Republican congressional candidate quits race

(Note: See Joe Scarborough’s comments, below, about how the Republican party never learns. They keep thinking that they lose because they’re not liberal enough, whereas in reality they lose because they’re not conservative enough.)

Unable to raise campaign funds, State Assemblywoman Deirdre Scozzafava, the very liberal Republican candidate for the 23rd Congressional district in northern New York State, has announced that she is suspending her campaign and releasing her supporters. In recent days polls had shown insurgent Conservative candidate Douglas Hoffman running a close race with Democrat Bill Owens at about 35 percent each, with Scozzafava trailing far behind at about 20 percent. Thus her withdrawal will almost surely mean a victory for Hoffman. It is also a vindication for those Republicans, most notably Sarah Palin, who broke with the party and supported Hoffman, and egg in the face for the GOP stalwarts who backed Scozzafava, particularly Newt Gingrich.

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Ferg writes:

One word. Hooray! Ok, maybe a couple more words. Newt, wake up, grow up, smell the roses and get a life.

John Dempsey, who sent the item, writes:

Nice finish with your comment regarding Omelette à la Newt.

Clark Coleman writes:

Joe Scarborogh’s comments on Newt Gingrich in 1994 and on NY-23 are insightful. Newt is given too much credit for the 1994 successes, and his whole reputation is really based on that one election.

This was the day before Dede dropped out of the NY-23 race.

Scarborough: ‘Deja vu all over again’ in NY-23 [Robert Costa]

For Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman from Florida, the upcoming special election in New York’s 23rd congressional district brings back memories. The current race there between liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava and Conservative party candidate Doug Hoffman is but one battle in a long war, says Scarborough.

“It’s deja vu all over again,” says Scarborough, now host of Morning Joe weekdays on MSNBC. “It reminds of when I decided to run for Congress in 1994. The Republicans had lost in 1992 and the mainstream media blamed the defeat on conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Pat Buchanan for scaring away moderates.”

“People forget that at the time, Newt Gingrich and the National Republican Congressional Committee were seeking out moderate candidates,” recalls Scarborough. “They were looking for moderate to liberal women who they thought could win in tough districts. I was attacked by the national, state, and local parties throughout my entire primary for supposedly being too conservative to win. I ended up winning. Now, well, no one remembers my primary opponent, and I’m here.” Doug Hoffman, take note.

“Republicans will elect conservatives when given the chance,” says Scarborough. Yet it is the Republican leadership in Washington, he says, that so often bungles races like his in 1994 or the Hoffman-Scozzafava kerfuffle in 2009. “Even after I won the primary, I was told by the PAC community in Washington that I was too conservative to win the general election, that I was a radical extremist and only cared about abortion, cutting taxes, and smaller government. It was impossible to raise money since they had so poisoned the well for conservatives. They said I couldn’t win the general election in a district that no Republican had won since 1872. I ended up winning with 62 percent of the vote.”

“Almost all of the ‘moderate’ candidates that Newt and the NRCC were racing around trying to find in 1994 ended up losing,” says Scarborough. “It was the conservatives who won. The same thing is happening now in upstate New York. I’m really stunned that national Republican leaders didn’t learn from 1994, 2006, or 2008. Time and time again, the GOP has lost not because it was too conservative, but because it was not conservative enough.”

“Where have these people been the past four years?” asks Scarborough. “Why the NRCC has gotten behind [Scozzafava], who supports card check and the stimulus, is beyond me.” The GOP leadership, he says, knows that Hoffman is the best candidate but can’t seem to publicly acknowledge that fact.

“It used to infuriate me when Republican leaders from the House and Senate would come on television and defend President Bush for spending too much money, only to complain about Bush’s big spending and recklessness off-air in the green room,” says Scarborough. “They were blindly following. That’s why we got destroyed in 2006 and 2008. You would think that these people would learn their lesson. It’s clear, however, that the GOP leadership on the Hill hasn’t learned from their mistakes.”

“Even if the rest of America forgets about this race in a couple weeks, I hope that the Republicans in Washington are watching closely so that they can finally learn their lesson,” says Scarborough. “If they want to gain power in 2010, they need to be more conservative and support candidates who want to balance the budget and cut taxes. If the Washington establishment says that you can’t win like that, just look to the class of ‘94. We did it.”

Jim V. writes:

I’ve thought up a perfect name for the liberal Rino elite network that gave us candidates like McCain and Scozzafava:

La Scozza Nostra

It’s had me chuckling all afternoon.

Also, with a name like Dede Scozzafava, I’m wondering if it’s too late to demand a copy of this woman’s birth certificate—is she even in this country legally? As if a Kenyan usurper wasn’t enough, now we’ve had Republicans try to dump on us some Calabrian Manchurian Candidate. This might be a job for Sheriff Joe.

By the way, I’m really hoping that Obama’s plummeting poll numbers and the bowing out of this Scozzafava signals an end to America’s infatuation with Ethnic Chic. My father didn’t escape from Communist Yugoslavia so that his son would be lorded over by these fringe ethnic types with their rediculously long, improbable and impossible to prounounce names. It’s time for a re-embrace of plain-faced white bread Waspy Americanism.

I think I’ve just stumbled upon the most convincing case for a Ron Paul presidency that’s yet been made.

Cheers!

Jim V. continues:
Subject: Rediculous=Ridiculous

Yes, I misspelled “ridiculous.” Having to type “Scozzafava” three times in the same email left me somewhat lightheaded.

LA replies:

You’re suffering from Scozzafava Disorientation Syndrome.

I agree the name is over the top. But people get angry at me when I criticize outre names.

November 1

N. writes:

Oh, look, Newt Gingrich—fresh from discovering the real meaning of the 10th Amendment—shamelessly endorses Hoffman, the same guy he was trashing less than a week ago. Note a little bitterness in the opening sentence:

“The emergence of Doug Hoffman as the only alternative to a pro-tax increase, pro-Pelosi liberal is a victory for Mike Long and the Conservative party, in alliance with the national conservative movement and talk radio.”

Right, Newt, it wasn’t conservatism that won, it was “talk radio” and some national meddlers. Keep on peddling that, maybe you can join David Frum in a regular spot on CNN. And that reminds me, we have not heard from the Great Tent Conservative on this topic lately, I wonder why?

LA replies:

It’s funny you should mention Frum and Gingrich together, because just last evening I thought that with Gingrich attacking mainstream conservatives for being too extreme and dooming the Republican party (and what makes them too extreme in his eyes was that they opposed a pro-same sex marriage, pro-stimulus, tax-and-spend liberal), he was sounding just like Frum, and so the two of them ought to get together and work on building Frum’s New Majority. However, given that this New Majority consists of self-described conservatives who think that opposing same sex marriage and the stimulus bill are extreme positions that doom “real” conservatism and must be abandoned, I’d estimate that it will consist of about two people.

I said the other day in an e-mail that Frum and Scott McConnell, editor of The American Conservative, are individiuals who lack any center within themselves and float from one position to another depending on emotional factors, self-advantage, or whatever. Gingrich is another example of the centerless type. He speaks a great deal and sometimes sounds highly intelligent and substantive and so he impresses people. But for all his intellectual energy, his words and ideas are not connected to any center. There’s nothing there.

It would be interesting to do an article on this type.

James N. writes:

What an amazing test!

The “dump the RINOs/run a true conservative” faction’s prayers have been answered. A more perfect test of their theories could not be imagined.

All that has to happen is that Hoffman has to win. If he loses, the GOP civil war can resume.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 31, 2009 12:46 PM | Send