A Post Where I Get to Use the Word "Scozzafava"

Differing views seem to be emerging throughout the punditocracy on the House race known as "NY-23". By way of background, there was a three-way (heh-heh) race taking place in a special House election in upstate New York to replace a departing GOP Congressman who accepted a post as Secretary of the Army in the Obama Administration. In the case of special elections, there's no primary -- the party leaders select the candidate. The local GOP party establishment selected State Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava (quite frankly, one of the greatest names I've ever heard for a northeastern politician), while the Democrats nominated Bill Owens, an Air Force vet and attorney. The Conservative Party, which often cross-endorses the GOP pick, chose not to support Scozzafava, and instead nominated businessman and accountant Doug Hoffman.

The Conservative objections to Scozzafava centered around policy objections -- she is a liberal Republican who is in support of gay marriage and abortion rights on social policy, while opposing tax cuts and supporting card check on the economic side. After holding an early lead, Scozzafava's support dwindled, while Hoffman began to surge. But the three-way (heh-heh) race threatened to hand what had been a safe GOP seat to Owens.

This weekend, Scozzafava dropped out... and then endorsed the Democrat, Owens. Keep in mind, Scozzafava had received money and support from the national GOP establishment, including the NRCC, which ran ads blasting Hoffman.

The latest polls seem to indicate Hoffman now has the lead, although it's unclear what Scozzafava's endorsement does in the race. But what's really entertaining is the varying responses on both sides of the pundit class. Donna Brazile, who once ran Al Gore's Presidential campaign, tries to make the case that the GOP is on the verge of a civil war, in a column that was likely written before Scozzafava dropped out...

...National and upstate GOP leaders chose Scozzafava as their candidate after GOP Rep. John McHugh resigned to accept an appointment to serve as secretary of the Army. Scozzafava, who has received the endorsement of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the National Rifle Association and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, among others, is under attack from some inside the Republican Party because she is seen as not adhering to the strict principles of conservatism.

In other words, right-wing conservatives do not view her as ideologically pure enough to represent the GOP in Washington.

Because these two candidates are going after each other tooth and nail, Bill Owens, the Democratic candidate, has a shot of coming up the middle. If a Democrat wins this seat, the entire message on election night will not be about Obama or the two gubernatorial races in Virginia or New Jersey - it will be about the fractured and dysfunctional Republican Party.

Since the summer, Republicans have enjoyed a brief respite from being written off as simply the party of naysayers. With the nation's slow economic growth, bailout fatigue and a war-weary public, Republicans appeared to be on the verge of staging a comeback as they coalesced around an agenda of stopping Obama from achieving his single most important domestic agenda: real health insurance reform.

Now, however, the GOP appears to be on the brink of a civil war. Worried Republican leaders in Washington know that to win the majority of midterm elections, they must broaden their party's voter base - recent polls suggest that less than 25 percent of all voters are self-identified Republicans - and erase the many lingering negative impressions voters have about the GOP. But the bloodbath in the New York race indicates that the GOP will be stuck in the political wilderness for another electoral season for having forgotten one of President Ronald Reagan's golden rules: "The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally - not a 20 percent traitor."

To be sure, there will be some bright signs for the minority party on Election Night. Most political observers are counting on a GOP win in Virginia, where Attorney General Robert McDonnell has run a flawless campaign and Democratic state Sen. Creigh Deeds has not been able to articulate why he is running for governor. (It didn't help Deeds' cause among base Democratic voters that he snubbed Obama publicly.)

Meanwhile, in New Jersey, it looks like Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine, armed with a massive personal war chest, might just hold off his two opponents.

If the GOP is not able to bring all its factions under the same tent, the civil war could easily spread beyond New York and into Florida, Texas, California and beyond.

I don't have a problem with Brazile quoting Reagan -- I just wonder if I'm supposed to buy that Scozzafava agreed with conservatives 80 percent of the time. Over at the left wing dishrag, Frank Rich goes further than Brazile, who says the GOP activists "are re-enacting Stalinism in full purge mode." Matt Welch at Reason has fun with this quote...

For those of you keeping metaphorical score at home: Stalin's Great Purge (just to name his most famous one) included roughly 1,000 executions a day, over two years. The alleged Glenn Beck/Sarah Palin purge, meanwhile, has resulted...brace yourself...in a moderate Republican suspending her campaign for Congress to make way for a conservative independent. Yeah, totally the same.

Rich's column is silly for any number of reasons, particularly his claim that Hoffman's conservative bona fides are damaged by serving on the finance committee of a hospital that accepted a $500k earmark -- should Hoffman have resigned in protest, believing that Congress would have saved the money? I guess Rich's complaint is that the GOP is isn't aiming for enough ideological purity.

Glenn Reynolds may do the best job of summarizing what this is really about, in a column that also pre-dated Scozzafava's withdrawal...

The GOP establishment is worried -- rightly -- about the risk of a Perot-style insurgency in 2012. Ross Perot's 1992 candidacy tapped authentic populist dissatisfaction and anger, even as it doomed the Republicans and handed the White House to Bill Clinton. Nobody in the GOP wants to go down that road again.

On the other hand, the populist dissatisfaction and anger is out there again, and it has been for a while. Unhappy over immigration and spending, key parts of the GOP base stayed home in 2006 and 2008. They're even unhappier with Obama, but that unhappiness hasn't translated into a lot of enthusiasm for a Republican Party that many see as nearly as corrupt and elitist as the Democrats.

Though the media and the Democratic Party tried to portray the Tea Party movement as Republican-organized "astroturf," the GOP only wishes that were the case. Tea Partiers are still reachable by the GOP, but if the GOP mishandles things, a Perot-style challenge is very possible.

If Hoffman wins, or even hands the election to Democrat Bill Owens, the grass-roots activists will feel that they've sent a message, and will watch to see if the GOP establishment responds. If the GOP plays its cards right, and indicates that it's received the message that people want a hard line on spending and corruption and smaller government, that energy can be harnessed and put toward the 2010 elections. If it seems, on the other hand, that the GOP still doesn't get it, and if the response is condescending or dismissive, then, well, anything can happen.

If Scozzafava manages to eke out a victory, meanwhile, GOP leaders may be tempted to dismiss the grass-roots anger altogether. This is understandable, but they'd be better off remembering how nervous it made them, and taking steps to address those concerns, rather than dismissing them.

Likewise, if Tea Partiers get too carried away and full of themselves -- like the Nader Democrats of 2000 -- they will wind up handing the elections to people they really don't want running the country. The third-party threat is a good way to get the GOP establishment's attention, but, as they say, the value of the sword of Damocles is that it hangs, not that it falls. Like a nuclear deterrent, it's a threat that's best not employed.

Washington Republicans need to recognize that their constituencies outside the Beltway have been unhappy with them for years, and they need to change their ways to re-establish trust. Ultimately, it's not enough to say that the Democrats are worse. They have to stand for something besides a simple return to power.

For the grass roots, meanwhile, my advice is this: Remember that all politics is local. Got a local Republican officeholder that you don't like? Run against 'em in the primary. Even if you lose (and you probably, but not certainly, will) you'll get their attention.

And look at your local party apparatus. Everybody focuses on national stuff, but getting involved in your state or local party is very easy -- usually, all you have to do is show up. And even a few dozen committed people can make a difference in a congressional district. Party politics at the local level doesn't get a lot of attention, especially in between presidential elections, which means that those who do pay attention can have a lot of influence.

I don't know if Perot handed the race to Clinton -- that's a discussion for another day (I think a shitty campaign by Bush 41 also helped a lot). But otherwise, I think the analysis is spot-on. Brazile and Rich seem to think this is about some ideological test of purity being failed by longtime establishment Republicans, but they're missing what's happening. Grassroots activism is driving Hoffman forward -- the Tea Party movement and the Club for Growth effectively mobilized a ton of support for Hoffman, and those aren't groups identified with right-wing social causes. Point in fact, I'm not sure how someone qualifies to win votes from conservatives if they support abortion, gay marriage, card check, and Obama's stimulus package. Supporting one or two of these items isn't a dealbreaker (heck, I agree with her on gay marriage), but all four? If there had been a primary, Hoffman likely would have beaten Scozzafava's brains in. Scozzafava's not being chased out of the party by people who disagree with her -- she's not being selected to represent their views, because she does not do so. There's a difference. Scozzafava's best bet in an election would be to run as a candidate who would provide the best constituent service and focus on local issues, but her inability to attract votes indicates that many of the votes that she would get on such issues may be going to Owens. GOP voters who might have found these points attractive have another alternative in Hoffman, and one who agrees with them on more issues. That this runs counter to the views of party bosses is a feature to Hoffman supporters, not a bug -- they don't trust the party bosses who put forth Scozzafava as the candidate.

This isn't surprising, but the same people who champion political involvement by the masses when they're electing Barack Obama seem to be confused and upset by involvement from the masses who don't agree with them. Hoffman's candidacy isn't being driven by a revolt by ideological folks within the GOP so much as it is being driven by people who are fed up with D.C. politics, machine politics, party politics, etc. Reynolds makes the case that those people need to channel their energies into involvement at the local party level, and I think he's right. Some of the best political candidates for the GOP in the coming years will be outsiders to government.

The biggest mistake the GOP would make would be to ignore the folks who have been out protesting against Obamacare and the stimulus and now supporting Hoffman. It's not a civil war so much as it is a rebirth of genuine enthusiasm for conservative policy positions that the establishment right got comfortable quoting but never got around to enacting. That's more likely to generate future victories, if the party leadership actually listens.