Lesson from NY-23: Of Course Conservatives Can Win
Here’s Rush Limbaugh from November 4:
I mean that’s probably what they’re thinking today on our side, “Yeah, you see, Reagan conservatives can’t win in New York. We need Chris Shays-type guys. We need moderates like David Brooks-kind of Republicans to win.” … See, this is the dirty little secret: If the party had gotten behind Hoffman from the beginning, he would have won going away. I have no doubt about that. I’ll tell you something else. People are now talking about Hoffman’s lack of charisma and familiarity with local issues. The huge story of New York-23 is the shambles the Republican Party made of it. They nominated a horrendous candidate: A liberal Republican. She was far more liberal than this Owens guy, who ended up winning.
Exactly so.
I’ve become more than a little bit tired of the disingenuous argument that conservatives can’t win elections. Had the Republicans actually gotten behind the conservative — in this case, Hoffman — he would have won, as Rush says, going away. There’s no question in my mind about that. The fact of the matter is that they tried to define themselves as Democrat-lite with Scozzafava, and that nonsense never works, particularly in a district like NY-23.
I live about three hours from NY-23. One point that you have to understand about that district is that the people there are as a rule conservative and independent-minded folks.
Residents in the district recognized that who the Republican Party presented to them as being one of their own — Scozzafava — was nothing of the sort. The conservative Doug Hoffman filled that role better.
Hoffman managed to pull within the margin of error while running against the full weight of both parties. So don’t tell me conservatives can’t be elected with the proper support.
There is a major disconnect between the Republican establishment and the Republican rank and file that the former has yet to get their head around. They do not understand conservatives. They want nothing to do with conservatives. They view them as a roadblock to power. That, too, is key to understanding my anger here. They have long since made the transition, as Reagan once put it, from being part of the solution to being part of the problem.
The Democrats have a serious loser on their hands today and they’re just getting around to understanding what a boat anchor they’ve tied themselves to. Now is the time to move real conservatives into positions of power. Now is the time to show the kind of recovery and the kind of growth that will occur when conservatives are in charge and government is diminished. But that’s not going to happen unless and until the party stands up for real conservatives and gets behind them. That doesn’t mean offering the same old faces that got us into this mess.
Want to know why Doug Hoffman got so close to taking that seat? The endorsement of Sarah Palin. You may remember that the Republican establishment isn’t too happy about her either.
As another parallel, I offer the vote in Maine over gay marriage. I recently noted Michael Steele defending Olympia Snowe for being a liberal. He said, “Well, she works in Maine, after all.” The rejection of gay marriage in Maine makes me wonder about Steele’s perceptions about the politics in that state.
Ask yourself if Olympia Snowe would have voted against homosexual marriage in Maine. If not, there’s your separation and ample evidence that Steele knows little to nothing of what he’s talking about. It goes a long way toward explaining why we’ve got such disconnects in the rest of the country as well, including in NY-23.
I have a message for Michael Steele and for Brian Walsh at the National Republican Congressional Committee. Start offering up conservatives and we will take you seriously. Until that happens, don’t ask me for money or support. You won’t get it.
It’s time to return the Republican Party to conservative values and to people who are more committed to the conservative cause. The rank and file of the party has always been there and recognize this.
Why doesn’t the Republican leadership?
Republicans: the stupid Party. Or maybe, the dysfunctional Party. We have met the enemy….
I hope the Republicans take a long, hard look at what happened in Virginia. Think it would be helpful. The Republicans have to have the independents and maybe Hoffman’s message needed to be a little different. “All politics is local” should be remembered.
Eric as you well know the GOP in NY is more dysfunctional than the national republicans. Thats Rockefellers legacy.
Owens broke 4 of his campaign promises in his first day in office. I wonder what his constituents in upstate New York think about that?
I helped out in Watertown, NY at the Hoffman campaign office the last eight days.
Besides the GOP not backing a moderate to conservative or libertarian from the beginning, it was Scozzafava’s dropping out and successfully getting enough of her supporters to move to Owens.
Backed from beginning to end, Hoffman would have won this race despite his lack of charisma and lack of political experience.
Next year, there will be no outsiders stepping on peoples’ toes on both sides. It will once again be a local election and if the GOP simply fields a moderate to conservative/libertarian and backs them and improves the vision, message, and ground game, this seat will most certainly fall back in GOP hands.
I was also at Sarah’s pro-life event in Milwaukee. She is as radiant and ready for the fight as she ever was. Great speech touching all the issues and side-issues related to the Culture of Life.
She is the real leader of the GOP at this time, at least until someone with any ounce of courage steps forward.
She kept to her word to support libertarians and conservatives and candidates that support her values even if they lose or it possibly hurts her politically.
This is the kind of leadership the country needs, not the obviously lost O-man who has no business being in such an important job.
Why blame Republicans? Hoffmann was the brain child of the conservatives. And every heavy hitter the conservatives have made him their cause celeb – Palin, Pawlenty, Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin, the minor players like Malken and Coulter and every other reporter/commentator on Fox News, and of course the corporate politco behind the grass roots movement – Dick Armey. You lost the referendum on conservatism.
True. Yet, I am also enough of the historian to understand that we’re new York those the rest of the country has a tendency to follow. Is there anyone in the country who doesn’t recognize that the ascendancy of the Bush family and the reluctant nomination of John McCain is part and parcel of the same thing as the Rockefeller Republicans of back the day?
They’ll blame if on anyone who is to their right. Hey, it works for Obama, right?
Sure had a lot of libertarians win national elections from New York in the 19th century, when they were following Jefferson, before the 20th century Democrats began to follow Rousseau and Marx. Now, we have a President elected because he said community interests are more important than are individual interests, when the latter created the free market and America’s great prosperity (cited in THE CHANGING FACE OF DEMOCRATS on Amazon and claysamerica.com). So, New York can follow New England’s lead and become just another USSR, Cuba or North Korea, where the few elite lead the many, where there is no chance a freedom-loving person can ever be permitted to run for office again.
7. Eric Florack:
“They’ll blame if on anyone who is to their right. Hey, it works for Obama, right?”
I hope they find their good senses up there and the Republican Party finds and supports someone who is a true fiscal Conservative and a good campaigner.
I probably have as much disdain as anyone for Democrats, their meddlesome social engineering and their smug and misplaced feelings of intellectual and moral elitism. But it is obvious to me that they are greatly assisted by this brand of “Republican Conservatism” as you have highlighted it. Conservative Republicans do not see the irony in stressing liberty, limited government, personal freedom and fiscal responsibility all the while insisting that we are a Christian nation where abortion and gay marriage should not be tolerated. These things are only black and white to you because of religious beliefs.
I won’t even try to present a more secular and (to me) more reasonable view of the abortion question but I think this treatment by Carl Sagan ( http://www.2think.org/abortion.shtml ) makes an excellent case that it can and should be kept out of the political arena. As for gay marriage, it seems so obvious to me that the State should not be in the business of sanctioning any kind of marriage nor of granting privileges based on marriage status. You don’t even need to have that ridiculous debate about whether people choose to be gay or are born that way.
I am straight and, were I a women, it would take an incredibly difficult circumstance for me to even consider an abortion. But I completely understand why so many people recoil at the idea of electing politicians who feel compelled to use government to force their religious beliefs on others.
A party that stood for personal liberty and limited government delivered efficiently and cost effectively has a chance to stop this horrible rise of left-liberal Statism. The GOP could go in that direction – but no chance with these religion-based axes to grind.
First of all, I don’t accept your premise that it is strictly a conservative republican issue. If we are to take the statements of Michael Steele as regards to the political makeup in Maine, it seems rather clear that there are more than conservative republicans that were involved in the recent vote. Certainly, the people up there as a whole, not just Republicans, are more socially conservative than the left would like. apparently, more socially conservative than you would prefer, as well. Given the size of the vote however, versus the number of people in that state who consider themselves to be conservative republicans, it seems to me you have this one mis- tagged.
I guess that to depend on what precisely you consider the role of government to be. Personally, I have always considered that the role of government, any government, particularly one wants to survive for very long, is to provide reinforcement for the culture that gave that life. (a little background, here: http://bitsblog.florack.us/?p=494 ) it would seem, based on the voting there in Maine, And for that matter, just about anywhere such a vote has been taken on a statewide basis, that there are a number of people out there who consider it the same way as I.
On that basis, then, the issue is whether or not government is running afoul of the culture that gave it life.
Further, I do not view this as a religious issue per say, but a cultural one. Granted, that the culture is driven in many respects by its dominant religions. Every culture on the planet is. That’s true even in cultures where are the dominant religions are no longer followed by a large percentage of the population. You’ll notice that I address that in the piece that I’ve linked.
If the GOP had just stayed out of the way, Hoffman would have won easily. The 6900 people who were not paying attention and voted for Dodo even though she wasn’t in the race would have done it for sure. The untold number who defected with Dodo might have done it. There’s no telling what might have happened if establishment GOP members hadn’t dirtied Hoffmann’s coattails just so they could say that they supported him later.
12. Web Smith:
“If the GOP had just stayed out of the way, Hoffman would have won easily.”
It’s always somebody else’s fault with conservatives.
Great article! You are 100% on target!! Good work!