Scozzafava drops out of NY-23; Black eye for Steele and Gingrich
by Rossputin | 10:27 am, October 31, 2009 | Comments Off
On Saturday, so-called-Republican Dede Scozzafava dropped out of the special election in New York’s 23rd Congressional District. The seat, vacated by John McHugh, who became Barack Obama’s Secretary of the Army, is now being contested by a Democrat, Bill Owens, and by the Conservative Party nominee, Doug Hoffman – who wanted to run as a Republican.
Instead, in the worst of closed-door smoke-filled-room politics, Republican “leaders” in the area selected Scozzafava who is to the left of most Democrats.
Scozzafava had fallen so far so fast that she had no chance of winning, though she did have a chance of causing the Republican vote to be split between her and Hoffman, handing a victory to Democrat Owens. Perhaps her dropping out was an attempt to salvage a political career within the GOP. Perhaps she just didn’t want to come in a distant 3rd in a three-person race, especially since she began as the nominal front-runner. More likely she’s going to switch parties and wants to become a hero to the Democrats in the area.
The big winners in this drama so far have been the people of the district with the courageous campaign of Doug Hoffman giving them a decent choice. The winner could also be the GOP despite the actions of two of its biggest names: Both Newt Gingrich and Michael Steele supported the RINO Scozzafava, damaging their already declining popularity and relevance.
It could be that Gingrich and Steele are guided by Reagan’s “Eleventh Commandment, “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.”, paraphrased by Denver’s own Mike Rosen as “party trumps person”. But at some point, policies matter at least as much as party. For the sake of our Republic, I hope we have reached that point. And maybe NY-23 is a hint that we have.
