Things to Come

[prole]

Watching the two wingnut factions of the GOP duke it out over the "soul of the party" during the next couple of elections should be fun! I especially like the part where the econowackos wash their hands of the financial disaster they created and blame all the party's problems on the religious kooks instead of their bankrupt economic and foreign policies.

 

October 27, 2009

Right Battles G.O.P. Choice in a Pivotal Race in New York

By JEREMY W. PETERS

 

WATERTOWN, N.Y. — From a command center inside the Days Inn here, conservatives from around the country are fighting to preserve what they see as the integrity of the Republican Party.

 

Urged on by leaders like former Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska and Dick Armey, the former House majority leader from Texas, they have come to defeat Dede Scozzafava, the Republican candidate for Congress in the 23rd District, whose views on abortion, same-sex marriage and taxes they deem insufficiently conservative for anyone running as a Republican.

 

They have committed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the effort and plan to run 800 radio spots, print 80,000 leaflets and recruit some 200 volunteers to work the polls on Election Day next Tuesday.

 

Many of the workers acknowledge that their efforts could deliver the election to the Democratic candidate, but they say it is more important to send a message than to win this race.

 

“This is the shot that needs to be fired to Republican leaders to wake them up,” said former Representative Marilyn Musgrave of Colorado, who was one of the most outspoken conservatives in Congress until her defeat last year.

 

The race, for an open seat in the far northern reaches of upstate New York, has become a contentious referendum on the party’s future, and its outcome will help shape what kinds of candidates the Republicans run as they look to rebuild their ranks in Congress next fall.

 

The seat — in a district where certain areas have been represented by Republicans since the 1800s, according to an analysis by the Swing State Project, a political blog — became vacant after President Obama appointed John M. McHugh, the district’s long-serving Republican congressman, as secretary of the Army.

 

Ms. Scozzafava (pronounced skoze-uh-FAV-ah) has been endorsed by the Republican leadership in Congress and by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and has received almost $1 million in support from the National Republican Congressional Committee.

 

But the conservative establishment in Washington is throwing its support behind Douglas L. Hoffman, an accountant from the Adirondacks who is running on the state’s Conservative Party line.

 

Mr. Hoffman had never run for public office, but he now counts Steve Forbes, The Wall Street Journal editorial page and The National Review among his supporters.

 

Ms. Palin provided the biggest thunderbolt last week, when she endorsed Mr. Hoffman on her Facebook page. “Political parties must stand for something,” she said. “Unfortunately, the Republican Party today has decided to choose a candidate who more than blurs the lines, and there is no real difference between the Democrat and the Republican in this race.”

 

While third-party challenges from conservatives are nothing new for Republicans, Mr. Hoffman’s candidacy is striking for the way it has galvanized the party’s base.

 

“The No. 1 victory will be to defeat Dede,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, which works to elect candidates who oppose abortion.

 

Ms. Dannenfelser, along with members of the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes efforts to legalize same-sex marriage, are helping to coordinate efforts on the ground in support of Mr. Hoffman.

 

At the Days Inn on Sunday, Ms. Dannenfelser, 43, of Arlington, Va., and three other organizers from the Washington area who have temporarily relocated to Watertown joined a conference call with conservatives from across the country. A small picture of Jesus and the Virgin Mary rested on top of the television, while the Pittsburgh Steelers game played with the volume muted.

 

Later, they held a recruiting meeting at the hotel, distributing yard signs and leaflets to local supporters of Mr. Hoffman. Andy Blom, 60, of Winchester, Va., told the crowd, “They say this is about the soul of the party.”

 

Democrats, who at first watched the Republican fracas with glee, have become more concerned about Mr. Hoffman’s chances of overtaking their candidate, Bill Owens, a lawyer from Plattsburgh. The party has begun airing commercials attacking Mr. Hoffman as an out-of-touch millionaire who supports tax cuts for the wealthy.

 

A Siena College poll on Oct. 15 showed Mr. Owens leading with 33 percent, trailed by Ms. Scozzafava with 29 percent and Mr. Hoffman with 23 percent. More recent surveys have shown Mr. Hoffman gaining, raising the possibility that the winner could capture less than 40 percent of the vote; a majority is not needed.

 

Ms. Scozzafava, in an interview on Monday from her campaign’s recreation vehicle, said she was trying to ignore criticisms from the conservative establishment: “All of this outside noise, it’s a distraction. But it does add a little fuel to my fire.”

 

Ms. Scozzafava, a former small-town mayor who now represents the area around Fort Drum, near Watertown, in the State Assembly, said that while her view of the party is more expansive than some conservatives might like, Republicans should focus on growing their numbers even if it means accepting candidates whose opinions are unorthodox.

 

“We shouldn’t be having a divisive debate at this time. We should be talking about the things that can unite us as a party and make us stronger as a party,” said Ms. Scozzafava, a supporter of same-sex marriage and abortion rights.

 

The conservatives who oppose Ms. Scozzafava have attacked her as they would a Democrat. They have tried linking her to Acorn because of her relationship with the Acorn-affiliated Working Families Party, and they have called her the candidate of big labor because of her endorsement from the New York State United Teachers Union.

 

The attacks have at times rattled the Scozzafava campaign. Last week, the campaign called the police after a reporter from The Weekly Standard, the conservative magazine, continued to press Ms. Scozzafava to answer questions after she declined to comment. Afterward, Ms. Scozzafava was mocked relentlessly in the conservative blogosphere.

 

The sometimes antic nature of the race appears have to helped Mr. Hoffman, who was to be interviewed by the Fox News personality Glenn Beck on Monday.

 

In an interview from a sandwich and burger shop in Canastota, Mr. Hoffman said Ms. Scozzafava’s nomination was a betrayal of Republican principles.

 

“She certainly doesn’t hold the Republican values that I hold, which is smaller government, less taxes, fiscal responsibility and not spending money you don’t have,” he said.

 

Many of the conservatives who support Mr. Hoffman have said that Republicans will suffer if they do not nominate candidates who support the party’s ideals.

 

“I think the Republican Party missed its first big opportunity to differentiate itself from big government liberalism and get back to being the party of Reagan,” said Mr. Armey, who now heads the FreedomWorks Foundation. “When we’re like us, we win. And when we’re like them, we lose.”

--NYT 10/27/09

[prole]

Not to mention the colorful and vibrant fringe organizations that are likely to emerge on the far Right as a result of this schism. Good times America!

[prole]

 

November 1, 2009

Upstate Republican Abruptly Suspends Race for Congress

By JEREMY W. PETERS and ADAM NAGOURNEY

NYT 11/1/09

 

A moderate Republican whose candidacy for an upstate New York Congressional seat had set off a storm of national conservative opposition, abruptly withdrew on Saturday, emboldening the right at a time when the Republican Party is enmeshed in a debate over how to rebuild itself.

 

The candidate, Dede Scozzafava, said she was suspending her campaign in the face of collapsing support and evidence that she was heading for a loss in a three-way race on Tuesday involving Douglas L. Hoffman, running on the Conservative Party line, and Bill Owens, a Democrat.

 

Ms. Scozzafava had been under siege from conservative leaders because she supported gay rights and abortion rights and was considered too liberal on various fiscal issues.

 

The Republican National Committee, which had strongly backed Ms. Scozzafava’s candidacy, issued a statement applauding her decision and announcing it was now supporting Mr. Hoffman.

 

“Effective immediately, the R.N.C. will endorse and support the Conservative candidate in the race, Doug Hoffman,” the party’s national chairman, Michael Steele, said. “Doug’s campaign will receive the financial backing of the R.N.C. and get-out-the-vote efforts to defeat Bill Owens on Tuesday.”

 

Yet other prominent Republicans expressed concern that Ms. Scozzafava’s decision seemed likely to encourage conservatives going into next year’s midterm elections, raising the prospect of more primaries against Republican candidates that they deem too moderate. Party leaders — including Mr. Steele and Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker — had argued that local parties should be permitted to pick candidates that most closely mirror the sentiments of the district, even if those candidates vary from Republican orthodoxy on some issues.

 

“This makes life more complicated from the standpoint of this: If we get into a cycle where every time one side loses, they run a third-party candidate, we’ll make Pelosi speaker for life and guarantee Obama’s re-election,” said Mr. Gingrich, who had endorsed Ms. Scozzafava.

 

“I felt very deeply that when you have all 11 county chairman voting for someone, that it wasn’t appropriate for me to come in and render my judgment,” he said. “I think we are going to get into a very difficult environment around the country if suddenly conservative leaders decide they are going to anoint people without regard to local primaries and local choices.”

 

Ms. Scozzafava, a state assemblywoman and former small-town mayor, was nominated this summer by Republican county leaders who quickly found their choice second-guessed by the party’s conservative wing. Many officials in the district, a vast expanse from the Vermont border through the Adirondacks to Lake Ontario, were deeply resentful of the outside involvement.

 

“They’re trying to bang 435 elections across the United States into the same mold,” said James Ellis, chairman of the Franklin County Republican Party. “It’s a detriment to democracy.”

 

Ms. Scozzafava’s withdrawal leaves a clear two-way race between Mr. Hoffman and Mr. Owens, a Plattsburgh lawyer. As such, the contest on Tuesday could offer a test of the debate that Republican leaders are having: whether it needs to adjust itself ideologically to expand its appeal to places like New York.

 

Mr. Hoffman, though running as a Conservative, had been endorsed by some Republican luminaries, including Sarah Palin, the party’s 2008 vice presidential nominee, and Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, a likely candidate for president in 2012. The swell of opposition to Ms. Scozzafava was reflected on conservative radio talk shows and in a heavy diet of television advertising supporting Mr. Hoffman that was financed by conservative groups.

 

Ms. Scozzafava did not say whom, if anyone, she would endorse. Polls in the district showed that Mr. Owens and Mr. Hoffman were each drawing about 35 percent of the vote; several Republicans said that at least in theory, her withdrawal should help Mr. Hoffman as Republican voters join his campaign.

 

The district has been solidly Republican since the 19th century and had been represented by Representative John M. McHugh, who stepped down after Mr. Obama named him secretary of the Army.

 

“In recent days, polls have indicated that my chances of winning this election are not as strong as we would like them to be,” Ms. Scozzafava said in a statement. “The reality that I’ve come to accept is that in today’s political arena, you must be able to back up your message with money — and as I’ve been outspent on both sides, I’ve been unable to effectively address many of the charges that have been made about my record.”

 

The decision by Ms. Scozzafava to suspend her campaign is a clear victory for conservatives in the party at a time when there has been a pitched battle among party leaders over whether Republicans needed to change their ideological appeal as part of an effort to recover from the losses of 2006 and 2008.

 

Ms. Scozzafava fit the model of candidate advocated by Republican leaders like Mr. Steele and Senator John Cornyn of Texas: one whose views might not be in keeping with much of the national party, but are more reflective of the district that is sought.

 

A primary is unfolding in Florida, where Gov. Charlie Crist, who is running for the Senate, is facing a challenge from a conservative, Marco Rubio, the former Florida House speaker. Mr. Crist has come under fire from conservatives for, among other things, supporting Mr. Obama on his economic stimulus package.

 

Republican officials said that Ms. Scozzafava decided to drop out after reviewing private and public polls that convinced her that she was going to come in third place.

 

One Republican who had spoken to Ms. Scozzafava about her decision said she was concerned that her candidacy was too divisive for the party and that the decision was hers alone.

 

“She didn’t want to be labeled as a spoiler,” said the person said, who requested anonymity because private conversations were involved.

 

Doesn't look like the right-wing nutjob genie's going back in the bottle without a fight. Thanks for everything, Ronnie!

Edited October 31, 2009 by prole