Now that’s a sore loser:
Republican Dede Scozzafava, who unexpectedly backed out of a tough, three-way House race on Saturday, announced this afternoon that she was endorsing Democrat Bill Owens for the job.
Her decision not to back Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman in the contest to fill former Rep. John McHugh’s open seat is likely to enrage party leaders, who rallied around Hoffman almost immediately after Scozzafava announced she would suspend her campaign.
If the GOP has a future, it’s with genuine conservative/libertarian types like Hoffman — not with DIABLOs like Scozzafava. And judging by the polls, the folks in NY23 may already know that.
I don’t think the “sore loser” label will stick when she is compared to the lifelong Republican running as the Conservative Party candidate. It’s not as if ideology and party loyalty never mix in odd ways, but this instance is one in which name-calling is going to be documented in ways that will not reflect well on many: the RNCC declared Hoffman unfit for the job only a month ago, so Scozzafava’s actions aren’t exactly the treason some will suggest. Give her a month and she’ll probably be proven right or just become the Assemblywoman from a district he represents.
And while it’s not that New York voters don’t go for carpetbaggers (Hillary, anyone?, though in fairness at least Hoffman is an actual New Yorker,) but it will be interesting to see if they go for a double-bagger (tea and carpet.) I’m guessing he’s toast in the short-run, but whether he wins or loses the activist Republicans are going to purge their party of moderates.
I can’t wait until Wednesday. 2010 is going to be exciting.
Wow, this is really INTERESTING. When the New York State Republican Party picked Scozzafava you had to wonder what were they thinking. Now we have to ask, “What is the New York Republican Party?” These are the BOZO’s who have completely destroyed the Republican Party in New York. Now we have Scozzafava actually endosing the Democrat Candidate.
Until the Republican Party wakes up and nominates candidates who are at least Conservative on 2 of three measures being Fiscal, National Defense, and Social the party won’t stand a chance to win any elections.
Scuzza would rather have someone who would caucus with the Democrats than someone who would caucus with the Republicans. That says it all.
A fitting ending. Scozzafava has pulled back the curtain and exposed the Republican “electability” strategy for the intellectually and morally bankrupt farce that it is. People think the “RINO” is an exaggeration intended to illustrate a point. No, as this episode demonstrates, it is literal truth.
Gingrich and Steele have proven they don’t understand conservatives. The (R) label does not buy them a thing any more.
If they keep supporting Charlie Christ in Florida, they will again prove themselves inept at reading voters. Rubio will embarass them again.
And their judgment is unassailable, right?
Of course, I’m pretty sure the only time Jon ever agrees with the GOP establishment is when they nominate Democrats.
I don’t find the RNCC to be unassailable. I was noting their flip-flop more than the merits of their arguments then and now (the “sore loser” stuff that was the highlighted text of Mr. Green’s post.) I really don’t know Hoffman, Scozzafava, or even Owens enough to make many judgments about this election, and based on what’s happened so far, I’m not sure much of the GOP establishment or the GOP non-establishment knows much about them either.
Still, a district that has been in Republican hands for one-hundred-and-fifty years is now in danger of flipping to the Democrats. Revolutions have to start somewhere, and I know all the arguments about cleaning your own house first, but this isn’t the nationwide litmus test some people are suggesting. And anyone who suggests that it shows the GOP establishment to be clueless hasn’t realized how amazing it is that Steele’s campaign was going around with signs saying, in white letters on a blue background, “Steele/Democrat”. He may be as useless as a dead cat to a vegan restaurant, but it’s not as if he’ll get removed because the Republicans have an image problem with minorities already. Still, they could have taken some extra effort and gotten a coherent black guy rather than the first black guy they could find. When they, the no-quota party, choose their next leader, who will be Hispanic, I can’t imagine they’ll do worse than the Steele pick. Then again, I’ve learned not to misunderestimate the stupidity of the party leadership. I’m not going to gloat, however: the Democrats would probably have Maxine Waters as their national leader if the Republicans had elected a black President last year.
What went wrong for the RNCC is what went wrong last year for the Democrats: selecting a nominee whom it now turns out they knew nothing about. Had they properly vetted Scozzafava they would have discovered she was a Democrat in all but label only before they nominated her. It took a conservative insurgency to get through to them.
Their incuriosity about Scozzafava will, as it happens, do far less damage than the Democrats’ incuriosity about Barack Obama.
Don’t be an idiot.
I don’t think it’s going to happen, either. Still, the seat will get changed by redistricting in 2012, so that’s why a Republican like Scozzafava was selected/agreed to run there. Supposedly, she was somewhere in the double-digits on the wish list of the party committee (not the national RNCC) that nominated her.
As for Obama, this incuriosity isn’t a big deal: he’s a centrist Democrat with liberal ambitions and a lot of patience, the kind of maddening person the right will call a loon and point to THIS and THAT about, but he’s really kinda boring actually. He’s Al Gore with a better tan, not some Dr. Frankenstein’s monster created using William Ayers’ and Trotsky’s brain in Bill Bradley’s Lurch-like body.
As for Obama… he’s a centrist Democrat with liberal ambitions and a lot of patience,
Okay, that’s funny and I think I’ve figure you out, your a reverse moby (a conservative pretending to be a leftist to discredit leftism).
I could take the “centrist Democrat with liberal ambitions” part, but “a lot of patience”?
Everything he’s wanted to do he’s had to do “right now, the time for debate is over”.
Sorry to out you jon, but that one was just one inanity too much.
I’d throw in that Jon doesn’t show much understanding of upstate New York. That seat will not be redistricted into Democratic hands. Please, the republican/conservative vote was split and Owens still wasn’t winning.
NY-23 is designed to keep right wing votes together. Redistricting it into Democratic hands would not undermine Republicans in NY-23, it would undermine surrounding Democrats by pouring Republican votes into their districts.
DIABLO? Democrat In All But Label O___?
With that district going for Obama in 2008 (and for the new Army Chief as their Republican Congressman, each by good-sized margins,) it’s not the jerrymandered place they stuffed all of Northeastern New York’s Republicans so much as a place that is undergoing demographic changes. Republicans aren’t exactly common in the Northeastern US, and they’re getting less and less common, so maybe it is the right place to have a party change into something different. But until someone challenges someone in Republican central, the South, the old party hacks with their pork and their big-spending ways are still going to control the GOP no matter how much they can say they’re opponents are the only ones like that. When military pork and agricultural subsidies are placed in danger by these new guys, then it will be a revolution. When a Republican healthcare plan is more than the ether it’s written on (and huffed) and a balanced budget is actually put on paper, then it will be a movement. Until then, it’s just clearing out the moderates to make way for an agenda that has no motive other than the placement of a new bunch of power-hungry jerks who are all slogans and no governing skills.
Until then, it’s just clearing out the moderates to make way for an agenda that has no motive other than the placement of a new bunch of power-hungry jerks who are all slogans and no governing skills.
Wait, you make that sound as if you don’t like Obama and crew.
I mean, that’s their raison d’etre, they’re all about slogans and, as we’ve seen, Obama and co. have no governing skills.
How else do you explain that the Dems have unassailable majorities in both houses of Congress and yet they can’t pass two totally necessary bills into law?
Or did they pass “cap and give money to Al Gore” and Obamacare?
Sorry, mean to add,
jon the ymob is doing a great job making leftism look foolish.
whew… the GOP dodged a bullet there, didn’t they… good grief… I used to have such respect for Michael Steele and his character assessments… not so much anymore. And Newt?? His opinions haven’t mattered to me since he took the stage with Hillary 6 or 7 years ago…
But seriously…. Is it just sour grapes on Scuzzyfuzzy’s part, or was she really trying to undermine the GOP?? I can see her backing the dem in an all out bitch move, but I can also see it as her returning from whence she came…
I won’t blame Steele so much here, it was the local GOP that nominated her, and I assume they were just helping out a friend with this. Which doesn’t say much for the NY-23 GOP leadership. But then again, I live in Toledo where the GOP is just a bit rarer that the ivory-billed woodpecker.
Newt, however, seems to have jumped the shark.
Scuzzy seems to actually be a closeted Democrat.
I enjoyed a very brief Nelson Muntz moment last night. There’s just no getting around the fact that this particular Federal election shows that the conservative-conservative movement isn’t ready for prime time. Instead, typical candidates who had traditional campaigns won in Virginia (no surprise) and New Jersey (slight upset, offset by how horrible it is for incumbents right now and how horrible this one was in particular.)
It is nice for you all to have your Sarah Palin starbursts and purity pledges, but governing actually takes more than a mission statement and an opponent who can be linked to ACORN. Sometimes it takes an actual plan to cut that spending that is out of control. Sometimes it takes patience, because working entirely against a party you want to change can weaken both entities. And sometimes the voters just think a candidate for an office should at the very least read about local issues and be able to vote for himself in the election.
S0, a Republican winning in NJ means nothing but a Conservative losing in a district you never heard of last week means everything?
That’s the spirit ymob.
It means that a standard Republican can have a chance against a substandard Democrat (finally a big-time financial guy loses his job over the financial mess!) It means the Republicans won in a big state, which isn’t anything to scoff at. And it means that New Jersey will be a place many Republican dollars get wasted in 2012. That’s not nothing.
A Northeastern New York district isn’t close to being everything. But it certainly isn’t much of a successful move for the tea party folk to be part of the first Democrat being elected there since 1852. Please keep up the good work, purity pledge ringbearers!
The big lesson of NY-23 is that candidates should be picked by the grassroots – as in through primaries – rather than ivory-tower elites.
Ummmm, Jon, he ran as a Conservative, there was a Republican on the ballot too.
Seriously, you’re doing a great job making lefties look foolish.
I should complete my point because I want to make sure you understand.
If he had won it still would have meant that for the first time since 1852 a non-Republican would have won the election.