This from Politico: 

“Even before the polls closed, the recriminations — something short of panic, and considerably more than mere grumbling — had begun. On a high-level campaign conference call Tuesday afternoon, Democratic donors and strategists commiserated over their disappointment in Obama. A source on the call described the mood as “awful.”

“People feel betrayed, disappointed, furious, disgusted, hopeless,” said the source.”

Not just a few issues were swirling around the Special New York Election.  Anthony Wiener’s inappropriate behaviors in office coupled with Barack Obama’s economic woes made voters switch directions.  David Weprin was defeated by a margin of 54% to 46% in a New York district that hadn’t gone Republican since 1920!

How did it happen?  Our friends at the Hedgehog Blog have the answer.  The deeply-religious Russian Jews in the New York 9th District made the difference in the election:

“Well, here’s a hint: the large Orthodox Jewish community in the Ninth apparently voted heavily in favor of the GOP’s Turner, in preference to the Orthodox Jewish candidate, Assemblyman Weprin. And the issues that drove votes away from Weprin were (1) his decisive vote in the New York State Assembly for gay marriage, and (2) anger over the Obama’s Administrations lack of support for Israel. Concerns over Israel led to cross-party endorsements of Bob Turner by former New York City Democratic Congressman and Mayor Ed Koch and by Weprin’s fellow Orthodox Jewish Assemblyman Dov Hikind (Democrat-Brooklyn). Hikind summed up the race nicely, when he said that he hoped the election of a Republican by the heavily Democratic Brooklyn and Queens congressional district would “send a message to President Obama about his failed,”

If you were a Democrat running for re-election in 2012…..would you be a little shaky today?  With a 62% disapproval rating in recent polling, President Obama may find that fewer and fewer on his side, have got his back.