In NY-23, a potentially troubling preview for the GOP
Dante Chinni
Posted: 11.06.2009 / 9:04 AM PST
With Election Day in the rearview mirror, the Republican Party has conflicted feelings.
The gubernatorial wins in Virginia (expected) and New Jersey (a bit of a surprise) are reassuring. But New York’s 23rd Congressional District, where party infighting helped Democratic candidate Bill Owens, sits out there like a big warning sign.
To recap that race: Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman choked off funding and support for Republican Dede Scozzafava, who eventually left the race. Ms. Scozzafava then endorsed Mr. Owens, and he won by about 5,000 votes – as Scozzafava captured about 6,000 protest votes.
As much as Republicans wanted to win the seat, some of them also reasoned that if Owens won the race, there would be widespread recognition that intraparty squabbling was at fault. So far, that doesn’t appear to have happened.
High-profile members of the more conservative wing of the GOP – former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint – have already announced that they will support conservative challengers to Republican front-runners in US Senate races in Florida and California. That could present trouble for the party in those places.
What happened in NY-23?
As we noted in Monday’s post, New York’s 23rd district held some peril for the GOP. It went for Barack Obama in 2008. In Patchwork Nation’s eyes, it is largely made up of small-town “Service Worker Center” counties. These tend to lean Republican, but they are more exposed to economic problems than some other places and are thus less tethered to political ideology.
When the results for the district were tallied, Owens’ margin of victory mostly came from three counties – Clinton, Franklin, and St. Lawrence. Owens would have won all those counties even without the Scozzafava protest vote.
What do they have in common? They all are thinly populated, and they have some of the area’s higher unemployment rates – between roughly 8 and 10 percent. St. Lawrence in particular is dotted with small colleges. And they went heavily for Mr. Obama in 2008 – between 57 and 61 percent of their votes.
Owens didn’t get quite those numbers, but voters in these counties still seem willing to give the Democratic Party more time in control in Washington.
Looking ahead to 2010
So what does all that mean for a potentially divided GOP in those Florida and California Senate races? It isn’t good.
The community types heavily represented in Florida and California could present real problems for Republicans if conservatives split the vote or force the eventual nominee to lean further right.
The east coast of Florida has densely populated “Monied ’Burbs” and Latino-heavy “Immigration Nation” counties. Both of those community types went for Obama in 2008. Tampa, as well as north of Tampa, contains a lot of diversifying “Boom Town” counties. Those places tend to lean Republican, but they also tend to be more moderate and could be put off by a divisive fight.
In California, the terrain is much tougher. The biggest chunks of the state’s population live in the big-city “Industrial Metropolis” and “Monied ’Burb” counties. Those places went heavily for Obama in 2008. The GOP might have a chance at winning those counties if it has a very moderate candidate and the economy is poor. Even in that scenario, the fight would be difficult. But a conservative Republican nominee would probably make it all but impossible.
The point of the community types in Patchwork Nation is to show that different types of places are motivated by different issues and ideas. Political views that work well in, say, Nixa, Mo. – our socially conservative “Evangelical Epicenter” – are very different from those that sell in Eagle, Colo., our “Boom Town.” We’ve chronicled such differences for almost two years now.
Then again, for many Republicans, the fight is over the party’s soul, not over winning seats in Congress. And applying more of a one-size-fits-all approach may help clarify a party’s identity.
But it will be a tough sell in the big “county” of America, with more than 300 million people – and with all 12 community types.
November 6th, 2009 at 9:39 am PST
[…] Patchwork Nation: American communities in a time of change. > Patchwork Nation Blog | The Christi… patchworknation.csmonitor.com/csmstaff/2009/1106/in-ny-23-a-potentially-troubling-preview-for-the-gop
November 6th, 2009 at 11:14 am PST
Interesting analysis. It’s important to recognize also, that the “monied burbs” also have an underlying sense of fear concerning the economy. True old money types may not be as bothered and are politically harder to sway, but the “monied burbs” aren’t more influenced by the ecomic winds of change.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:03 pm PST
This sounds more like reassuring a jittery democratic base than observations of national voter trends.
States with a large liberal constituency like Calf. and NY dont speak for states that lean more conservative like VA and FL, apples and oranges. The cold hard reality is that regardless of “hard right” or “hard left” choices the voting population, the party in power will suffer during economic hard times.
NJ is telling because it has a strong liberal leaning voting bloc.
Although the next presidential cycle is some years away, if the current economic cycle remains “bad”, he will get the blame for it. (and the party associated with him as well, fair or not)
Pointing to NY23 like its a harbinger of things to come is irrelevent in the macroscopic view. What will be more important is the exit polling in the upcoming elections prior to the presidential runoffs. If VA and NJ are any indication it does not bode well for the democrats
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November 6th, 2009 at 1:47 pm PST
another factor not covered, during the early part of the 21th century, there was a great influx of people (mostly republican), moving into Florida to buy real estate and flip it. After the real estate bubble burst, the exodus has been nearly as swift, so the electorate is changing again and to declare a population in transition as unchanged is misleading. I suspect florida will lose house seats after the census. and, due to the large excreted bolus of whatever stripe of voters, it will be wild.
November 6th, 2009 at 2:22 pm PST
The big story here is that the fundamentalist right wing movement chose NY 23rd as an example to the GOP that moderates will be purged. They will tolerate no cooperation with the democrats on any major issue facing the country. (They already bounced Spector out of the party for agreeing with a stimulus package to avoid an outright economic depression.) Democracy is the mechanism our founders established to ward off the tyranny of holier than thou minorities. That mechanism worked on Tuesday, but the extremists will continue to try and bully their way to power.
November 6th, 2009 at 4:07 pm PST
“The big story here is that the fundamentalist right wing movement chose NY 23rd as an example to the GOP that moderates will be purged. They will tolerate no cooperation with the democrats on any major issue facing the country.”
With the recent statement by Rush Limbaugh “by definition moderates have no prociples” I have to wonder how serious this ultra right wing of our country’s politics is about maintaining a democratic political system. Taking a stand of no-compromise sounds as if these people are not interested in democracy.
November 6th, 2009 at 4:14 pm PST
Bottom line?
Conservatives will continue to purge moderate Republicans.
Hard right, Hispanic-hating, youth-alienating candidates cannot win nationally: both Hispanics (the fastest growing ethnic group) and young Americans generally (the largest generational cohort ever) prefer Democratic candidates by a large margin.
The economy and the “mid-term election effect will deliver some local and national contests to the GOP, but the demographics (and the ideology purging impulses of the hard right) will preclude a Republican recovery for many years.
November 6th, 2009 at 4:18 pm PST
I’m sorry, you made a slight mistake. Owens margin came mainly from Clinton, St. Lawrence, and Franklin, Hamilton County went for Hoffman by double digits and is a rural, overwhelmingly Republican county located mainly in the Adironback National Park.
November 6th, 2009 at 4:26 pm PST
A no-name candidate enters the race, 3 weeks before the election and gets 44% of the vote and you think that spells trouble for the GOP? Interesting Spin, but I’m not buying it.
November 6th, 2009 at 4:33 pm PST
Doug, Hoffman entered the race at nearly the same time as Owens and quickly surged past Scozzafava on the backs of conservative outrage. He consolidated the base conservative vote in the district when she dropped out, and Owens won by consolidating the liberal and moderate vote. Regardless he would have lost to Scozzafava by an enormous margin had Republicans not challenged based on the rather inaccurate assumption that she was quite liberal.
November 6th, 2009 at 4:44 pm PST
Sorry about that Jacob. That was my typo… You’re are right. Clinton, St. Lawrence and Franklin. It is corrected above.
November 6th, 2009 at 4:53 pm PST
Oh no problem, I know these things happen, I do it all the time.
November 6th, 2009 at 7:31 pm PST
Protest votes sounds like a bit of a guess. I can see 6% off people just voting for a party, or unaware that their candidate was out of the race.
November 6th, 2009 at 8:17 pm PST
All the analysts are being too shortsighted on this race. This area has been Republican since the Whig party fell apart in the Civil War era. It’s not a fluke that it now has it’s first Democrat - slowly but surely the last Republicans are vanishing from the entire NorthEast. It’s been a predictable slide ever since Rockefeller got booed by the Goldwater wing. In the South, since LBJ the old Dixiecrats have slowly but steadily switched to Republican and now they virtually control the party. This race was just another step as the Republicans become as marginalized as Wallace’s American party. Maybe it’s even worth keeping an eye on the New Whigs, because someone else will come to fill the center.
November 6th, 2009 at 8:23 pm PST
Keep in mind that in NY-23 there was a group of Rhino’s dressed up like Republicans that handed this to Dede without a primary fight. So if conservative candidates are on the primary ballot and win there will be no repete of what happened in NY-23. It will be interested to watch what happens to Crist in Florida after supporting Obama with a hickey and hug. Rubio may take him down in the primary.
November 6th, 2009 at 8:57 pm PST
What would be interesting, is to take this analysis one step further.
What is the Education demographic, in the GOP Centrist vs. GOP Tea-Party factions?
I would venture to guess that the Education levels in Centrist areas, would be significantly higher than those in Tea-Party areas.
And that goes to the problem in America - - you have one party that refuses to negotiate. It’s their way, or the highway - - legislation moves at a snail’s pace, because all the Tea-Party GOP want, is to delay everything.
Educated GOP, who tend more toward leadership than following (like the Tea-Parters), have a Progressive streak, in that they, too, want to get things done.
The GOP still hasn’t learned its big lesson from last year - - that with all the Right-Wing media loudness leading the Media narrative, it was the Moderate, John McCain, who won the nomination. The People wanted moderation.
The Party wanted extremist, lock-step ideology. If the Party wants to get back in Power, they’ll have to start listening to The People (and not only to Corporate interests).
November 6th, 2009 at 9:11 pm PST
One other thing, if I may… Had John McCain remained true to himself, and chosen his own running mate, he’d probably be President now. It was his choosing of Sarah Palin (an extreme Right-Winger, & a frighteningly shallow person) that was his undoing.
The GOP doesn’t even know, yet, that their base is not the Limbaughs, Hannitys, and Becks. That Politics won’t be winning many more National elections… The People won’t have it… the changing Demographics won’t allow it.
November 6th, 2009 at 11:18 pm PST
What upended the GOP in New York was not running a primary. Had the voters chosen Dede Scozzafava over Doug Hoffman, than that would have been that. As it turned out, one bad turn led to another, and the GOP was sold out by Dede Scozzafava, who endorsed the democrat over what was, for her, the spoiler, Doug Hoffman. As far as Hoffman was concerned, it wasn’t at all clear that he wasn’t the better candidate to take on Bill Owens, since the local party bosses decided that they knew better than the voters who the voters wanted to represent them. We desperately need more parties in America, to represent our many interests, so that we aren’t corralled into voting for insider party hacks in every election.
November 7th, 2009 at 5:35 am PST
- The gubernatorial win in New Jersey was more than a bit of a surprise, Mr. Chinni. The wins in Virginia and New Jersey were also more than just reassuring. Both victories were very much against the odds, in that: Barack Obama had carried both states; the outgoing governor of Virginia, Tim Kaine, is currently the head of the Democrat National Committee; Governor Corzine spent Croesus-like sums; Democrats have a huge registration advantage over Republicans in New Jersey; and, quite tellingly in contrast to the race in New York’s 23rd, the President of the United States put his personal prestige and influence on the line when he campaigned with both Democrat candidates in their losing efforts. Not only that, but, while victory for the GOP was, in fact, expected in Virginia, the margin of victory was considerably more than expected. Then, there is the fact that on top of the landslide in the VA gubernatorial contest, the other two statewide contests also went to the Republican candidates by very similar landslide margins, which argues against the putative validity of the assertion that Deeds was just a bad candidate who ran an ill-conceived, incompetent race.
- Mr. Hoffman did not choke off funding and support for Ms. Scozzafava. Donors and poll respondents did that. That diminishment of support and funding occurred because Ms. Scozzafava’s politics were closer to Speaker Pelosi’s than to Senator Lieberman’s in many important ways, in the collective judgment of those donors and poll respondents. To the question of how accurate their judgment was, Ms. Scozzafava was the recipient of $900,000 from the GOP, which has often been slow to gauge the mood of the electorate, and prone to back candidates on the basis of loyalty, when that loyalty is not reciprocated in any but name, if that. See: Senators Jeffords, Chafee the Younger and Specter, for openers. That failing has infuriated voters in the middle of the GOP as much or more than the right wing, because their donations have gone to people who have not just had at least one foot outside the Big Tent on issue after issue, but betrayed the trust given them.
- It is one thing to support a moderate or even Rockefeller Republican who is the legitimate choice of the voters, when they are at least, like, for instance, Olympia Snowe, unwilling to go along with fiscally ruinous spending, and vote with the Party 51% or more of the time. It is another thing entirely to support any candidate who votes with the Party less than half of the time, or who betrays the trust, confidence, loyalty and dollars extended to her or him by the Party. The support announced by some in the GOP for primary opponents to liberal or moderate Republicans in various races is not a sign of a party in distress, but a sign of strength, just as the obverse of that coin, support for liberal or moderate candidates against conservative GOP candidates is also a sign of strength in the GOP. The debate campaigns embody, the true fight for the soul of the Party, is a good, healthy thing, and to be celebrated, not feared. It is certainly not troubling.
November 7th, 2009 at 7:13 am PST
The usually confident GOP chair, Steele, was nervously stuttering and kowtowing to Hannity on Fox last evening. He was basically apologizing to Hannity and the extreme right for the loss in NY-23 and promising to do a better job promoting right wing candidates in the future. As long as Hannity and the other extreme right talk show hosts are the leading lights in the GOP the Dems have nothing to worry about. For the GOP the next election will be like Goldwater’s in 1964 or McGovern’s in 1972. The GOP will need to experiece a devastating loss with a far right candidate before it can free itself from the suffocating control of its most extreme elmement. No party in America has ever won an election by subjugating itself to its most extreme element.
November 7th, 2009 at 8:08 am PST
It’s simple, really. The Republicans betrayed their candidate, and paid the price for it at the polls.
November 7th, 2009 at 8:34 am PST
I am amazed that conservatives think what they did in NY-23 is a viable strategy. As someone above pointed out, this district is far from the liberal base in Albany and NYC and hasn’t sent a Dem to Congress since before the Civil War. (As a whole NY state is considered “liberal” because the conservative rural areas have a much smaller population than downstate.) For a Dem to win here means that even the rural, undereducated conservatives don’t want (a) outsiders dictating their representation (b) ultraconservative, small-government values. Another news outlet has pointed out that a large percentage of the employment in this district is provided by state prisons and other facilities. Do families depending on government paychecks want less government? By the way, this sparsely-populated area is also critically short of medical facilities — a situation that “the market” is not likely to cure.
November 7th, 2009 at 8:37 am PST
This is not as big an issue as you would like to make it. This is a clear sign the Republican base has to change and is changing. Keep in mind this is only 10 months after it was pronounced “conservatism is dead”, and that supposedly, America had spoken for “change”.
The Republican candidate in this case was picked by local party leaders. Actually, not all of THEM picker Dede. Then, rather than “override” or “direct”, the party leaders respected the local selection and backed Dede.
I can assure you, this won’t ever happen again. The NRCC has had it’s head handed to it and will vet the candidates better before sending any support or money.
So, instead of cheering from the rafters over a very close election (by a third party conservative), the left should be (and probably is) very, very afraid. With this momentum, Nancy and Reid’s reign of power will be over in a year, and quite a few Democrat congress persons will be gone too.
November 7th, 2009 at 9:50 am PST
A couple of points regarding the recent elections:
1. It has been pointed out that a large number of red states have Democratic governors and a number of blue states have Republican Governors, eg, California and CT. The swing vote doesn’t ask if you are right or left but rather who can do the best job. I wouldn’t read too much into the NJ & Va races.
2.In NY23 the Republican had easily won several elections in the western part of the district. Except for the Conservative candidate, someone who had never been elected to anything, entering the race (he had tried to get the GOP nod and had promised at one point to support the GOP pick)the seat would have easily remained a GOP seat.
3. If you read comments from people who live in the North Country in NY you will see a large portion who resented outsiders coming in and telling them what they should think. When Hoffman showed he could only spout generalities and had no positions on a number of local issues regarding Fort Drum and the St. Lawrence Seaway his mentor/puppet master, **** Arney, dismissed those issues as unimportant and parochial issues. Not a good move.
November 7th, 2009 at 9:52 am PST
Guess I should have said Richard Arney and not **** !!!
November 7th, 2009 at 10:12 am PST
The winner of NY23 ran on a platform AGAINST the health care bill and now is set to vote for it. Seems like politics as usual to me.
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November 7th, 2009 at 10:27 am PST
Liberals accuse conservative Republicans of working against “democracy” but in this case democracy was clearly at work even before the voting started. Scozzafava did not represent the values of the local conservative voters when she was endorsed by the national GOP leaders. She dropped out of the race because her poll numbers showed she was falling behind the other candidates. Conservatives who answered the polls were clearly exercising their rights to democracy. Nobody twisted her arm to force her to quit.
November 7th, 2009 at 11:45 am PST
I think that governorships and house seats are apples and oranges, and tell two very different stories. Generally, govs are interested in (and obliged to) govern, while congressmen tend to be much more ideological. Most repub. governors in the blue states, once in the congress would be labeled RINOs. I know this would be true for (pro-environment) Christie, as it is for ex. gov, now rep. Mike Castle, who was whamboozled by the Tea-Baggers(tm).
I agree that this is not necessarily a harbinger for 2010; in fact, it might be a tremor that relieves some political seismic tension in the country (hopefully averting a full-scale earthquake).
November 7th, 2009 at 11:47 am PST
You can all blather on incessantly but the fact is that the Republican Party is lost. They have forgotten their own ideals!
Ronald Reagan said, “We should emphasize the things that unite us and make these the only ‘litmus test’ of what constitutes a Republican: our belief in restraining government spending, pro-growth policies, tax reduction, sound national defense, and maximum individual liberty. As to the other issues that draw on the deep springs of morality and emotion, let us decide that we can disagree among ourselves as Republicans and tolerate the disagreement.”
Can you imagine Palin/Gingrich/Cheney/Steele saying anything like that? No.
Until they can come together and stop judging those who are not “pure” enough to belong to their little club, they will fail as a party.
November 7th, 2009 at 11:56 am PST
Thank you for your analysis. Most commentators still seem to see the country in traditional terms: republican versus democrat, liberal versus conservative. I think what is going on here does not fit into the old conventional wisdom. Government in this country is out of control. The bureaucracy is growing by leaps and bounds. The deficit has grown beyond comprehension. The fed is printing money without restraint, most of which seems to be going for bonuses on Wall Street. Unemployment continues to rise. The state is becoming increasingly arrogant and interfering in people’s lives. Americans continue to die in an endless and pointless war. Congress is increasingly in the pay of lobbyists and indifferent to the average person. There is a sense in the country,I think, that something is terribly wrong and that both major parties are hopelessly corrupt and can no longer be counted on to solve the nation’s problems. People are looking for an alternative. That, I think, is the lesson of NY 23. And I think you will see more of it in the future.
November 7th, 2009 at 11:59 am PST
I read with interest David’s comment above. Either he is joking or trolling, I guess. If not tongue-in-cheek, it is a pretty telling indication of the total conflation of Christian evangelicals with the radical right-wing (I won’t say of the GOP, since such people no longer speak for the party of Eisenhower, let alone Lincoln–more like Thurmond, Wallace, though they recanted many of their racist positions, McCarthy and John Birch).
November 7th, 2009 at 12:38 pm PST
Political movements are born all the time, pushing towards some goal for the greater good, such as Women’s Liberation and Civil Rights. If successful these movements eventually outlive themselves - meaning once they achieve their mission there is no reason for them to stick around. This started happening to liberalism in the Carter years as voters no longer perceived a huge need to liberate women and blacks from discrimination and protect the working poor from the greedy evil rich. Reagan gave the GOP a working strategy, a voice. They called themselves Conservative, but what is that really? “Conservatives” raise taxes and increase spending all the time. The GOP came to define itself as the anti-liberal party. It worked. It worked so well Clinton was redirected from nationalizing healthcare to reforming welfare. But he did. The role of welfare dropped from 6 million to 1.6 million of mostly working single mothers with children they couldn’t afford.
During the Bush years the GOP, having defined itself as the anti-liberal party, outlived itself. What do they do now? The liberals aren’t in power. We are. Now what? All they did was borrow and spend. Borrow and spend. In 2008 the GOP pulled out the Reagan play-book and promised to deliver us all from the evils of Liberalism. What liberalism? You’re the guys spending all the money.
The GOP is trying to decide what it stands for now. Do they wait until America gets sick of the liberals again? But if Obama rules from the center like Clinton did - then what? The voice of the GOP in 2010 will be decided by Obama. If he allows the GOP to paint him as a big-spending liberal they will adorn themselves as the great Reagan-clones here to free us from the evils of Liberalism once again. If America is paying attention and doesn’t buy it - the GOP will provide us with some high-quality humor for free. That doesn’t mean they won’t succeed at the polls.
Today the GOP strategy is in all honesty “Politics for Dummies.” Oppose anything, everything. Anything Obama does or does not do - is wrong. Only an idiot will fall for it. And a lot of people are. It works in some areas.
The Republican Party stands for The Republican Party. That’s it. Whatever it takes to get elected. Whatever strategy seems like it will work that’s what they will do.
There are 2 huge white elephants standing in the room that nobody will ever acknowledge. As long as this goes on our economic woes will deepen.
The first is globalization. What started out as an attempt to lower labor costs has morphed into an industry making a handful of people very rich from shipping our jobs overseas and an easy tax haven for multinational corporations and their executives. The cost has been enormous. Just over 7 million jobs were lost in this country to off-shoring and H1B visa workers in the Bush years. Those jobs are not coming back. Even if Obama can stop the bleeding we still have nearly 10 million skilled workers with no idea where to find a job. In the same way welfare created a permanent underclass, globalization has created the permanently unemployed. It is insane that the GOP faults Obama for the lack of jobs created so far. Those jobs were off-shored in the Bush years and they’re not coming back. Computer programmers and engineers and physicians’ assistants and lab technicians with college degrees are sending out resumes with no response. Unless they all move to India or China they will stay unemployed for a very long time.
Second, the GOP has brainwashed this country into believing that any and every penny we spend on the military is not only justified but is absolutely necessary for the security of this nation. That’s hogwash. Until the day comes that when the GOP funds $427 billion in special defense projects on their way out the door (like Bush did) that some voice somewhere is allowed to say “We cannot afford that” - until that happens - we’re sunk.
November 7th, 2009 at 12:39 pm PST
I don’t get how this marks trouble for conservatives… VA which is usually conservative, fell into the grasps of Obama mania and went blue(ish)… then after what’s been going on the last year..
(A stimulus that didn’t work, unemployment at a 20 year high, going to Copenhagen for a failed bid at the olympics further ignorning a request for mor Afhgan troops that had been sitting stagnent on his desk for 5 weeks, a beer summit that didn’t resolve any issues, the taking over of private businesses (GM), sending the hummer brand to China, closing the Saturn brand (more jobs lost) then wanting to pass a HC bill that WILL fail to the detrament of the country from under us without allowing the public to educate themselves on the bill, debating behind closed doors without the republicans allowed in… which means he lied about being a transparent administration and that he’d reach accross the Isles)
after all that… VA residents said in great majority their vote was a ‘message to the white house’ thus the republicans swept VA.
NJ who hasn’t seen a Republican leader in eons went republican… and it was by a much larger margin than predicted (Actually most dems predicted that THEY would win)…
and in NY, it wasn’t the overwhelming sweep they predicted. They predicted the Dem would win by double digits… It was what… a THREE POINT difference? It was a close close too close for Dem’s comfort race.
Say whatever will help you sleep at night… but it looks like the Dems are the ones with the trouble.
Americans are tired of being taxed… without it being called a tax… they are tired of private businesses being taken over… of giving our hard earned money to corrupt buisnesses like ACORN… of being lied to… (Rationing, tax-payer funded abortion, Illegal immigrants getting HC via loopholes on our dime) Is IN that bill. At least it was in the original bill before they pulled it from being readable by the general public.
This is disgraceful. And people are tired of it. It’s proven by the drop in Obama’s approval ratings… which actually dropped faster than Bush’s did by the same time his first year of his administration.
it was also proven by gay-marriage being voted down time and again even in the most liberal of places, California, citing a marriage should only be defined as between a man and woman.
The GOP’s actual problem are Rhinos who claim to be republicans and yet are pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, are fiscally liberal, and are wolves in sheeps clothing.
The Conservatives need to re-take the GOP and out the Rhinos from the party. Get back to the true conservative values. They are losing the races they are losing due to liberals running with an (R) next to their name. If people have to choose between a democrat and a liberal “republican”, they’ll vote for the democrat.
November 7th, 2009 at 2:53 pm PST
@Mayu
Liberal republican gets my vote: Harsh right wing republican does not.
November 7th, 2009 at 5:20 pm PST
So, I’m a new American, having just got my citizenship.
I’m looking at the political landscape and I’m horrified.
The Republicans were, in power, almost scarily anti-democratic, and the Democrats seem unwilling to do anything that would take a stand with anything. I used to think of myself as a semi-conservative. But that was a self evaluation. I don’t go for many of the things that the left push for.
Gay marriage? no, I don’t think so, but I have no objections to there being gay legal couples with all the rights of marriage.
Unemployment money? Sure, show up for the next freeway cleanup.
On the other hand I think the right in the US is mad too. As usual the best path is somewhere in the middle. At a different place for every issue.
I would naturally have Joined the Republicans with my new citizenship, but their insistence on becoming “The party of NO” has turned me off them.
Having lived in many countries with various real health systems, I can not understand the fuss here about getting a health system (the US certainly doesn’t have one at the moment). The Republican insistence on derailing any attempt to cover uninsured Americans, stinks to me as teh lowest form of political brinkmanship. I hope the American public can see that for what it is.
November 7th, 2009 at 6:27 pm PST
This articvle was nothing more than DNC talking points. Total nonsense, lies and wishful thinking. CSM can do better than allowing all this trash talking liberal garbage.
November 7th, 2009 at 6:38 pm PST
The conservative Republican candidate in Virginia focused largely on middle of the road economic issues and won.
The moderate Republican candidate in New Jersey focused largely on middle of the road economic issues and won.
The Conservative candidate in the NY23 focused largely on being a “true” conservative and lost.
The broad center of the country has real concerns and wants real solutions to economic issues like the jobless rate, deficit, recession, etc. This cuts across party lines and ideological labels.
“True” conservatives and “true” liberals are going to lose unless they offer pragmatic centerist solutions that might actually do something.
November 7th, 2009 at 6:58 pm PST
What NY 23 really shows is that the New York Republican Party is feckless and neutered. If we are to have any chance of success in 2010 and 2012 the Republican party must get its act together and provide support for a message that brings voters to the polls on election day, and supports their effort to reach both their federal, state and local representatives.
November 7th, 2009 at 8:47 pm PST
Hoffman got 45% of the vote. The GOP candidate selected without regard for preferences of the voters got 5% of the vote. But it is those who followed HOFFMAN who were in the wrong?
Sorry, I don’t see it.
November 7th, 2009 at 8:53 pm PST
Wow, lots of comments… I’m not going to answer them all. But what I am saying spinnikerca is if the GOP wanted to win NY-23, then yes, Hoffman hurt. Probably cost them the seat.
Now if you’re saying you don’t care. You’d rather have a Democrat in the seat than Scozzafava for whatever reason, you are right. It’s a legitimate point of view, just one that will hurt in swing districts.
November 7th, 2009 at 8:54 pm PST
I don’t think you can label Doug Hoffman as anti-Hispanic. He supported reasonable immigration reform, much like Sen. McCain.
Hoffman lost because he did not know the district, and let outsiders like **** Armey define his campaign for him.
The Republican split over abortion is probably a bigger issue in this district than immigration, so the question for the Club for Growth is will they be willing to back economic conservatives who are pro-choice. Example? Barry Goldwater.