I wrote this back in July when Dede Scozzafava was nominated by the Republicans to run in the NY-23 special election:
In endorsing candidates like Dede Scozzafava, the Republicans manage to pull a two-fer; they alienate their core conservative constituents while failing to win over demographics that have no interest in supporting them to begin with.
Scozzafava’s leftist inclinations will likely cause the GOP to lose one of its last seats in New York’s congressional delegation.
And I wrote this in August when Doug Hoffman was first nominated by the Conservatives:
New York’s system of fusion voting allows candidates to run on multiple lines on a ballot. A third-party’s endorsement can mean the difference between victory and defeat. Republicans running for office outside of NYC are reliant on the Conservative line in order to win. They’ve lost it in New York’s 23rd, and now with a third-party conservative in the race, they’re all but certain to lose the election.
And now, the day after the election:
Democrat Bill Owens won a special Congressional election in northern New York that has grabbed national headlines in its final days as it highlighted divisions within the Republican Party.
Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman conceded just after midnight while results were still coming in. At the time, Owens led with 49 percent of the vote over Hoffman’s 46 percent with about 88 percent of precincts reporting in New York’s heavily Republican 23rd House district.
Republican Dierdre Scozzafava, who withdrew from the race Saturday, still picked up 5 percent of the vote.
Ah, Republicans…no other political party can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory quite like you can. Will you learn any lessons from this? I wouldn’t bet more than a goose egg’s worth of greenbacks on it.
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Ferdi,
Excellent analysis and prediction! I recall very well reading it when you first posted it up. It will be very interesting to see where the GOP goes from here given their upset victories in NJ and VA. Hmm…
Any thoughts?
The Obsidian
Will you learn any lessons from this?
Likely the wrong lessons… that we need to be more inclusive and left leaning to attract liberal voters in NY. The alternative is of course to evacuate the state of NY and leave it to the libs. When there is no diference between liberal republican and liberal democrat, it doesn’t matter who wins.
Republicans have this obsession with being democrats. Why vote for them when you can vote democrat and get the truest form of what the republicans want and hope to become?
I know dyed in the wool republicans that refused to vote for McCain because if they were going to vote for a liberal, they might as well vote for Obama.
Until the republicans realize that the middle will go the way the win blows, but the core is conservative SMALL government types that will abandon ship.
The republican party should be put down like a lame horse.
Meh. Deeds lost in Virginia. Even if McDonnel turns out to be a RINO on a number of issues, better him that another Democrat in our governor’s office. The last two Democrats have been utter douchebags, especially Kaine.
A railfan who lives outside of the district, but in the rural part of the Capital District noted that Scozzafava could have won had the national party apparatus not bailed on her and backed Hoffman. Despite her somewhat liberal views, she was rather likely to win given this history of the district, and the fact that she was a mayor in Gouverneur, NY and an Assemblyperson for a sizable chunk of the district for nearly a decade.
More here if you’re inclined.
Who cares if “she could have won” if by winning you mean electing someone who doesn’t stand for most of what the national party stands for? If Obama had run as a Republican, the Republicans would still hold the White House…
… in name only.
India trades 7 Billion worth of US dollars for gold;
http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/006002.html
The Super Power is goin’ down, way down.
Anyone care?
Obsidian:
The VA and NJ elections don’t have much to do with the national situation – gubernatorial elections are largely decided by local issues. The NY-23 election was all about the national situation, as evidenced by what the candidates were debating about.
What we’re seeing here is a split between the GOP leadership and the conservative grassroots base. During the Clinton and Bush years, conservatism and the Republican Party were synonymous – if you were to the right, you generally voted GOP, and moderate Republicans were rarely if ever bounced for conservatives. With the rightists now willing to buck the GOP in favor of a third-party candidate, the Republicans are in danger of losing their core demographic. If I was Michael Steele, I’d be pissing my pants right now over this.
The GOP right now has two choices:
1) Win back their base by nominating conservative candidates and fully endorsing conservative principles.
2) Die.
That’s really all there is to it.
David Alexander:
That guy is an idiot.
If Scozzafava was as well known and respected as he claims, why was she dead last in every poll? How did two unknown characters show her up?
off topic but check this article out:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6898611.ece
the future of american men, perhaps?
Va also wasn’t an upset — Deeds had been way, way behind in the polls, Ultimately he was a stupid choice for the democrats — a liberal from the downstate boondocks in a state where the population centre of Northern Virginia is kind of purple. Northern Virginia just did not trust Deeds at all on local issues, and so he never gained much traction here. McDonnell is pretty conservative, and Cuccinelli, the guy who won the AG slot, is dead right conservative, and both are from Northern Virginia. So for Virginia I think what it means is that the idea that some democrats seem to have had that Virginia is trending blue overall seems incorrect, but it’s also true that the issues were not the national ones.
In New Jersey, the main negative there for Obama and crew is that his multiple appearances there didn’t do the trick. That’s not great news for him in a generally liberal Northeastern state.
Also the gay rights folks are now rethinking their strategy again in light of the continuing failure at the ballot box.
I doubt that beyond general “slackerism”. The similarities with the herbivores will begin and end with not working as hard since less and less men will be working to support a consumerist black hole of a wife. Japan has some very unique things going on so you won’t see any more similarities just like there is no non-Asian equivalent to Hikkomori.
Gold is now in a bubble just like housing was. I’m laughing all the way to the bank just like I was with the housing bubble.
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