004 vote.

Meanwhile, although losing the KY and MS governors hurts, I really don't think that a Democrat was going to carry either in the '04 Electoral College. So in the grand scheme of things, we can celebrate our victories on Tuesday night.

[Frodo]

1. Oh boy. You could go into business selling rose-colored glasses.

Was 2002 a big year for us as well?

I seem to remember our guys wearing bags on their heads?

There were no posts here the weeks befroe the election saying "Oh, if only we could hold on to the Allegheny County Executive we'll be ok... lose that and we might as well disolve the party"

Mississippi will tell the tale. We won there in a nationally-watched state-wide run-off in 2002. If we lose the same thing this year we'll know we're in danger. It will show we're losing the ability to motivate the African American vote and/or sell our message in the south.

PA rides more on whether Specter is on the ballot or not than it does on some mayor.

[Frodo]

2. Ahem.... late "edit"

That was, of course, LA that I, um, "misspelled" as "Mississippi" in the previous post.

[MrSoundAndVision]

3. Yeah From KY, there was no way Chandler was going to win

Outgoing governor Patton had a sex scandal a while back, and is leaving the scene with his tail tucked between his legs. He's already letting Fletcher give the orders and has said so publicly. Chandler was screwed since the beginning because of his association with Patton, and also that he is a very strange looking man. Ever seen him? Ug. The Lexington Herald (one of the biggest paper here) showed a picture of him on the front page before one of the debates, getting makeup put on, with Fletcher just smiling and looking fresh and young. So we knew who the herald picked.