THE ISSUE: Republican Jane Corwin’s recent election loss in NY’s 26th Congressional District.
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The upset victory of Democrat Kathy Hochul may be a harbinger of what is to come in 2012 (“A Portentous Election,” Editorial, May 26).
Americans are beginning to realize that the GOP has been hijacked by religious zealots and the libertarian disciples of Ayn Rand.
The GOP’s reactionary agenda on social issues and its open hostility to public education, Medicare and Social Security, coupled with its obsession with tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, will most likely ensure its demise in next year’s elections.
Americans want government to be reformed, not dismantled.
D. Middlebrooks
Brooklyn
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I agree with one sentence of your editorial: “The New York GOP is brain-dead.”
It’s a convenient excuse that voters shied away from Corwin because she’s a member of the Assembly, but it’s also nonsense.
Rep. Ryan’s plan unified the Democrats and galvanized the 26th’s independents.
Indeed, the Democrats demagogued on this, but it worked.
It would be nice to have a thoughtful discussion on public finances, but it seems impossible as the GOP has been co-opted by its Tea Party masters.
If this election, and those coming up in 2012, rid us of that extreme-right albatross, we’ll have reason to thank the voters of the 26th.
Steven Chinn
Manhattan
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I am embarrassed and shocked by those seniors who voted recently in the congressional election in western New York.
I find it the height of ignorance that mature people would succumb to the gross untruths that have been heaped upon them in order to scare them into voting for a candidate who helped spread the lies regarding Medicare.
This country is $14 trillion in debt. The government cannot maintain Medicare and Social Security as they were created many years ago.
I hope that those seniors in western New York wake up and see the Democratic talking points for what they are and realize that they’ve been had.
Edward M. Carey
Port Saint Lucie, Fla.