Hochul getting this close to half the vote is astonishing in a district where in 2010 the Democratic candidate got just 26 percent of the vote. Even in the very good Democratic year of 2008, the Democratic nominee got just 40.5 percent. To get a sense of how this result might extrapolate elsewhere, look at very Republican Wyoming County. Hochul lost it, as President Obama did in 2008. But Hochul matched Obama’s 36 percent share of the vote. If every Democratic House candidate in 2012 could reach Obama’s 2008 vote share, Democrats would be back in control by a substantial margin.
That’s correct. The only thing to prevent it would be a grand bargain on the budget and medicare. But with the GOP refusing to budge on tax increases on the rich, and with the Dems refusing to budge on more tax cuts and the killing of seniors everywhere, it is doubtful it will happen.
This is an absolute rejection of Paul Ryan’s budget plan and the GOP’s overreach since taking the House. The Ryan Plan will go nowhere and members who voted for it are in jeopardy, especially freshmen. Tuesday’s results will send shock waves in Washington. Ryan’s Purina Plan is dead. The only remaining question is will any GOP senator facing re-election next year support it? I can’t wait to see. To be clear, Western New York might as well be West Texas. The voters in this very red district told the GOP that their plans don’t work for them. I am looking forward to parsing the numbers in this race. Clearly Republicans crossed party lines to support Hochul.
Tommywonk on the costs, financial and otherwise, of the First State using coal power:
The report, “A Coal Plant’s Drain on Health and Wealth,” projects that the new coal power plant would lead to “442 asthma attacks, as well as 3,340 work days lost to sickness, 40 heart attacks, and an estimated 26 premature deaths” annually.
These findings square with a Harvard study, titled “Full cost accounting for the life cycle of coal,” which was recently published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. The authors calculate the externalities (environmental and health costs) of coal power to be $345.3 billion annually.
Delmarva Power’s Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), now before the Public Service Commission, projects the benefits of current plans to shift from coal to renewable energy to be $1.8 billion to $4.3 billion over the next ten years. That’s $2,000 to $4,750 for every Delaware resident, and 12 percent to 30 percent of retail electricity sales in Delaware. The PSC has extended public comment period on the IRP to May 31, and will likely hold hearings on the plan afterwards.
And then there is this:
