Busby Loses CA-50 By Slim Margin

From Human Events Online, via Drudge comes this column by Robert Novak entitled, Culture of Corruption' Failed Democrats in House Race.

The outcome proves that even with corrupt former Republican Rep. Duke Cunningham’s name fresh in the news, low turnout, a weak candidate like Bilbray and dissension within the GOP ranks (that led to negative Republican campaigning against Bilbray), Democrats cannot win here. Even here, where it should have mattered most, the “culture of corruption” mantra wasn’t enough to convince voters to pull the Democratic lever.

Bob thinks the “culture of corruption” strategy is what caused Ms. Busby’s effort to fail. I think that was part of it. But I also think that her reckless remark about not needing papers hurt her severely, in the last hours before the election.

I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t vote for anyone that makes a highly irresponsible statement like that. It’s to the point that we have the lesser of two evils to vote for in this country. No matter the level of government, more and more are we looking at, who will screw up the country, state, or municipality worse, instead of the best person for the job.

After the Duke Cunningham scandal this district should have gone Democratic. The demographics, the mood of the people, and the intangibles all pointed towards Busby. That is until she was caught in a moment of “misspeak”, it was hers to lose.

Bilbray, a lobbyist, is no winner. He just won because he didn’t make the idiotic remark. In a sense, he won by default. He was the lesser of the two evils, yesterday. (And by quite a slim margin.) He is nothing to jump up and down about, he represents the what is wrong with government, not what is right.

The sad thing is, they get to do the whole thing over in November.

So, the significance of this race will be spun endlessly in the coming months. Dems will say it was close and therefore claim a “moral victory” based on that, and that alone. They have to, that’s all they have. The GOP will use it to convince people they are still the choice of the people and hold the majority. Neither is the case. People just did not have much else to choose from. It was a lobbyist versus a school board member that would have been very beholden to the illegal immigration lobby. Some choice.