Why 90,000 Democrats in New York City Failed to Vote
Republicans are hailing their special election victory in the heavily Democratic 9th Congressional District in New York as a sign that the voters have rejected the policies of Barack Obama. But the actual vote totals tell a much different story:
As of 11 a.m. today, with 459 of 512 precincts counted, The Associated Press reported that Turner had 32,446 votes to Weprin’s 27,699, for a 54-46 percent winning advantage.
Keep in mind that the average Congressional District in the US has over 600,000 residents. Typically about half or 300,000 vote in competitive Congressional races. Even in 2010, which was a very low turn out year for Democrats, 67,000 turned out to vote for Anthony Wiener in the 9th CD with 43,000 voting for Republican Bob Turner for a total of 110,000 voters.
The 2004 election was a truer measure of the actual number of Democratic voters in the 9th Congressional District being more than 110,000:
In 2004, the total vote was nearly 160,000. So a total of only 60,000 votes in the 2011 Special Election means that as many as 100,000 voters simply did not vote in the 2011 Special Election. Even more important, this 100,000 included 90,000 Democrats and independents, and even 10,000 Republicans who failed to vote! The real message here is that the majority of voters are so disgusted with BOTH political parties, that they are expressing their disgust by not voting at all.
This is also what caused the landslide defeat of Democrats in the 2010 election. In nearly every case, Republicans did NOT get more votes than they got in 2008. Rather Democrats got far fewer votes in 2010 than in 2008 – as Democratic voters were so disgusted that they simply stayed home.
The cause of this disgust, or disillusionment with the leaders of the Democratic Party, was that Barack Obama ran as a Progressive FDR Democrat in 2008, but has served as a pro-corporate Hoover Republican ever since. So the real message is that if Democrats want to win future elections they must honor the promises Obama made in 2008 and stop caving to the demands of Wall Street Bankers and Corporate Lobbyists. The public has rejected the policies of Barack Obama – but the policies they rejected are his claims to be a populist in his speeches, while turning our country over to the very Wall Street crooks who destroyed our economy in the first place.
The public wants jobs, not budget cuts. The public wants accountability and an end to political corruption, not more loopholes and corporate welfare for the super rich. The way to win elections is to change the direction of the Democratic Party – not by turning it into another version of the Republican Party – but by returning to Progressive Democratic Party values which will create jobs and restore our economy. The way to get Democratic voters to vote again is for the leaders of the Democratic Party to start acting like Democrats again – and give Democratic voters something worth voting for – not by repeating the failed trickle down economic policies of the Republican Party. For more information on ways Democrats can create jobs and rebuild our economy from the bottom up, visit our website: coalitiontocreatejobsnow.org