Last February 12, 2009, 50 people lost their lives when a twin-engine Bombardier Q400 plane stalled at below 3,000 feet and crashed landed on a house in Clarence Center, New York. The families of the victims, as well as the airline industry is now asking a lot of questions about the safety gap between smaller regional carriers and the nation's larger airlines.

Right-wing groups and conservative Republican leaders -- having forced out the official GOP nominee in a special election for an upstate New York congressional seat because they considered her "too liberal" -- thought they had the election in the bag with their $2 million advertising campaign on behalf of the Conservative Party candidate. But in the end, the voters of the sprawling district, the largest in the Northeast, had other ideas -- and in the process, made a bit of history.