Yesterday, the Dems won a seat in the House of Representatives, NY-26. It was the seat vacated by Representative Chris Lee, also known as the shirtless Craigslist guy. It should be noted that this is a heavily Republican-leaning district and has only had 3 or 4 Democrats representing it since the 1870s

Is this a referendum on the Paul Ryan Medicare plan? Most analysts say so.Many people believe that this is backlash. People LIKE Medicare regardless of political affiliation Just don't tell the GOP that. The fact is that a Tea Party candidate was in the race and took 8% of the vote - enough to split the race and hand the victory to a Democrat.

You see, suddenly Eric Cantor considers the Tea Party the *Other*. I wonder if anyone will pick up on that. Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan and many others helped to create the very monster that allowed this district to go Democratic. Now that they appear to be a liability, they are just a third party. Nothing to see here; Move along.

Nate Silver writes: This is a district that will probably be split in two since NY is losing 2 seats, but until 2012, we have one more voice fighting for Medicare and for the things that Democrats support.

As the GOP shows more and more how much it disdains people, as Eric Cantor did yesterday, saying people are waking up to this nonsense. The GOP does NOT love the Tea Party; they are just using them for populist fodder. It's smoke-and-mirrors to shove a corporate agenda down American throats.

That is a good thing. As I always say: elections matter. I regret that we still have a year and a half to go before we get the change to make things change, but things are looking up as we wallow in the briny mess that the House of Representatives has made.

Congratulations to the people of NY-26, and thank-you for making the right choice.

and
Raine