Spin of the Day

Spin Debbie Wasserman Schultz! Spin like there’s no tomorrow!

Even before the votes were counted, Republicans said the closeness of the contest showed Democrats are abandoning Mr. Obama heading into the 2012 election season.

Democratic party leaders insisted the loss wasn’t a harbinger of things to come. “It’s a very difficult district for Democrats,” said Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, noting its Democratic margins there tend to be the second lowest of all the districts in New York City.

House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio), dismissed that idea.

“This is a very seriously Democrat district,” Mr. Boehner said. “This is not a district that Republicans have any right to believe we could win.”

Meanwhile, DWS chats up the NYT:

But Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, said the district’s large concentration of Orthodox Jews made it unusual and meant the race had few national ramifications.

“In this district, there is a large number of people who went to the polls tonight who didn’t support the president to begin with and don’t support Democrats — and it’s nothing more than that,” she said in a telephone interview.

According to the Washington Post, NY-9 has been held by a Democrat since the 1920s,  back when Ty Cobb hit .401 for the Tigers, blogger Dale Franks adds on Twitter. Making it previously a very difficult district for Democrats in much the same way that “Texas has always been a pretty Republican state, for, you know, historic reasons.”