Scozzafava Suspends Campaign But Doesn’t Endorse Conservative

This is a promising day for all Conservatives across this Nation. Now, we need to win New Jersey!

Perhaps the DNC will learn a lesson here on how to corral, indeed coerce, their dithering flock into passing the HCR – with a robust public choice.
[All is fair in love and war for grandma's health ..]

Actually the poll is Owens 36%, Hoffman 35%

But, with Scozzafava basically out of the race now, and Conservatives seeing that she is a non-entity, you can add the vast majority of her 20+% into the Hoffman column. Enjoy!

Fine piece of reporting. Thank you.

Or rusty, you can do research like the fivethirtyeight.com people, and find that those who liked Scoz -hate- Hoffman more than they hate the Dem, and also liked Obama. Making it a much more complicated scenario than simply dumping most of her votes into Hoffman like little mindless trolls.

Also I believe that Pickert’s heading for this blog says it all, “Scozafava suspends campaign, but does not endorse Conservative”.
.
If you truly have conservative and not progressive ideals at heart she would support Hoffman now that it is clear he will represent the Republican base in Congress.
.
She has stated by not endorsing Hoffman herself now that she knows she doesn’t have a snowballs chance in hell to win, that she believes the Democrat in the race clearly represents her ideals.
.
Maybe she can come back in a year and run as the Democrat, instead. I won’t be surprised.

Or, you could read through the entire five thirty-eight, and understand this…
.

“If I had to guess, I’d think that of Scozzafava’s support, one-quarter of people don’t vote, one-quarter vote for Scozzafava anyway, 30 percent defect to Hoffman and 20 percent defect to Owens. Extrapolating from the morning’s Siena poll, that would produce a result of Hoffman 43, Owens 42, Scozzafava 5, with 10 percent of the voters still up for grabs.

Gun to my head? Sure, I’d take Hoffman at this point. But I’d also take the short side of the 67 percent odds that he’s been given at Intrade.”

.
Plus the fact that five thirty-eight, is a liberal leaning polling interpreter and political commentary site.
.
Couple this with the fact that Hoffman just a few weeks ago was less than 14%. Since that time he has equaled his Democrat opponet, and the momentum going into election day on Tuesday clearly shows that he will win when all is said and done.
.
This is what was said on a local site in NY23:
.

“Central New York delivers for Hoffman: Hoffman’s rise from between the two polls is due largely to a 14-point bump in Central New York’s counties of Madison, Oneida, Oswego. (the southwestern part of the district) Interestingly, Hoffman picked up voters not from Scozzafava or Owens, but from the 30 percent of voters who were undecided in September. Central New York is the most conservative region in the district, with the highest concentration of Republicans and independent voters and the fewest Democrats. (45 percent are registered Republican, 27 percent Democrat, and 20 percent not enrolled with a party. At the beginning of the race, when Hoffman’s name recognition was low, the largely conservative electorate remained undecided when confronted with a choice between the Democrat or a moderate labor-backed Republican. As Hoffman’s profile increased, conservative voters found a candidate they could back. Interestingly, Scozzafava’s numbers have remained steady at around 20 percent in the region.”

.
http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/19497/how-ny-23-became-a-dead-heat/
.
http://www.elections.state.ny.us/NYSBOE/enrollment/congress/congress_apr09.pdf
.
The above link shows the active Republican voters in NY 23 at 160,000+ to active Dem voters at 116,000+ with Independents at 18,000+.
.
I think the math speaks clearly for itself. Don’t you socoharry?

My guess is that sometime in the next 120 to 180 days the entire Flatulent Zombie movement known as “conservatism” will expire from its own stupidity and gullibility.

rusty,

This district has been represented by a republican for, at least, the last 150 years. If Hoffman gets elected, it will mean that, again, they voted for a republican, nothing more.

Would a Scozzafava victory have been a bad day for conservatism, or the GOP for that matter?

What if the story had the headline of Scozzafava Suspends Campaign But Doesn’t Endorse Progressive/Democrat? Would that have changed the substance of what has occurred? That she doesn’t wholly subscribe to Hoffman’s ideals does not inherently make her supportive of Owens. Perhaps neither appeal to her.

I asked this in the thread below, isn’t the 23rd more akin to the Democrats primarying Lieberman than the Club for Growth taking out Chafee?

That is to say a more conservative district wanting the more conservative (or what is defined as conservative by the 2009 republican party) candidate.

The Club for Growth took out a moderate and handed RI to Whitehouse, it doesn’t look like the Teabaggers are doing the same thing.

Of course if Hoffman doesn’t win everything I just wrote is bunk.

Just wondering – what woke up this KP?
Could it be the prospect of a kill for the right wingnuts and the spoils thereafter?
Nah. Kate is not into that GOP-prattle FOX group … right?

I’m rooting for Hoffman. I don’t want to see moderate candidates win in the republican party. As long as the far right wingers hold sway, the better it is for the democrats in the long run. They’re now a party of extremists. I’d like to see them to be viewed that way.

The 23rd is a conservative district. If Hoffman wins the republicans will claim that it was a refferendum on Obama. It isn’t, but that doesn’t make any difference. In the unlikely scenario that the democrat wins, the rational element of their party can claim that Palin was to blame. The best case scenario is that Hoffman wins, Palin claims credit and her influence/endorsement is seen as critical.

From the sounds of it, when it comes to the local issues of the district, Hoffman can’t tell the difference between his assh*le and a hole in the ground.
.
Which makes him the perfect candidate for rusty, but will that stunning ignorance come out over the course of the race?

I mean, McCain brought on Go Go Gadget Palin to snag all the women votes, but after she opened her damn fool mouth she really only cemented the Brain Damage Brigade.

Thanks for posting that good data from fivethirtyeight.com, Rustydog.

PNNTO:
.
That was my thought, too.
.
I’m inclined to believe that this development is actually a very good thing for upsetting the established order, and getting some democratic accountability injected into our politics.
.
I could care less if the rightists are the ones who benefit in this case, because there are so many more of us than there are rightists that if we did the same thing in our districts, we might get a government that didn’t water down health care reform so badly, because they were accountable to us.

I’m thinking that Scozzafava doesn’t like the Spittle-and-Froth crowd, and is not going to endorse Hoffman because of it.
.
He isn’t so anti-crackhead, however, that he is willing to actively torpedo efforts by the GOP to hang onto that seat.
.
As far as Rusty’s “assessment” is concerned, the biggest news is that this race is close, which is rather than a sign of the strength of Rusty’s Sleeping White Giant, more like a sign that the Giant isn’t sleeping at all.
.
It’s dead.
.
If a progressive is this close after 150 years, I think it might be a good idea to hang around with shovels.
.
Just in case…

The Tea Partiers might get p0wned yet again. As it turns out, Hoffman appears to support Bush-like policies that would have the impact of raising the taxes on the tea partiers and his other supporters.
.
If anyone wants to push Owens over the top, contact those in the local area and have them go to Hoffman’s appearances and ask him about that on video.
.
If they can’t ask about that, and they’re staunch liberals who agree with Hoffman, then have them get video of them congratulating Hoffman on being so liberal.
.
Then, upload the video to Youtube and make sure as many of his supporters as possible can see it.

This is a real shame. Scozzafava was the most knowledgeable candidate about the local issues, by far. I am an independent, and I would have voted for her based on what she knows about what we need in our district. Neither Hoffman nor Owens are anywhere as well-versed as she is on the issues that concern us.

This is a local race about who is going to represent the 23rd district of NY. It’s not supposed to be a test about the ideology of the Republican party. I resent all of the out-of-state Republicans using this race as a platform to establish their bona fides for national office and their power grabs. I resent all the out-of-district conservatives sacrificing the conerns of my district in order to prop up their ideology.

This whole debacle is not going to make me more likely to vote for conservatives in the future, if the attitude I have seen displayed in this race is indicative of the future of conservative politics. It seems to only be a power grab, and to hell with the constituents involved.

sacredh and SZ, I agree with both of you.
.
Sacredh for the realpolitik and sz for the sign that this is probably healthy for a democracy.
.
How it is “played” should Hoffman win will be interesting.
.
For a week.
.
I have joked about the republican party reducing like a stock. It ends up smaller but stronger. But if they are true believers there is something to be said for sticking to your principles.
.
Even if the result is a smaller party.

Remember when Republicans used to claim that Newt Gingrich was the smartest guy in the party?

9090z:

conservatives sacrificing the conerns of my district in order to prop up their ideology

I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand you.
.
If you’re a conservative, and you think that Scozzafava might support Stimulus II if it came up in the House, and you believe that the end result of that spending would be to ultimately increase taxes and degrade the economy, then how would supporting a conservative candidate who could be counted on to oppose stimulus spending to the death “sacrifice the concerns of your district”?
.
When you say “I would have voted for her based on what she knows about what we need in our district“, does that mean that you could have counted on her to bring more pork home to your area, or do you mean something else?
.
Also, just one more thing:
.
Why are you an “Independent”? Why aren’t you either a Democrat or a Republican?
.
Given the example of no Republicans voting for Stimulus I (and it looks as if no Republicans are going to vote for health care reform), why doesn’t the consistent expectations you could have that come from partisan affiliation matter to you? Why wouldn’t that sort of empirically observable pattern help you know what you’re going to get more than what the candidate promises during a campaign?
.
What does “Independent” mean to you?

I also remember when they said that we were scared of Palin. Not scared in the “WTF will the crazy b!tch do if she gets elected?”, but scared in the sense of “She has you on the run”. They claim alot of things. It’s OK to pay attention, but it all comes with a grain of salt.

palininatowel:
.
I thought that was David Gregory.

If you’re a conservative, and you think that Scozzafava might support Stimulus II if it came up in the House, and you believe that the end result of that spending would be to ultimately increase taxes and degrade the economy, then how would supporting a conservative candidate who could be counted on to oppose stimulus spending to the death “sacrifice the concerns of your district”?
.
Wait a minute. I thought this was an election for the New York State legislature.
.
If so, then their primary concern would be, I’d imagine, local issues.
.
Hoffman (and Owens apparently) haven’t demonstrated a solid grasp of local issues.
.
So what is there not to understand about 9090z wanting a candidate that grasps local issues?

53_3, I don’t think anyone would call Owens a “progressive.” He’s more conservative than Scozzafava, too.

stuart,
.
David Gregory has never been called the “smartest” anywhere, except, perhaps, his own mind.

“Used to”?
.
Wait a month, and they’ll all be saying, “Hurr durr Gingrich has got the good ideas!”

palininatowel:
.
I didn’t mean that Fluffy was a genius…hold on for a sec…
.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
.
OHOHOHOHOHOHO…AHAHAHAHAHAHA….AHAHA…OHOHOHO…
.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…
.
AHA..ha…ha…ahem…mmm…
.
No, I didn’t mean that.
.
I meant that Fluffy used to claim that Gingrich is the smartest man of all time.
.
Glad to clear that up.

stuart,
.
That was my “trick” for trick-or-treat. Off to a Halloween bash. Ta-ta…

One final note, since this is, officially (at least in some cultures), “The Day of the Dead”…

Isn’t it time to remove that ghostly, ghastly Ted Kennedy memorial issue from the margins here? It’s not still selling, is it?

That’s getting almost as creepy as spob’s current obsession with what Michelle Obama wore to a Medal of Honor ceremony back in the middle of September.

Cliff:
.
I thought this was an election for the New York State legislature.
.
No, although I can understand the confusion.
.
She’s currently an Assemblywoman in the New York State Legislature ( link ), but she was running for the NY-23rd US Congressional District:

NY-23: Scozzafava tapped as GOP candidate
.
July 22, 2009 at 7:00 pm by Irene Jay Liu
.
The 11 Republican County Chairs of New York’s 23rd Congressional district have selected Assemblywoman Diedre “Dede” Scozzafava to run on the Republican line in the the expected special election to replace Rep. John McHugh, who has been tapped by President Barack Obama to become the Secretary of the Army.

Scozzafava’s selection came after an interview and seletion process that pit her against a handful of prospective candidates, most competitively against Matt Doheny, a political newcomer and investment banker who put $500,000 of his own money in the race, and raised $300,000 in the weeks leading up to the selection.

.
Apparently, she’s been flirting with the Democrats in a particularly machine and/or centrist way, which is possibly why she was selected by the GOP machine in the first place:

Scozzafava’s selection has a number of implications, both for the GOP and the Democrats, who have yet to select a candidate and are essentially waiting for Sen. Darrel Aubertine to decide whether he is running.
.
Scozzafava’s nomination may also give Aubertine pause in weighing his decision to run. Aubertine and Scozzafava are close and it has been said by Democratic operatives that he may be reluctant to run against her. (The same was said during the February 2008 special election for the Senate, but the party establishment overlooked her in favor of Republican Assemblyman Will Barclay, who lost to Aubertine.) According to a source close to Aubertine, the senator is very much undecided and is weighing his decision carefully.

.
And she’s got particular problems as a candidate because of the closeness to Democrats in the Legislature:

Scozzafava has been receiving it on both sides over the past few days — Republicans and Democrats have been, for at least a week, trying to sell a rather tenuous “tax trouble” story — I heard about the issue last week from both Democratic and Republican sources, but after examining the evidence, decided not to go with the story. At least one other reporter received the same information, but decided not to run with it.
.
The “tax trouble” story in short: a company owned by her brother, for which she served as COO until recently, Seaway Valley Capital Corporation, acquired a number of companies though a merger with North Country Hospitality. These companies — Alteri Bakery, Sacket’s Harbor Brewing Company, and Good Fello’s — have nearly $200,000 in federal and state tax liens against them, most of which were incurred for tax periods before the companies were acquired by Seaway Capital. The companies are still run by North Country Hospitality as part of the merger.
.
The story really hit the political blogs today — here’s one pushed by the Dems; here’s another pushed by the Republicans. (Democratic attack Republican attack )
.
As you can see from the links above, the issue has come out not as a story on its own merits, but as an ancillary issue related to Scozzafava’s brief courtship with the Democrats.

.
Then the Republican/movement conservative netroots let her have it, just like we did to Lieberman:

Scozzafava is a noted social liberal — she voted in support of gay marriage when it first came up in the Assembly in 2007 and she is pro-choice. Her husband is a prominent upstate labor leader. Conservatives had already begun to voice their discontent about her before the nomination (This blog post from the Redstate blog is entitled, “What a Republican suicide looks like.”) Watch to see if conservatives, particularly from the Southwest corner of the district, stay home.

.
So, if she were elected, she would most likely get the chance to vote in the US House of Representatives on Federal issues like Stimulus II or repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, amongst other projects more directly related to her district (pork).

Ah, that makes a little more sense then.
.
But I still understand 9090z’s post. If they feel that local concerns are being ignored in favor of nation-wide conservative ideology, then why the confusion?

Or maybe Scozzafova agress with what NRCC spokesman Paul Lindsay said about Hoffman a month ago: “Fortunately, the local Republican county chairs had the foresight to see that Doug Hoffman lacked the integrity and qualities needed to be elected to anything — let alone Congress,” and she has too much integrity herself to endorse him now.

Unlike the RNC…

Cliff:
.
Well, you know, what exactly are “local concerns” as they apply to Federal legislation in this case? Environmental regulation being opposed by local industry? Mortgage cramdown being blown off? Defense industry pork? Stimulus funds? Homeland Security funds? What?
.
The US Representative from NY-23 won’t be voting on local property taxes, but that person might vote on climate change legislation, or the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, or the review of the Patriot Act, or any number of bills whose ramifications are applicable everywhere in the country.
.
I can totally understand how representatives of specific locales can bring knowledge of how, say, NAFTA has devastated local industry, or how a local undocumented workforce has acted to drive down wages, or the specific effects of a national gas tax to congressional deliberations. I’m not saying that these concerns are “parochial” at all. I’m not saying that it’s a good thing in any way for a representative to be literally ignorant of the circumstances of their district…of course that’s not acceptable.
.
I am asking, though, what the concerns actually are, because liberal, centrist and conservative ideologies have different answers to those questions, too, beyond how a tax or subsidy or DOD or trade policy could affect a specific locale.
.
I asked, I said:

When you say “I would have voted for her based on what she knows about what we need in our district”, does that mean that you could have counted on her to bring more pork home to your area, or do you mean something else?

Local concerns are affected by a candidate’s political philosophy and principles –unless they’re the kind of conservative who talks a big game about “spending”, “taxes” and “the undeserving”, and then brings home every dollar of pork to local industry they can wheel and deal, in which case they’re the kind of scoundrels and liars we saw in the last Republican Congress…which should also tell constituents something.

I do not see how this is good for the GOP. Scozzafava being a moderate, it would seem that the majority of her voters will go to Ownes

[...] the original here: Scozzafava Suspends Upstate New York Campaign (Time Magazine) Posted in Yahoo News | Tags: gop, kurt, life, race « ABC 2009 Fall : [...]

OT, but in other wingnut news, Orly Taitz’s birther lawsuit was dismissed in California by a federal judge. Don’t give up Orly. Just like you, the truth is out there.

rusty, if you mean G W Bush conservatism – yes, its a good day.

If you mean W.F. Buckley conservatism – it’s a disaster. DDS was the candidate of small govt and personal liberties (i.e. – getting the govt out of people’s lives – gay marriage & pro-choice views)

Bush conservatives love protecting personal liberties, except when it interferes w/ imposing their moral agenda on everyone.

“Would a Scozzafava victory have been a bad day for conservatism, or the GOP for that matter?”

.
As a matter of fact, yes. Her as stuart likes to call it “centrist” ideals, but I like to call it “progressive” ideals fly in the face of true conservativism.
.
As stuart alluded to below, she was in favor of Defense of Marriage Act, repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, increased spending and further taxation, broadening the powers of the Government in general, and simply she was only “conservative” in name on by choosing the Republican Party as her party of choice. She is McCain extreme.
.
Doug Hoffman represents the ideals of conservativism, and everything that represents what the Reagan Republicans felt were the best, and still show today as being the best policies and practices with our government policies. Period.

The 23rd district is more right leaning than left, allthingsinaname. I posted the voter eligible data above.
.
Given that more people vote Republican in this district, one would assume that their ideology is more conservative than liberal. Those who support a more liberal social value, for example, repeal of don’t ask, don’t tell, they will vote for the Democrat Owen. However I can’t believe that this is an issue that would bump the Democrat into the lead at all.
.
If their concern is more to prevent more of the wasteful spending in Washington. The crazed idea of passing health care reform laden with all kinds of Government intrusion into our health care, and a public option that will end up taking over health care and making it the largest entitlement program in mankind’s history, then they will vote for Doug Hoffman the conservative.
.
Hopefully the voters in NY 23 will see and hear those of us that oppose the liberals who are hell bent on moving us closer to a socialist government, and vote for the conservative. Even if they are of a more moderate persuasion.
.
Hopefully they can see through Nancy Pelosi’s vile and corrupt Congress, and vote to restore a more honest Congress that has the concerns of the individual at heart, and want to preserve the constitution as it is now written.
.
Hopefully since this race has garnered national attention, electing the conservative will send a clear message to Washington that in one year from now ALL of the Congress will be up for a vote. We can send a message that is clear to the likes of Nancy Pelosi that we do not like the direction she is taking this country. We do not like her brand of health care reform. It will send a message at least to the blue dog Democrats who have been elected in more conservative districts across this country that they need to defeat Nancy’s government option and take their hands off my health care. Blue dogs will see, hear and smell defeat in 2010. Once those old dogs get a wiff of that, I am sure Nancy and Harry’s Health Care Reform will be DOA.
.
Couple that with a possible defeat of Corsine in New Jersey, and Obama will have his cockles shaken. And, then maybe the Press will end their love affair with the most liberal President, the most inexperienced President, the most radical President we have ever elected.

The only thing I see is that GOP in a desperate move backed a candidate not of it’s own choosing. For a party that claims it’s independance from Washington, to throw it’s wieght against a locally selected candidate, can only backfire in the end.

The GOP is controlled by the far right as is shown in this race.

A victory for Hoffman is not a victory for the GOP.

Well, according to the Watertown Times, Scozzafava is quietly encouraging her supporters to vote for Owens, and the newpaper itself has changed its endorsement accordingly:

The Watertown Daily Times initially endorsed Ms. Scozzafava as the best-qualified candidate in the race. We still think she is. However, in suspending her campaign she released her supporters’ commitment to her. That left voters to choose between Mr. Owens and Mr. Hoffman.

Of the two, Bill Owens is by far the superior and only choice.

The Democratic candidate has demonstrated a willingness to listen to people about ways in which he could help the district as their representative in Washington. Mr. Owens has remained focused on the economy and job creation throughout his campaign. At the same time, he has shown an understanding of the military, a keen desire to help dairy farmers, an ability to work with labor unions and an eagerness to learn more about the vast, 11-county district that he hopes to represent.

Mr. Owens seems to approach politics and challenges with an open mind, a generous spirit and a can-do attitude. He has conducted a dignified campaign in comparison to Doug Hoffman.

Mr. Hoffman is running as an ideologue. If he carries out his pledges on earmarks, taxation, labor law reform and other inflexible positions, Northern New York will suffer. This rural district depends on the federal government for an investment in Fort Drum and its soldiers, environmental protection of our international waterway and the Adirondack Park, and the livelihood of all our dairy farmers across the district, among other support. Our representative cannot be locked into rigid promises and policies that would jeopardize these critical sectors of our economy.

For a member of Congress, there may be a time to promote reform in Washington, but there is also a time to work within a system that best serves the people you represent.

It is frightening that Mr. Hoffman is so beholden to right-wing ideologues who dismiss Northern New Yorkers as parochial when people here simply want to know how Mr. Hoffman will protect their interests in Washington.

As an update the newspaper for that district and evidently Scozzafava herself are now encouraging her supporters to back the Democrat Owens. You might want to check out this scathing editorial by the newspaper who had initally endorsed Sozzafava.
.
http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20091101/OPINION01/311019918/-1/OPINION
.
I said this a long time ago but just as a reminder, this just shows that the GOP isn’t headed into the wilderness, they are headed into the abyss. They have driven themselves off a cliff and whether people want to admit it or not it all started with Sarah Palin being picked as McCain’s VP candidate.

McCain, extreme? Hmmm….
I think your notion of conservatism puts you on the extreme fringe of the movement, Rusty. I’m not sure what your views are on the Bush administration, but he certainly wasn’t a small-government advocate. Perhaps in rhetoric, but certainly not in implementation. He was a President in a long line of Presidents since Teddy Roosevelt who have increasingly expanded executive power over that of representative bodies. I’m with Charlie Kennedy on this, the conservatism to which you purportedly subscribe is not aligned with that espoused by William Buckley, to whom I owe my conservative allegiance.

I stand corrected. I assumed since he was a Democrat, he was a progressive.
.
It makes sense though as I learn about the landscape of the 23rd.

It started long before, sg. Looooooong before. Their message has been tailored for the post Civil Rights disaffected, which was big in the 70s and 80s.
.
They didn’t notice during their heyday, that the nations’ population was getting smarter, more thoughtful, and having kids that simply didn’t carry the baggage that the GOP traded in.

Um Rusty:
.
Cockles are an edible bivalve mollusk. If Obama has any, they will be found on his dinner plate, not between his legs.
.
As for you…

[...] is the example post: Scozzafava Suspends Upstate New royalty Campaign (Time Magazine) Share and [...]

As usual, the facts don’t support the conservatives’ belief that Scozzafava’s exit marks a turning point — in an upward direction — in the fortunes of conservative beliefs.

Last week’s WSJ/NBC Poll highlights the results of this summer’s town hall screaming:

In fact, disapproval of the Republican Party actually has ticked upward, along with the public’s general pessimism. Asked which political party should control Congress after next year’s midterm elections, Democrats now hold a clear edge over the GOP, 46% to 38%, a month after the Republicans were nearly as popular. In September, the Democratic edge was 43% to 40%.

The poll also showed self-identifying Republicans at 17%, while self-identifying Democrats were at 30%. (Check the pdf of the full poll results.) This tracks closely with a number of other polls that indicate a continued fall-off in self-identifying Republicans, particularly since the screaming contingent invaded town halls this summer.

As for conservative claims of some sort of national awakening or uprising, the facts don’t bear that out, either.

According to the poll, all that summertime screaming has faded into the distant past:

A government-run insurance plan that competes with private insurance plans – the so-called public option — is now backed by 48%, compared with 42% who oppose it. In September, 48% opposed it while 46% supported it. In the rough month of August, when noisy town-hall meetings were tarnishing the president’s health-care push, 47% opposed the public option and only 43% favored it.

The facts suggest that conservative claims of a national uprising against Obama and his policies is a dream that is occurring mostly in their own minds, or among their fellow Tea Party celebrants. Glenn Beck is leading an increasingly marginalized parade, by any measure.

Republican office holders and office seekers must be wondering just what type of rhetoric they’ll have to spout to survive in a political environment controlled by the extreme 17%-23% of their party. Will they have to sign on to birther conspiracy theories? Resort to calling Obama a “Marxist?” Call out Michelle Obama for her choice of dress at a Medal of Honor ceremony?

Because the numbers are proving just how popular the Tea Party sloganeering has made the GOP and its lack of policies.

Beck may continue to lead his parade of his devoted followers, and the GOP with them, right off a cliff.

I think that this is a discussion that should be had publicly between conservatives, not just because it’s so intellectually interesting to those of us who don’t fully understand how these contradictions can exist, but because conservatism as a political philosophy can’t be coherent in thought or application, which means to me –as an American– that our country’s political process suffers.
.
How can both of you be conservatives?
.
How can both of you be right?

U.S. Rep James Sensenbrenner (R, WI) started a round-them-up immigration bill in early 2006, that the GOP backed and resulted in millions of Hispanic-Americans voting Democratic in the ’06 and ’08 election cycles — found a cool site; Balkingpoints ; awesome satellite view of earth

The most liberal President was FDR, you slapnuts. If you’re going to bash liberals do it right.

That makes more sense, then, SZ.
Part of what I was thinking of, though, is the Watertown Daily Times’ declaration that Hoffman doesn’t have any idea what the local issues are.

Scozzafava endorses the Dem, Owens.

Thanks for the link. It’s hard for me to imagine Owens winning in the 23rd. Tuesday should be interesting.

Agreed, sacred. Hoffman probably still wins. And rusty and company will declare a game-changing victory for the Tea Party contingent.
.
I hope the town hall screamers continue to force GOP candidates to tack right. The mistake rusty and the Beck/Palin wing continues to make is that there is some sort of upswell in opposition to Obama and his policies.
.
Multiple polls show just the opposite. The more strident they become, the more Americans turn away from them and, by extension, the GOP.

While I think Fitty is right about enteric fermentation–I think of Falwell founding the “moral majority” in ’79 or Robertson and the CC in ’87. The right has long held its chosen party’s leadership in contempt (not that much different from progressives’ scorn for DLC apparatchiks). I think of my mate in AZ who worked for nativist JD Hayworth, whose supporters’ loathing for McCain was legion long before his presidential bids.
.
But I also think SG is right in that the Palin nod, ironically carried out by uber-establishmentarian Mac, mainstreamed this movement in a way that even W. never did. Mac let the rabble into the inner chamber, thinking they’d be satisfied. Now he is, MS & co. notw/standing, irrelevant to the party’s fortunes. The lunatics are running the asylum. The interesting thing about this congressional race is it’s exactly what many progressives hope to do to our own wayward reps. Scozzafava = a blue dog in rightists’ minds. The fact that they’re acting/succeeding is to be commended. As always, progressives seem passive in contrast.
.
And this is, as I’ve been saying for months, yet another example of the right acting virtually alone in capitalizing on populist anger in America. The dems, should they continue to coddle bankers and the HIC, is facing a nasty reaction in coming cycles. The “don’t worry, only 20% approve of the GOP brand” defense is pathetic. That does not = enthusiasm of democrats.

Even if Owens somehow surprised everybody and pulled this race out of his ass, I wouldn’t look at it as a proxy win for Obama or the democrats. At most, he would be winning by default. A right leaning district going for the right shouldn’t be viewed as anything other than holding serve either. I think too many people are assigning national importance to a local race and reading far too much into it. I am interested in how the results are going to be spun by both sides.

sgw, I don’t think it all started with the selection of Palin. I think Sarah’s selection was more of a capper. The slide downhill culminated in Palin’s selection. I think the real decline started with McCain kissing the rightwing’s ass and abandoning his alleged maverick roots. He was pretty much screwed no matter what. He couldn’t win the primaries without the evangelical conservative base which p!ssed off his own core supporters. He couldn’t hold onto the evangelicals without the people Sarah energized. He couldn’t win the general election because he changed and Sarah scared everybody else. IMHO.

And speaking of populism…
.
The People vs The Elites, by digby
.
On the Stephanopoulos round table this morning they pretty much agreed that the Democrats have huge, huge problems coming up in 2010 because of health care reform. (In suffering or prosperity, it’s always good news for Republicans.) But Ron Brownstein drew the landscape rather adroitly, I thought:
.
The heart of the choice is whether either George or Al — Reverend Sharpton — is right about what Americans want from government, because what you’re saying (pointing to George Will) is that we have a fundamentally Reaganite moment here in which people are saying government is doing too much, we want it rolled back and what you’re saying (pointing to Al Sharpton) is that people are angry that the government seems to be protecting the rich and not doing anything for me.
.
And to the extent that Obama and the Democrats can portray health care as something that’s not for Wall Street, but helping to provide security for middle class Americans, they have a better chance of selling it than it might now appear.
.
I think that’s right, but I think he’s also missing the Republican play on this. They are going to say that the Obama administration protects the rich … and that’s why you can’t trust government, on health care or anything else. It’s not a Reaganite moment, per se. The message is going to be much more populist in nature, railing not just against the liberal elites, but the financial elites as well by virtue of the hands off approach the Democrats have taken to the banks and Wall Street. George Will may even end up hating the Republican approach. But that’s good for the Republicans too. After all, there is no bigger elitist than Pompous George.
.
The Democrats may be able to counteract this populist backlash with a smart rebound in the economy and a health care bill that doesn’t end up forcing citizens to subsidize obscene health system CEO salaries and corporate profits. But if they don’t, the Republicans can likely successfully make the case that the government and corporate America are in league to rip them off. Unless the Democrats get some piece of this populist moment, they will be left holding the ball for the wealthy and being blamed for the Big Government that protects them.
.
I get that the Republicans are clowns and that they may not be able to get it together in time for he next election. And they have some serious problems with their crazies right now, which includes some of their leadership. But it’s a big mistake to count on their ineptitude as an electoral strategy. They aren’t entirely stupid and are already forming coherent, resonant message out of all this. They happen to be pretty good at that.
.
I think both Will and Sharpton accurately read the public mood. But the problem is that only the Republicans are paying any attention to it.

“How can both of you be conservatives?”
.
Hmm, good ?
.
Kind of like how can Obama and Kucinich both be liberals, right?
.
Both parties have major ID crises. This situation will remain tenable until a 3rd party enters the fray.

The GOP continues its march towards national irrelevance.

The GOP no longer represents a single GOP Congressional district. Rather than reversing this streak of failure, the GOP leadership seems hell-bent on continuing it.

Yes, NY-23 has been a reliably Republican district. But, by and large, Upstate New York Republicanism is a wholly different breed from the Southern and Western neo-Birchism that Palin, et al. represent.

Hoffman will likely win this election this year. But aside from having the advantage of incumbency, there is little reason to believe that he will be able to retain the seat in 2010 and beyond. It will be fairly easy for the Dems to recruit a moderate Republican to cross party lines and defeat Hoffman. And it is exactly the type of ideology-be-damned political play that the Dem leadership is known for.

It is mind-boggling to me that the GOP wouldn’t accept that Scozzafava is perfectly acceptable easy win for the GOP and save their resources for more important seats.

That should read: The GOP no longer represents a single Congressional district in New England.

Oregon JC:

Kind of like how can Obama and Kucinich both be liberals, right?

Exactly.

Thanks for the excellent commentary, Oregon JC.

@sacredh
.
The national implications won’t be in the results no matter how they play out. The national implications came down when Scozzafava suspended her campaign. That is proof to any sitting Republican Congress person that they had BETTER swing hard to the right or else. Its also a sign that if they get challenged hard by a right wing idealogue, the GOP establishment will NOT stand behind them. Its also a sign that anything other than national party line orthodoxy will not be tolerated. That will scare away man candidates who might want to challenge a sitting Democrat. And finally it also says a lot to voters in Republican districts. The national GOP and especially any Republican jack @ss who thinks they have any chance at all at the Presidency do not and will not give a d@mn about their local concerns. Even if Hoffman wins I have a strong suspicion that the GOP as a hole will lose big time on Tuesday.
.
As for the people who say this all started before Sarah Palin, I don’t think most of yall got what I meant. As jcapan rightly pointed out, the GOP has been more than happy to appeal and pander to right wing idealogues who aren’t very bright for decades. But this was the FIRST time they allowed one of said dumb @ss right wing idealogues on their national ticket. And that allowed them to really believe that they not only have a voice but should be THE voice for the Republican Party. They started the teabagger movement thinking that it would rile up the base to take back Congress and the white house but those people feel like they are the leaders, not the followers anymore. And it doesn’t help them that people like Dick Armey are all too happy to take plenty of mone to keep stiring up these idjuts. He doesn’t care if the Republicans win another seat or not, he will get paid either way.
.
As we head into mid terms next year the same people who still really feel that Sarah Palin is qualifed to be president will be the same people pushing for right wing ideologues just like her to run for public office and challenge sitting Republicans. Its like Arlen Specter said earlier this year. Folks like the Club for Growth and Freedom Works don’t care about winning elections. They just want everyone to have the same platform that they hae OR ELSE. So again, while there was a definite out reach to the same people in the past, to me this is the first time that they were allowed into the inner sanctum. Now what was the biggest pander ever for a Republican candidate for the Presidency will end up ruining their party, possibly forever.
.
They say Charlie Crist is next, and while I have confidence that Kendrick Meek can beat Crist next year, if they can get Rubio to beat him in a primary Meek will win in a cake walk. I might just do some phone banking for Rubio in the spring. LOL

Amazing. Demos captured the White House and Congress running more as conservatives than liberals. After Obama won the WH the liberals were holding last rites for the Republican party. Now the excuses are already starting. If the conservative wins the 23rd no big shock. Liberals are on the verge of losing the governorship of NJ despite the mud Corzine has thrown and Obama’s intervention. Same in Virgina. Now liberals are trying to drum up more excuses to shield form another Olympic failure. For a party that is marching toward irrelevance they are giving Demos fits.

What is happening is that liberals can run as conservatives ( part of their basic lying culture) but when they govern as left loon bats, the public runs.

IMO, most of the ideological contradictions on the right have their origin in two central conflicts. The first is between conservatism and libertarianism, which much of the right tries to pretend are essentially in agreement or only conflict on minor points. This is not true.
.
The second and deeper conflict is between competing definitions of conservatism. Modern conservatism as a philosphy emerged in the late 18th-century, with radical social change, widening political participation, imperial expansion and the unreserved embrace of industrialization being what it was intended to oppose. And that opposition was based on a respect for a functioning status quo and a suspicion of those who greeted change optimistically. (Opinions I have a lot of sympathy with, BTW.)
.
Now though conservatism is grounded in a context of 200 years of radical social change, widening political participation, imperial expansion and restreat, and the unreserved embrace of industrializaton, in addition to a massive increase in government involvement in virtually every aspect of the society and economy. Social Securitple, for example, is the status quo. So depending on how you historically define the “status quo” you respect – as a 19th-century model of early indrialization, 18th-century agrarianism, or Mad Men-era capitalism, which was characterized by high taxes, low economic inequality, and social stratification – your conservatism will lead you to dramatically diferent political views.

Thanks for reading and considering (and arguing with) my commentary, Cliiff.

Rose:
.
I believe that the populist, agrarian model of conservatism has been dominant well into the 20th century in the United States, up until the middle of the century. The agrarian Midwest never truly industrialized, the extraction/herding West was slow and late, and the confederate South was greatly delayed in industrial development from antebellum plantation economy through structural Federal exploitation (Reconstruction). In some seemingly compensatory compulsion, the late bloomers of the industrial era US have fetishized their agrarian cultural roots, a phenomenon easily witnessed on tours of these areas. There is an ideal farming village and town market at the heart of Red State nostalgia that did truly once exist right up until Mayberry was finally lost to the Interstate system. The cultural hegemony of modernism through industrial expansion, the pattern disruption inherent in statist planning and development, and the literal imperialism of the capitalist North East are resisted in local popular insurgencies to this day.
.
I’ve had anecdotes told to me by elderly Kansans about how New Deal electricity distribution and transmission programs were resisted by many agrarian communities simply because they believed it might (and of course it did) change their lives. The common refrain was “If God had meant for us to have electricity, he would have provided for it already. Electricity, therefore, must be the product of Satan, meant to tempt us from our providential ways.”
.
Elites –capitalists, especially, although academics and state officials as well– were frequently at odds with popular conservatism. Conservative populists were on the peoples’ side of the Scopes trial, you will remember.
.
Libertarianism doesn’t enter into conservatism until much, much later, and is a profoundly elite phenomenon. Free market fundamentalism exists in almost complete contradiction with social and religious fundamentalism, a point to which you also allude. Authoritarian, militarist rightism finds fulfillment in an omnipotent central state, which should be anathema to Federalism, if that were truly a guiding political philosophy. It seems to be the case that modern developments have fundamentally altered and confused conservatism, rendering much of it incoherent.
.
One wonders how Dick Armey reconciles himself with the atheism of Ayn Rand. One wonders how the Club for Growth reconciles themselves to a $663.8 billion Defense Department budget for fiscal 2010. One wonders many things about conservatives in practice.
.
One thing that I find so interesting about these contradictions is the emergence of an “optimistic” form of conservatism alongside a liberalism dogged by the pessimism construable from its critique of the present. It should be that conservatives should naturally be pessimistic –just as ideologically pessimistic as they are about Health Care Reform, for example.
.
I think that this is something perhaps to understand about the perversion of conservatism into an optimistic, unreality-promoting ideology from a naturally pessimistic, observable reality-promoting philosophy.
.
It seems to me that what conservatives starting with the Reaganites have done is to allow themselves to be sold an optimistic vision of the conservative future by denying that any change has happened, and therefore having no changing world of which to be fearful or pessimistic. They have somehow opted not to contend with change itself, but to viciously resist the idea that change has happened or is happening instead. This is what makes their current ideology incapable of coping with reality or governance, and what makes them catastrophically incompetent at management of the state, war or economy.
.
It is this transformation from the natural, reasonable pessimism of conservatism into the wild optimism of movement conservatism that accounts for their profligacy and inability to ever adhere to principles of fiscal restraint. It is the perversion of conservatism’s brutal realism into a brutish, indignant certainty (usually of pots of gold at the end of the rainbow) that overwhelms them. It is the conversion of an ideology of concerned doubt into one of feral faith in Providential will that condemns them to these wild swings between triumphalism and paranoia.
.
I could be wrong, though. I think that my analysis is at the very least incomplete.
.
Understanding and appreciating conservatism for what it is and what it was meant to be is very important, in my opinion. We liberals have a great deal to learn from popular movement conservatism, despite its many profound flaws.
.
Thanks for reading and considering this, Rose.

sgw: I strongly agree with you about the teabaggers. I think that the republicans are making the same mistake with them that they made with the evangelicals. The leadership sees the teabaggers as a means to an end but the teabaggers don’t see themselves as a part of the movement. They see themselves AS the movement.
.
Btw, I’m not sure if you intentionally meant “the GOP as a hole”, but it did make me laugh out loud. You were right in either case.

Firstly, can I preface this with “F’ing Yankees!”
.
The conversation here and below (SG’s contribution) is quite interesting. I wish I could agree with his conclusion, that Palin’s selection last fall, extrapolated thru Nov. 2010/12, spells doom for the GOP as we know it. Would it were so! IMO, it actually spells doom for America. A serious conservative opposition would inherently challenge Obama & congress to step up. But a GOP led by buffoons enables the dems to play it safe (& cozy with their corp. sponsors).
.
The question shouldn’t be “is this freak-show good or bad for ‘phants or donkeys”–that’s straight horserace, however tantalizing to political junkies. The ? should be “if it’s good for Americans.” Rahm & co. define victory only in pyrrhic terms–the cost to Americans, collateral damage if you will, seems to be of no concern at all.
.
If HCR is a flop, if it’s a jobless recovery come next fall, or the only jobs to return involve smocks and greetings, all incumbents are going to face a hell of a fight. The folks who’ll end up winning are those who’ve been speaking the people’s language (i.e. populists). Sadly, at present, it’s the faux populist demagogues leading them about by the nose. They know they’re getting a raw deal, they love them their pied pipers, but tragically there is no progressive alternative to the Becks whipping them into a lather.
.
Digby:
.
“Having said all that, there is great, HUGE value in this movie as an emotional, populist polemic for the left, something I’ve been screaming about since the beginning of the financial crisis. It’s extremely disheartening to see the administration and so many Democrats in congress completely ignore the political and policy ramifications of failing to engage in fundamental financial reform and fiery populist rhetoric at a time like this. This teabagger movement is happening in a vacuum created by a lack of interest in this topic by liberals who are so enamored of being members of the new “creative class” and the like that they aren’t paying attention to the cynicism and anger that’s reaching critical mass among average working stiffs out there. It’s easy to dismiss it, but very, very foolish. The issues Moore raises in this film will be answered on the right with authoritarianism, militarism, immigrant bashing and violence. It’s a recipe for disaster unless the left takes this on in direct, political terms.”
.
Rich:
.
“Wall Street owns our government,” Beck declared in one rant this July. “Our government and these gigantic corporations have merged.” He drew a chart to dramatize the revolving door between Washington and Goldman Sachs in both the Hank Paulson and Timothy Geithner Treasury departments. A couple of weeks later, Beck mockingly replaced the stars on the American flag with the logos of corporate giants like G.E., General Motors, Wal-Mart and Citigroup (as well as the right’s usual nemesis, the Service Employees International Union). Little of it would be out of place in a Matt Taibbi article in Rolling Stone. Or, we can assume, in Michael Moore’s coming film, “Capitalism: A Love Story,” which reportedly takes on Goldman and the Obama economic team along with conservative targets.”
.
GG:
.
“It’s true that some of the protesters believe in nothing more than Republican resurgence, and that this movement has become a tool of Fox and the GOP. But much of the citizen anger that is driving these protests and which Glenn Beck is channeling is more complex than that. It has far more to do with deep economic anxieties and anger towards the political establishment and its elites than it does allegiance to one of the two parties or standard left-right debates. It’s an overstatement to claim that “there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the parties” (see here for yet another example of that), but on many critical issues, the relevant breakdown has little or nothing to do with Republican v. Democrat or even Left v. Right. As the confusion around Glenn Beck and these protests reflect, those distinctions serve far more to obfuscate and distract than they do to explain and clarify.”

And might I add, as a Taibbi fan, that I’m hardly above voicing contempt for the teabaggers/peasants, but I think liberals who fail to perceive the genuine & justified rage involved, however misguided at times, should beware. On one hand, we have a conservative base who is enraged, motivated and committed to sustained action. By whom and directed against whom are almost irrelevant ?s It is, in fact, a tempest of considerable proportions, and whoever puts them to their bidding has a tremendous force at their disposal, 20% or not. OTOH, we have what Jane calls so vividly, the veal pen, with all the sustained energy of a$s-gas (at present at least).

sgw: I did misinterpret what you meant about Palin. Her place on the national ticket was a first for the segment of the population that she represents. God help us all if something like that ever gets elected.

jcapan: Their rage is genuine if misdirected. I keep hoping that their actions will discredit their movement, but that’s iffy. To me at least, their teabag parties are farcial at best. I think they realize that the system is broken but it seems that they want the same solutions that didn’t work in the past. I don’t know if you’ve had any face-to-face discussions with any of them, but the ones I’ve talked to aren’t interested in anything anyone else has to say. I had a half hour conversation with one Saturday night and it was a bit of an eye opener. I’ve known the guy for over 30 years and even though he did 80% of the talking, I don’t think he made one minute’s worth of sense. Somehow the job he got laid off from almost TWO years ago is Obama’s fault. Yes, he’s a Fox devotee.

You know you would think that Time magazine would have updated this post now to reflect the fact that Scozzafava actually HAS endorsed the Democrat in the race. But then again why should Time magazine actually start running this blog as if it were professionally done now?

Maybe because a northeast “Republican” finally becoming a Democrat by registration is not exactly earth shattering news (Chafee, Specter et al).

If they wanted to make news they could calculate the margin of fraud that a Republican candidate will need to overcome as SEIU and ACORN are no doubt fully scrambled at this point.

[...] the Siena poll was conducted around the time Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava – who had already dropped out of the race – endorsed her Democratic opponent, most of those polled probably had not yet heard [...]

[...] to represent New York's 23rd congressional district. (Scozzafava's endorsement yesterday – after she dropped out of the race on Saturday – threw what was already a turbulent contest into even more chaos. Democrat [...]

One thing to consider is that a good portion of Dede’s base was from Unions that normally lean democratic. They are now united behind Owens, and no longer split.

Dede’s husband is the president of the AFLCIO, hence the split union support in the past.

stuart, I know this is a dead thread but I just wanted to mention how much I appreciate your analysis of how conservatism has transitioned from grounded pessimism to groundless optimism. Now that you’ve mentioned it, denying that change has happened is a logical way to (inadequately) resolve the contradiction I pointed out.
.
I sometimes wonder if a new kind of agrarianism/environmentalism will prove the re-birth of a popular and rational conservatism. I don’t know if you’ve read Michael Pollan or other local food supporters, but I can see that kind of thinking being incorporated into conservatism. Honestly, I can actually imagine being a conservative if there were a genuine conservative alternative that was based on “brutal pessimism” and free of racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. I have great respect for conservatism: I’m not a cold observer dissecting something I have no affection for.
.
jcapan, I keep missing your posts in real-time but I wanted to congratulate you on your new fatherhood, in case you happen to read this. All the best to you and your family!

She did not endorse conservatives because she is not a “conservative” ……………she wanted to run for office…as a Rep. She is more like a Dem. and we “conservatives” are not going to support someone like her even if they are using the Rep. name….Can you understand that? …..we want a “CONSERVATIVE”

I hope more people like Hoffman steps up to the plate…………He is what we need………people outside of Washington…………….We have too many lawyers in Congress now. They were elected to serve and all they so is lobby and try to get rich. They spend our tax money and when they don’t have enough they tax us more to pay for the bills they run up………..We the American people are paying all kind of entitlements…….food stamps, utilities, day care, welfare, cars, cell phone, …………..my, soon no one is going to want to work because the few working will think why work…………..the unions have run our jobs out of the country but who’s fault is that? “the people we sent to Congress” ..When are they going to get it?? when we vote them out…………….and get people like HOFFMAN