WATCH THE RACE IN NYSTATE….HOFFMAN THE ANTIDOTE TO PELOSI
WHICH IS WHY McCAIN A HERO AND A PERFECTLY NICE ZOMBIE AND DOLE THE VIAGRA SPOKESMAN, AND WOODEN PATAKI LOST….RSK
Hoffman’s Party
Posted 10/28/2009 06:25 PM ET
Politics: The Washington and media elites say Reaganism is finished as a political force. A citizen politician bucking the Republican Party establishment is proving them wrong — in of all places liberal New York.
In pronouncing Reagan/Bush political principles dead in the era of Barack Obama, New York Times Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus wrote, “It ended, at last, with the 2008 election, and the emergence of a president who seems more thoroughly steeped in the principles of Burkean conservatism than any significant thinker or political figure on the right.”
Tanenhaus might have trouble finding many disciples of British statesman Edmund Burke who ever backed single-payer socialized medicine. And as to conservatism being dead, a new Gallup Poll shows far more Americans describe themselves as “conservative” — 40% — than “liberal” — 20% — and it’s doubtful they think the president is their champion.
Ronald Reagan-style conservatism has come back to life pretty fast after the extinction-level events that the 2008 and 2006 elections were supposed to be. In both the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races, conservative Republicans are surprising pollsters and pundits with how well they’re doing.
The true shock, however, is in the special election for the vast 23rd congressional district of New York, in the northernmost part of the state between Vermont and Lake Ontario.
The district’s 11 GOP county chairmen picked the most liberal Republican they could find, Buffalo-born Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava. There soon came an embarrassing endorsement from Daily Kos blogger Markos Moulitsas, who raved that she likes to raise taxes and is “to the left of most Democrats on social issues (including supporting gay marriage).”
Then, a funny thing happened on the way to the Republicans’ much-touted Big Tent. Rank-and-file voters found they preferred one of Scozzafava’s challengers for the GOP nomination.
Doug Hoffman, who has never before sought or held elective office, is now running on the state’s Conservative Party ticket, and the latest polls say he’s cleaning Scozzafava’s clock.
The northern New York accounting firm owner who helped organize the 1980 Lake Placid winter Olympics is even ahead of the Democrat, with Scozzafava trailing both.
It’s not hard to see why. Defending his decision to go third party, this lifelong Republican says, “I didn’t leave the Republican Party; the party left me.”
The former Army staff sergeant calls Albany the most dysfunctional state government in America, says Washington’s addiction to spending and taxes is wrecking the country, and wants to fix health care through tort reform and free-market innovations.
Hoffman boasts endorsements from former GOP presidential candidates Fred Thompson and Steve Forbes, and ex-House Majority Leader Dick Armey, not to mention the recent backing of 2008 vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin.
Sarah Palin? But isn’t that the kiss of death in a northeastern liberal state? This is clearly the thinking of those 11 local party bosses who chose Scozzafava, but with Hoffman having surged into the lead in late October, the voters seem to think otherwise.
Congress could use the presence of a CPA as it spends itself silly.
More importantly, Doug Hoffman represents a paradigm that could end the Nancy Pelosi Congress in 2010.
The surest way for the Republican Party to regain dominance is for it to recruit citizen politicians motivated by proven ideas, not cogs in the party machine.
Comments are closed.
