Parochialism and Conservatives
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The race for NY-23 seems to have developed in a positive direction for conservatives. The liberal Republican candidate, Dede Scozzafava, has withdrawn from the campaign, citing money and “electability” concerns. On balance, the Conservative Party challenger, Doug Hoffmann, a largely by-the-book man of the right, appears preferable to Scozzafava, who supports abortion rights, same-sex marriage, and the Obama stimulus. Her departure gives the voters in NY-23, a relatively conservative district, something more than the previous choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
At the same time, while this story has unfolded almost as a conservative fairy tale, some observers have noticed unsettling aspects. Hoffmann, Rod Dreher notes, is long on ideology and short on knowledge regarding the policies relevant to his own district. Dreher’s local source has Dick Armey poo-pooing familiarity with local issues as “parochial.” The image of nationally known conservatives such as Armey–Sarah Palin has also endorsed Hoffmann–coming into upstate New York demanding that its voters consider ideology rather than practical local concerns is a poignant one. In fact, it illustrates the flaws of the conservative movement’s ideological fixation.
The mindset that produces a comment like Armey’s is that every election be nationalized, with an across-the-board consideration of national issues. Beyond the strategy’s intrinsic weakness in attracting independents–who could not care less if Scozzafava is “conservative” or not–it deprecates the actual art of political prudence. Arguably, one contributing factor to the Republican Party’s problems in the last few years is a tendency to prize ideological clarity at the expense of experience or a basic grasp of the issues. Sarah Palin, while apparently out of her depth on policy during the last presidential campaign, was nonetheless lauded for contrasting her populist conservatism with the elitism of “Beltway liberals.” Her continuing political relevance will be judged in the future, but for now her style has paid off handsomely with her quite decent book advance.
This is not to suggest that evaluating a candidate’s adherence to conservative principle is somehow irrelevant. Clearly, putting forth people solely on the basis of “electability” is political pragmatism at its worst. Nevertheless, being wholly unpragmatic yet ideologically pure is a recipe not only for electoral failure but also for recruiting very flawed candidates. Until the broader conservative movement embraces serious engagement with non-ideological issues, we will continue to witness movement elites denigrating legitimate voter concerns as “parochial.”
It is particularly ironic that Armey used the term “parochial” to disparage those questioning the political credentials of a conservative. The term itself is derived from the concerns of a parish. What could be more conservative than that dealing with local religious practice? “Parochial” is a term preferred by partisans of abstract universal rationality, i.e. Marxist internationalists and Jacobins.
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Sorry Oskar, but that stable door is swinging in the wind.
When you’ve got a pretty right-of-centre (you did check her voting record before you called her ‘liberal’, didn’t you?) Republican like Scozzafava throwing her support behind the Democratic candidate in a seat the GOP has held for over century, it says a lot about how the Republican Party and conservatism in general are collapsing into their component parts.
In other words, the inmates took over the asylum a – long – time ago, they just didn’t realise all the doors were unlocked until the power went out.
Um, the election has been “nationalized” because it is a by election.It is the only one this year involving a Federal office. The White House set this up by appointing the Republican seat holder as Secretary of the Army. Presumably, given his popluarity in a district that voted for Obama, he knew something about local issues. So, it is a little silly to talk about the big, bad national GOP party big shots coming in and running roughshod over local concerns. In any event, twelve Republican party county chairmen met in the classic smoke-filled room, and picked Scozzafava. So much for what the local electorate wanted!
Finally, one might be forgiven for thinking that election to our national legislature should have more to do with big, “idealogical” issues, than with purely local concerns. Even without the pejorative term “parochial,” the fact remains that there are three other levels of government below that of the United States (State, county and local) to which the people of the 23rd district can look to to deal with their local concerns.
Contrary to Tony J, Scozzafava is in favor of Obama-care and card check, as well as abortion rights, the stimulus, and same sex marriage.. She is, for a Republican, fairly described as “liberal.” She may be slightly “right of center” in the greater scheme of US politics in general, but she is not a conservative Republican.
It also looks like Hoffman is going to win! Despite Scoz’s endorsement of the Democrat, despite Tony J’s view that the “inmates” have taken over the asylum,” and despite your concern that “electablity” is not being given its due by an idealogically driven party. As with Palin, the electorate apparently likes Hoffman, despite his idealogical purity being too strong for the two of you. The voters don’t want “Me too” Republicans. Just as they didn’t want “Me too” Democrats (are you listening Mr. Kerry?) when the GOP was ascendant.
The voters want the opposition party to oppose. At least, that’s what the voters who the opposition has any chance with ab initio want. Right now, the GOP is ahead in the generic polls for Congress in 2010. Despite the certainty that the left bloggers and the MSM have in the “irrelevance” of the Congressional GOP, and their claim that “the people” don’t want a “party of no,” and so on and so forth. It seems to me that the DC Republicans have played their feeble cards into much better results than anyone could have predicted. The base is energized (tea parties, rallies in Washington, etc.).. Independents, many of whom are conservatives, and some of whom are actually more conservative than the GOP, are looking to derail Obama and his party next November. Obama has yet to get ANY signifigant legislation passed. He has adhered almost completely to Bush’s defense and foreign policies, retaining his SOD, his arguments in court, his wars, his “anti terrorism” policies, and so on.
Given all of the above, I’m just not seeing your fly in the ointment hang wringing!
So if there’s no such thing as “right” and “wrong”, or “good” and “bad”, but rather everything is “relative”,
Then you are exactly correct that any attempt to adhere principles is likely to lack a “local familiarity” and the kind of “relativity” what would warm the hearts of the LIBS who have gotten control of parts of the GOP in NY-23.
You had to work for that one, didn’t you?
I prefer Hoffman to the other two ideologically, but his knowledge of the district hasn’t been impressive. Because he has restraint (or at least seems to), he’ll probably harm the district less than his less restrained opponent, but there’s no excuse for not knowing your your local district.
Just to be clear, the rise of Hoffmann in the race is a welcome development and, were I a voter in NY-23, he would have my vote. Indeed, the overall health of our political culture does require a strong conservative opposition. But shouldn’t we hope that said opposition is not only principled but well-prepared and knowledgeable? It’s not an either/or proposition. Of course a member of the House deals more with national issues, but it’s off-putting to hear local issues–which, according to the local paper’s account, will be decided on the federal level–described as “parochial.” Obviously, we work with what we have, but is it too much to ask a candidate to brush up on things relevant to his own district? Here’s to hoping Hoffmann does precisely that, because his principles, by and large, are sound.
I am registered GOP and have been since I was old enough to vote. I decided that Hoffman was my guy back in late August, long before any of this came about. My decision was based on his conservative principles and actual conversation with him. I have weighed his seeming lack of knowledge of local issues. I think it is a ruse. The “local” issues in question were the rooftop highway, which has been off the radar for years and is not likely to come up any time soon, and Seaway energy and winter navigation; again, not really on anyone’s radar, unless they are a politician. Ft. Drum is the biggest concern, but I don’t take Hoffman’s rejection of earmarks as a death knell for the base. He’s proposing to introduce actual bills to specifically fund the base, out in the open.
Here’s what it boils down to: with the state of the nation as it is and with the direction it is heading, I don’t want to give another vote to Obama – Pelosi – Reid and co. The local issues will not matter if they are allowed to continue.
We were offered a choice between a Pelosi backed Dem., a Liberal Republican, or a true Conservative. For me, the choice was simple. Hoffman will have to run again in 2010. If he proves to the wrong choice, then we will get to decide again in a year. Perhaps the GOP will have gotten the message by then.
Ruddyturnstone,
Man, there’s so much wrong in your post I hardly know where to start.
NY-23 isn’t the only by-election this year involving a Federal office. There’s the one taking place at exactly the same time in California’s 10th. The only difference being that the Democrats are expected to win that one easily, so the ‘Liberal MSM’ aren’t nearly as interested in presenting it as some kind of referendum on the Administration.
It’s kind of odd to hear a conservative Republican defending Dick Armey’s ‘parochial’ statement. Would you be saying the same thing if this was a far-left third-party spokesman telling voters in a solidly Democratic district that their candidate was more interested in making a statement about the ideological future of the Democratic Party than with their parochial concerns? Or would you be insisting that this was an example of elitist contempt for local voters?
If you agree that Scozzafava is right-of-centre in the greater scheme of US politics, how does forcing her out in favour of someone much further to the Right help the Republican Party win national elections? Seems to me that it doesn’t.
Hoffman might well win the election. He is, after all, now running as the official GOP candidate for a seat that the party has held for over a century. The issue is what effect this will have on moderate Republican voters who are being told in no uncertain terms that there’s no room for them in the Party anymore unless they STFU and do as they’re told.
Dude, seriously, no one outside of the wingnut base ‘likes’ Sarah Palin. She’s a national joke whose presence on the 2008 ticket cost McCain a lot of credibility outside of the Washington Village. Any movement based around her fact-free brand of faux-populism is doomed to humiliating failure. Why on earth would you want that?
What polls are you looking at? The ones I’m aware of show the GOP losing support everywhere outside of the South and cratering under historic levels of unpopularity. The far-right Base might be energised right now, but so what? You can’t win elections with less than 30% of voters in your corner, and you definately can’t expand that percentage while purging the party of anyone to the left of Glenn Beck and Rush Limburgh. All you’re doing is handing the Democratic Party a permanent majority in Washington
Where, exactly, can I find evidence of the MSM talking about the “irrelevance of the Congressional GOP”, because I’m pretty sure it doesn’t exist. The MSM acting as a willing mouthpiece for and defender of the GOP, that’s there in abundance. But YMMV depending on where your own personal Overton Window is sitting these days.
In short, I think you’re guilty of projecting your own political desires onto an electorate that recently handed the GOP a serious ass-whupping at the ballot-box, and doesn’t seem to have changed its mind in the last year. You might like what Hoffman and the far-right interests who put up 95% of his campaign contributions are selling, but that’s – why – you’re in a minority.
Even shorter me – This is not good news for conservatives.
It’s funny that ruddyturnstone mentioned Kerry because that’s who Hoffman reminds me of. Can you imagine them being on a ticket together? Snoozefest!
Tony J:
You are the one who is wrong, on substance, in every particular. Let’s take it par. by par.
Par. 2. My bad on the existence of one other Federal election. But, there, in CA, the Democrat was expected to romp (late indications are that maybe he won’t, but that’s not the point). The point is that Obama, or his political advisors, managed to find a need in his Cabinet for one of the few Republcan Congressmen left in the Northeast. It was that decision which forced the by election. An election in a district traditionally held by the GOP in the House, but which went for Obama, was always going to attract national attention. So, while you are technically correct, my larger point still stands: it is the White House which is responsible for the “nationalization” of this election, not Armey or Palin.
Par. 3 is a non sequitor, and begs the question. The point isn’t what a left wing Democrat would or wouldn’t say. The point is whether local concerns should always be at the forefront. I submit, in elections to Congress, and particularly in a by election forced by a triumphant President in an attempt to further weaken an already reeling opposition party at the national level, they shouldnt. As for “elitism,” I will only repeat that it was the party bosses who chose Scoz, not the local people.
Par. 4 makes no sense at all. The 23rd district can support a conservative republican. Other districts can’t. Nationwide, some bending to the center might be necessary. By why is it necessary or desirable in the 23rd? Again, Obama has made this district a test case. He also is seeking more votes for his pet legilslation. Why should the GOP run a candidate who, even if she won, could be written off as a “liberal” anyway, and who would, in fact, vote with Obama and against the GOP leadership?
Par. 5 falls under the same reasoning. The voters in the 23rd are not so “moderate” as to demand a Scoz over a Hoffman. Everything points to just the opposite. Under those circumstances, and, again, the circumstances of how Scoz was chosen, who is that was being taken for granted, or told that they were not wanted? There is room for moderates in the party. But that’s no reason why the party should nominate a moderate in a district that a conservative can carry. All things being equal, why should the party, as an institution, favor a mugwump over a true believer? OK, if the district was in Staten Island, where a hard line conservative might well lose to a Democrat, that would be a different story. But it isn’t.
Par. 6. Talk about getting it totally wrong! It is exactly, and only, in the “Washington Vilage” where Palin is seen as having no “credibility” and considered to be “a joke.” The base loved her last year. She is the only national candidate the GOP had that stirred any kind of passion whatsoever. She added excitement to McCain’s dreary, half-hearted campaign. And, by the way, it is exactly the kind of contempt that you show towards “populism” that has the GOP in the mess that it is in. Since when was being popular, or being seen as standing with and for the populace, a bad thing? Wasn’t Reagan called “fact free” too?
Par. 7. Rasmussen has the GOP winning the generic poll for the House in 2010. Other polls show it close. All in all, not too bad for a party pronounced DOA in January, reduced to 40 votes in the Senate, crushed in the House, and facing an incoming opposition President riding a tsunami of good will and support practically unprecedented in American politics.
And, yeah, you can’t win with only the base. But you can’t win without it either. The base did not like McCain, so, even though he is “credible” and not a “faux poplulist” and not seen as “a joke” by anyone, he lost, and lost big. You have to start with the base. Rove understood this. So did Ailes. So does Axelrod. You, apparently, don’t. Get someone people in your camp can get excited about, and then try to spread that excitement to the moderates in the middle. That’s how you win. Not by playing to the center before the game’s even begun. Go ask Kerry how well that works.
Par. 9. I guess you’re just not listening. Every day I hear the MSM (outside of Fox and talk radio) write the GOP off as hopeless. Obama is Mr.Cool, and the GOP is a bunch of old, dying, bitter, angry, white, racist men. They are the “party of no” in DC. They are responsible for death threats against Obama. Their members are yahoos, crackers, “militiamen,” and no nothings, to the extent they are not flat out Klansmen or Nazis. That’s the MSM I see, not the one in your fantasy land that acts as a “mouthpiece” for the GOP.
Par. 10. The party did get its butt whipped last year. But there are signs that’s changing. The GOP is going to win in the 23rd, and VA too. They ran well in NJ. Obama’s popularity is way down. As is the that of the Democratic Congress. And, as I said, the DC GOP has played the parliamentary game very well, heading off health care, cap and trade, card check, and so on.
And, it’s not me who is going to buy what Hoffman and his financial supporters are selling, but the voters in district 23. Who is in the minority here? Hoffman, Palin and Armey? Or you, Scoz, and the good old boys who picked her?
Finally:
“Even shorter me – This is not good news for conservatives.”
OK. The Democratic White House kicks upstairs one of the few remaining GOP Congressmen from the Northeast. A guy who won re-election easily. But a guy who represents a district which that President also carried. A special election ensues. The GOP clubhouse picks a “me too” Republican, a supporter of most of the Democratic president’s iniatives, including those most opposed by Republicans and conservatives generally. Conservatives inside and outside the district work to get a true conservative candidate on the ballot, so the voters in the district will have a choice. That candidate goes on to completely steal the thunder from the fake Republican, who falls to third place in the polls. Then that fake Republican withdraws from the race and endoreses the Democrat. The conservative, still without a major party line on the ballot, goes on to win the election, and, one presumes, to oppose the Democratic president’s initiatives in Congress.
If that’s not “good news” for conservatives, what would be?
To Oskar:
All of that’s fine. But why highlight the one, minor “negative” in a story that is, overall, and despite what Tony J says, “good news” for conservatives?
So there was “heated” questioning? Then somebody there didn’t like Hoffman?
Was it that somebody who talked to David Frum, who wrote the article that was read by Rod Dreher, who wrote the article that was read by Mr Chomicki, who wrote the article that states as fact that Hoffman is “short on knowledge”?
Well, Tony J, above, seems to like it.
It seems that in an election where the winds were favoring the GOP, the Armey-Palin wing of the party managed to gift a historically Republican seat to the Democrats. One hopes they can work similar magic in 2010.
Oskar’s point about engaging non-ideological issues is well taken, and for all shades of the political spectrum. On what (should) matter most to Americans, both the Democrats and mainstream Republicans support crony capitalism and foreign adventuring to about the same degree. The Palin wing of Republicans favor an even more bellicose foreign policy, and domestically concern themselves with emotional issues entirely tangential to the rip-off and decline of the middle class. Their antics, while entertaining, make it easier for the MSM to avoid covering the issues that matter.
I think Mr. Chomicki has pretty much nailed the nature of Hoffman’s loss. Republicans had the better brand (Conservatism, once they decided on it) but the Dems had the better product (a candidate who lived in and knew the district).
I commute to work and school. I’d rather have a Kia car than a Mercedes tricycle, and the choice offered to Upstaters was analogous to that one. The GOP was lazy (and misguided) while the Dems stuck to their knitting.
I am glad this post has stirred such debate and drawn substantive responses from various sides. I think the criticism of local Republican party bosses selecting a moderate/liberal candidate is entirely valid. That kind of electioneering is often purely cynical calculation. On the other hand, the Hoffmann/Palin model–principled but somewhat lacking in competence–is not a good one for the future. I am willing to let such candidates gain experience and knowledge before running again, but I worry the dynamics of the conservative movement discourage that route. Obviously, politics is about passion, so raising concerns about the statist drift of Obama-ism is necessary.
At the same time, being an responsible politician also entails being knowledgeable of “parochial” concerns. I think it was precisely those local issues that helped McDonnell and Christie in their races. Ironically, it was the Democrat in the Virginia race that explicitly tried to nationalize the election and make it ideological. All in all, it’ll take some time to see precisely what lessons we should draw from these races. After all, there were only a handful of contests, so it’s not entirely clear what national consequences they will have.
ruddyturnstone,
It would appear from the result in NY-23 that the voters don’t agree with your political strategy for a conservative comeback.
Sure, the GOP will probably win it back next year, but the Palin/Armey/Beck wing of the Republican Party just lost the GOP a seat in Congress they’ve held since the middle of the 19th century.
These apples, how do you like them?
Another few points –
All the polls show very clearly that Congress is unpopular on the left and the right, but Congressional Republicans consistently poll much lower on favourability than Congressional Democrats, and Obama polls much better than either of them. That does not, to me, look like a political landscape where Republicans have a chance of taking back power in 2010, never mind 2012.
Regarding the MSM, wow, just wow. After eight years of their carrying water for the Bush Administration, front-paging every political event of 2008 as “Good for John McCain” and “A new problem for Barack Obama”, and then spending the last year running with whatever talking-points GOP Central choses to put out, you can – still – pretend that the Village isn’t safely in the GOP camp? That’s some mighty fine cognative dissonance you’ve got going on there, my friend.
There is no-one, and I’ll repeat that – no-one – in the MSM pushing the memes you mention about the GOP, not even actual liberals like Olbermann and Maddow. What you’re saying simply doesn’t bear any connection to reality.
For example, scanning the coverage of the elections today, the only important races appear to be the ones won by Republicans. NY-23 has fallen off the radar. Why would that be? Even though in the races where the result would actually effect the passage of Democratic legislation, Democrats won, that doesn’t fit with the MSM lede that only the two Gubernatorial races, which Republicans won, are important, and somehow represent a referendum on the Obama Administration.
How anyone can look at that and think there’s a Liberal Media in America baffles me. But YMMV.
So, if Palin, Armey et al didn’t intervene in NY 23, a RINO supporter of all of Obama’s important positions would have won, instead of an explicitly Democratic Obama supporter.. Wow, that’s a complete catastrophe, isn’t it!
The apples were rotten in either case. Still, the grassroots conservatives got involved in a district, and, within a few weeks, took a third party candidate from single digits to within a hair’s breadth of victory, and humiliated the RINO and the clubhouse bosses who picked her. Not too bad, all in all.
Next year, when the Palin/Armey team primary RINO republicans, there won’t be a 2 Republicans on the ballot in the general election to split the anti Obama vote. Next year, there won’t be an ostensibly Republican candidate who takes hundreds of thousands of dollars from the national Republican organizations and then endorses a Democrat!
As for the polls, again, go check Rasmussen. He shows the GOP up in the generic 2010 race. The other polls show it close. So you have no facts to back your position.
On the MSM, what planet do you live on? They have been on Obama’s team from day one. Can you honestly say that the MSM (as defined by cable and netwok news–other than Fox–the big newsmagazines, the New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR, etc.) were not openly rooting for and pulling for Obama every step of the way from the primaries to his inaugeraion? And,since Jan 20, that we have heard nothing about the GOP except that they are recalcitrantly standing in the way of Obama’s vision, probably out of racism, but certainly out of their misguided, negative, narrow minded, and out dated views?
Yes, post 9-11, the media gave Bush similar adulatory treatment. But that wore off by Katrina, at the latest. Since then, the GOP has gotten more than its share of lumps from the MSM.
Madow and Olberman, by the way, ARE mainstream media. They are on network cable TV, not some “liberal” blog or magazine.And they, and many others, push the memes I mention all the time. Did you watch them last night? Olberman didn’t seem to know it was election night at all–he had pithy observations about the World Series as his main theme. Madow ran months-old, stale stories about how (horrors!) conservatives actually organized some of the opposition to Obama-care shown at the “town hall” meetings this summer. I guess those stories were just more important than the Republicans winning in VA and NJ.
And, funny, I didn’t hear hardly any mention in the media of how well the GOP did in suburban New York. The Republicans took the County Executive in Westchester and possibly in Nassau, and took the County legislature in Nassau too.
The reason why NY 23 was downplayed, (it did not “fall off the radar”) is that it’s just not as important as the gubernatorial elections. Both of which involved Obama making personal appearances for the defeated Democrats. And it’s no big deal to have another, or two more, pro Obama Democrats in the House. Obama already has a supermajority in the House, a body in which the minority has very little influence anyway. Also, dog bites man is never that big a story. Democrat beats third party candidate is dog bites man. The story only had frisson if the election went the other way. And that’s not a function of “bias” A Republican defeating a super liberal third party candidate in a district in which the regular Democrat had dropped out would have been of no great interest either. It was the third party, idealogically pure “David” having a chance which made the story interesting, not the ulitmiate triumph of the major party Goliath. Duh.
Oskar:
Perhaps, if there had been a primary, a more “competent” conservative candidate would have been chosen. Palin/Armey had to work with what they had. Again, next year, when the challenges to the Rinos come in the primaries, things might be different.
Mr Chomicki, while you were busy with your little 90 degree pirouette to the right (“Oh, was I denigrating things-conservative? Actually I came to build them up.”),
David Axelrod, and indeed Bill Owens himself, were engaged in their own 90 degree pirouette to the left (“Clearly NY-23 was a microcosm of the national debate, where the other races were focused on local issues” and “This race was absolutely a referendum on the policies of President Obama”).
Stuck up behind Frum and Dreher, did you “accidently” repeat the same exact wording of the LIBERAL LIE? Surely you are not one of the stealth saboteurs that think we are too stupid to see them?
Come join the Conservatives. We are not perfect, and we have a lot of housecleaning to do. But at least you’ll have a shot at journalistic integrity.
Well, Oskar, congratulations. It appears as though you helped contribute to Mr.Hoffman’s loss. Any last minute voter who read your blog entry would surely have second thoughts about casting a ballot for the conservative Hoffman. But actually I think that political losses are a good thing. Political parties and politicians place way too much emphasis on winning elections and not nearly enough time on philosophy. I would prefer candidates that can eloquently argue for correct principles than candidates who can win but have no real vision or conviction about what is right. The latest incarnation of the Bush presidency was the best example. Bush was a guy that I liked and agreed with for the most part, but he was really not much of a thinker and the decisions he made strike me as far too uninformed.
ruddyturnstone,
Holy Baby Jeebus, but you are eyebrow deep in that Egyptian river and sinking like a stone.
The far-right wing of the conservative base just crashed and burned in NY-23, a race that the MSM were touting as a barometer of public opinion on Obama’s policies and proof of a resurgent conservative movement, throwing a so-beyond-safe-it’s-not-even-funny GOP House seat to a Democrat who supports Health Care Reform.
Now, in a world where this MSM was ‘Liberal’ and dedicated to making conservatism look wacky, you’d expect to see the front pages hammering home the great importance and electoral relevance of this stinging rebuke dished out to the Palin/Armey/Beck wing of the GOP by moderate conservative voters. After all, it gives Nancy Pelosi another vote for genuine reform in the House (at a time when the MSM is reporting she’s having rounding up Bluedog votes), and will have a genuine, actual effect on Obama’s agenda.
But, lo and behold, that’s not what happens. Instead, NY-23 isn’t the story anymore. All the MSM wants to talk about is the two Gubernatiorial elections where the Republicans won, opining that these races – really – showcase what America thinks about Obama’s policies, even though all the exit polling shows that local issues, not Administration policy, were the deciding factors for the vast majority of the voters.
Instead, it’s wall-to-wall “Good news for the GOP” and “Troubling times for Democrats”, even though all that happened was that two states that flipped from Republican to Democratic in 2001, eight whole months after Sept 11 I’ll add, when Bush had an 80% popularity rating, and yet somehow – didn’t – get covered by the ‘Liberal MSM’ as monumentally important verdicts on his presidency, just flipped back from Democratic to Republican, and have a combined effect of zero effect whatsoever on Federal policy.
And seeing this, you can hold in your head at the same time the two dissonant certainties that –
a) The MSM is reporting accurately on the relative importance of all these elections, because their coverage accords with the relevance you would prefer to see, and that’s not proof of any bias at all, except a mildly anti-conservative one as they haven’t highllighted some other races where Republicans won.
and yet –
b) The MSM is hopelessly in the tank for Obama, always describes Republicans as racist rednecks and irrelevant, and will never portray anything as good news for conservatives. Even though that’s the polar opposite of what’s actually happening, right now, in real time.
The rest of your post is just variations on this theme of Black is White, and I’m just not interested enough in it to play along. Things aren’t true just because you’d like them to be, or because the hacks at Fox News and on Talk Radio say they are.
Or in other words, Tinkerbell was a ‘fictional character’, not a motivational speaker. Clapping harder just makes noise.
Tony J:
Two Governorships are always more important than one House seat. Again, the House seat only got the attention it did becuase there was a CHANCE that grassroots conservatives could defeat not only the RINO, machine candidate, but the Democrat too. When that didn’t happen, it became less of a story for everyone but people like you, who have an ax to grind. As for Pelosi gaining another vote, again, you just don’t get it. She was going to gain another vote whether Owens OR Scoz won. That was the whole point, and the reason for the consevative intervention in the first place.
On the MSM, we can go back and forth all day. If you can’t see the out and out cheerleading for Obama, complete with Chris Matthews getting “a tingle” up his leg every time Obama gives his tedious, tendentious,stock speech, then nothing I can say will open your eyes. Yes, the media did recognize the importance of the Governnors’ races, but that’s because they are so clearly important that it would have zero crediblity if it claimed otherwise. Even bias has its limits. As for whether those races are a barometer of Obama or not, the MSM I’ve seen have leaned towards the “not” verdict, despite Obama personally campaining for both defeated Democrats, including three visits to the NJ incumbant. But, in the end, the media, no matter how biased, can’t pretend that the Dems. losing the governorships of these two states is a “win” for them because, obviously, it isn’t.
Your view is, well, the conservatives made a play and lost, so, that’s it, game, set and match. But NY 23 is only one race. It’s a warm up for next year, when conservatives can and will challenge many RINOs. And, next year, the playing field will be very different. Next year, the RINOs will be challenged in primaries. They won’t have the luxory of having the County Chairmen choose them in a smoke-filled room. And, when they lose in the primary, they won’t be on the ballot, won’t get any money from the national GOP, and, hopefully, won’t endorse the Democrat in the race!
You know what the results of yesterday’s elections show? They show people with preconceived notions making far too much of far too little. Simply as a statistical sample, Tuesday’s elections are far too small to draw large conclusions from, even if they were completely unambiguous.
Anyone who thinks that everyone who went to the polls in NJ, VA or NY yesterday and pulled the lever based on their desire to cast a yea or nay on Obama is a nitwit. Corzine was a deeply unpopular figure in NJ, and was the face of a state Democratic party soiled by corruption scandals. One could easily argue the only reason the race stayed close was Obama. With so small an election sample, you can’t gauge what might be a national trend v. a couple just plain poor candidates.
As to NY23 – if your idea of true conservatism is people like Inhofe, Coburn, Palin etc. you better be ready for lots of emotional satisfaction from principle driven defeat. People who like their meat raw and bloody might have no truck with the senators from Maine, but there’s a reason they get elected, and it’s not backroom machinations by GOP dealmakers. Coburn et al would never be elected to anything anywhere in the Northeast, and running candidates that far to the right will only hasten the extinction of the GOP in this part of the country. And it’s getting pretty close already.
I have an axe to grind? WTF?
Voters in NY-23, had an election day choice between a Democrat who supports Obama’s agenda and a third-party candidate espousing the kind of conservative ideology you wholeheartedy agree with, backed by a menagerie of conservative figures (including a former VP candidate) who made a – very – big deal about this being just the first race in a campaign to purge the Party of those considered ideologically impure and oppose everything Obama-related on general principle.
No one thought there was a chance that Owens would ever win that seat. I didn’t, you didn’t. The whole point of choosing a safe GOP seat like NY-23 was that the far-right conservative Base would triumph if they drove out the official GOP candidate and left the reliably conservative voters of the district with no option but to cast their votes for their guy.
That was how the MSM was covering this story.Had Hoffman won, it would have been presented as proof that Obama’s policies were so extreme that he was losing moderate Republicans and Independents to a resurgent conservative movement. Palin, Armey and the like would have been glued to those morning show couches, and NY-23 would have been the big story for a week.
But the conservative lost, badly, as moderate Republicans swapped over in droves to the Democratic camp. In a place where Republicans haven’t lost an election since the Civil-War.
That’s a – massive – political story right there, however eager you are to pretend otherwise. One that would have been hammered 24/7 on the talk-shows and in the OpEd pages of the MSM if the moderates had been Democrats and the third-party had consisted of far-left liberals. The lede would have been that extremists on the left were destroying the Democratic Party in a crusade for ideological purity, and no Democrat Congresscritter would have been able to leave their office without facing a barrage of microphones and demands for their opinion on what this meant for the future of the party.
But since that wasn’t the case, and the result turned out to be – very – bad news for the GOP, what do we hear? Crickets. Very somber crickets. No one is interested anymore. Which is pretty damned odd for a ‘Liberal Media’ that goes out of its way to make conservatives look bad, isn’t it? Really strange that the ideologically blinkered hacks you’re absolutely certain you remember lying through their teeth in order to make Obama look electable last year wouldn’t use the NY-23 result to drown out any coverage of the Gubernatorial elections you now suddenly find so important and interesting?
There’s reality, and there’s the spin the Conservative Media are putting on it. You’re making yourself dizzy trying to reconcile the two by pretending that the MSM just isn’t conservative enough – not – to be liberal. It’s sad. As sad as the fact that this thread is about to go under the fold.
It’s been illuminating chatting with you. Hope you stay well.