In the face of the devastating upset loss in Florida’s special election, an indicator of just how unpopular both Obamacare and Obama are, Democrats have been circling the wagons, making up every excuse possible for the loss, except the obvious ones.
Nevermind that Democrats outspent Republicans in the race by a wide margin, or that their candidate actually won the district as a former gubernatorial candidate, establishing much better name identification than the Republican winner, David Jolly. And forgetting that Barack Obama won the district in the last two presidential elections, Democrats went into full spin-cycle mode, claiming that somehow Republicans “underperformed” in the election and that somehow the loss was really a victory.
Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler says the claim is a lie, giving the outlandish claim “Three Picocchios,” referring to a tweet from DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, referencing a response from the “Dem Rapid Response,” soon after the results of the election were clear. In the tweet, Shultz claimed that the “GOP underperformed.”
The Washington Post, not exactly considered friendly to conservative or libertarian thought, gave the claim, “Three Pinocchios,” which is defined by the column as having “significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions.”
In addressing the Democrat lie, WAPO’s Kessler explains, quoted respected political analyst Charlie Cook of The Cook Report, who called Schultz’s claim “ridiculous.”:
The Cook Political Report’s Partisan Voting Index identifies the district as one of the more competitive districts in the nation—Republican plus 1 percent. (The PVI is based on how the district presidential vote compares to the overall national race.) Florida’s 13th congressional district ranked 230 on a list of 435 districts, with 1 being the most Republican and 435 the most Democratic.
In response, officials at the DNC and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee pointed to polls showing turnout would tilt between 8 and 13 percentage points toward Republicans, even as they also showed a tight race between Jolly and Sink. “The hill is steeper in the a special election than a general election,” said Emily Bittner of the DCCC. “We went from R+13 to losing by two points,” which she said put the Democrats in a good position to win outright in the general election in November.
Charlie Cook, the editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, noted that Sink was an experienced candidate who previously had run for governor, while Jolly is lobbyist who was a political novice. “The expectation was that it would be close but that she should win,” he said. “The idea that Republicans underperformed in a district that Obama carried twice is laughable.” He added that it is “extremely rare” for someone to win special election and then lose the general election just a few months later.
http://www.tpnn.com/2014/03/13/democrat-full-spin-cycle-on-florida-loss-given-three-pinocchios-by-wapo-fact-checker/
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