Duffy's Political Soapbox Home - Perspectives in Politics, Ink.

Representative John McHugh of New York (R-23) has found the siren song of a senior posting in the Obama administration too enticing, and has resigned his seat in Congress to become the President’s Secretary of the Army.

Picking off strong Republicans in districts or states that offer potential political gains to the Democrats by offering up ultimately temporary jobs serving the President, has been a growing hallmark of the Obama administration. McHugh’s confirmation sets up a special election to fill the congressional vacancy on November 3rd.

Normally, a race to fill this particular seat would not be a story. The District has had a definitive Republican bent going back to the Civil War era. The District’s current borders make it large, serving as the majority of New York’s border to Canada, all of Lake Ontario and the state of Vermont.

Since 1996, the GOP has never gotten less than 60% of the vote, and McHugh, who took over from center-right moderate Sherwood Boehlert in 2002, won 63% of the vote in 2006, when Democrats decimated the GOP in the northeast. He increased his margin to 65.5% in 2008 when hope and change were sweeping the country, though Obama edged out McCain-Palin in the District, making the seat interesting and potentially competitive for Democrats.1

But with eight days left before the election, Democrat Bill Owens is leading a three way race that features Owens lined up against a GOP establishment candidate, NY Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava and Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, a CPA with no prior political experience.

The ironies playing out here make the race irresistible for political junkies, but the entrance of national players into the race infuses the contest with an importance it doesn’t deserve and may shape a post-election narrative that distorts the meaning of the vote as a preface to the real contest in 2010.

First, both Republican and Democratic nominees were selected not by voters, but by 11 county chairs that represent the District. Hilariously, here is what the county chairs have come up with.

For Republicans, Dede Scozzafava. Ms Scozzafava is pro-choice and has voted in favor of gay marriage as an Assemblywoman. She has voted in favor of New York State’s version of the national “stimulus” legislation. In her Assembly races, she has accepted the ballot line for the Working Families Party, an organization with very close affiliation to ACORN. Ms. Scozzafava, in fact, is married to a labor leader in NY and maintains close personal relations to ACORN’s founder.

But wait, it gets better.

Ms. Scozzafava actually called the police on Weekly Standard reporter John McCormack when he deigned to pursue her outside a public event to ask questions, demonstrating, if nothing else, that Ms. Scozzafava has developed her own heavy-handed version of Obama’s play book for dealing with conservative news outlets.

During that give and take – before the police arrived - Ms. Scozzafava indicated that she favors “card check” legislation, the union method of abolishing the secret ballot which allows union chiefs to run wild in unionization efforts that may not have the support of the workers they purport to represent.

But the GOP nominee refused to answer questions on whether she would support health care reform that included publicly funded abortions, whether she would vote for health care that included tax increases and under what circumstances she would support tax increases. Increasingly irritated, she called the cops, which has now become its own, unhelpful sideshow for the Scozzafava campaign.

The Democratic chairs, looking to the change and direction of their party surprisingly chose Bill Owens. Mr. Owens isn’t a Democrat. In fact, he has not been registered with a political party since 1971, and had to register as a Democrat after he was selected. He is pro-choice, but against gay marriage. Markos Moulitsas founder of the toxically liberal Daily Kos has stated that Mr. Owens opposes the public option on health care but doesn’t have the, um, “balls” to say so.

In fact, if we needed additional bone fides on Ms. Scozzafava, Kos has endorsed her with unusually enlightened pragmatism, recognizing that she is the most liberal candidate in the race.

By Kos’ reckoning, if elected, Owens would join the hated “corporatist” Blue Dogs in the House, who are giving Nancy Pelosi such headaches with their moderation, while Scozzafava, if elected, will likely be a leftist pain to Republican leader John Boehner, drawn to Pelosi. And if she doesn’t change parties outright, a Scozzafava win now is good enough until the Democrats pick a “real” Democrat for the 2010 race.

In this regard, it does not help Scozzafava’s cause that she was unofficially approached by Democrats to run on their ticket for this race (deciding to stick with Republicans) and that she has refused to answer questions about whether she would run as a Republican in a GOP primary in 2010, if she were to win this year.

So, you have the Republicans who have nominated a liberal Democrat and the Democrats who have nominated an Independent.

Into the cauldron steps Doug Hoffman, who is running as an actual independent as the nominee of the New York Conservative Party.

By the numbers, Hoffman is running on issues championed by Republicans since 2009. He is opposed to the Obama stimulus; he supports market based solutions to address health care shortfalls, sequenced for implementation as the economy improves. He’s against Cap N’ Trade for the taxes it will impose, he has signed a statement promising not to vote for earmarks or raise taxes, and is pro life and opposed to gay marriage.

He is the de facto Republican candidate in the race.

But don’t tell that to national Republicans in Washington, and particularly not to the National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC). Paul Lindsay, a spokesman for the NRCC said, “We are prepared to assist Dede in whatever capacity...” And that national support has created a significant schism for Republicans nationally, as Democrats look on with delight.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who led Republicans out to their first House majority in 40 years, has endorsed and campaigned for Scozzafava. NRCC money was flowing to her campaign with the full weight of the Campaign Committee. Scozzafava was also endorsed – for whatever reason -- by the NRA.

But as Scozzafava’s views and history have become better known, national Republicans have tracked to back Hoffman’s candidacy.

Gingrich’s deputy in the ’94 revolution, Dick Armey, has endorsed Hoffman, providing volunteers and funds through his network, FreedomWorks. The Club for Growth, one of those detestable but very powerful single-issue advocacy organizations that populate DC has come out for Hoffman, as has former Senator Fred Thompson, Steve Forbes and, significantly, Sarah Palin.

So, according to the last poll out, the center-right district has split and the Democrat is leading with a plurality. Owens - 33%, Scozzafava – 29% and Hoffman 23%. The most intriguing thing here is Hoffman’s seven point surge since the previous poll a week before.

Stripped of the intrigue however, it is clear that regular Republicans are simply moving to support a candidate that reflects Republican positions when a closed-door GOP chairman’s-vote-only placed an arguable Democrat on the Republican ballot. Playing majority-obsession politics in Washington, the NRCC went along, recognizing that it is harder to unseat an incumbent than deal with a renegade.

But if there is anything that should be taken from the grassroots Republican maneuvers before this vote, it is that to win you need to stand for something.

Big tent politics is fine and ultimately necessary, but there must be something at the core that draws regions and demographics together; something more than simply holding a seat as the one-dimensional and tone deaf NRCC seems to be wedded to.

Dede Scozzafava is simply not the right “Republican” in this race.

But even before the vote, the liberal media echo chamber is gearing up for the battle ahead. The New York Times has already set the table, using its favorite word to describe the Hoffman-Scozzafava battle – “divisive.” In its increasing bouts in pronouncing the surreal, the Times called Scozzafava a “moderate” Republican under attack by radical conservatives.

Scozzafava is a “moderate” Republican to the extent that you can say liberal Democrats support tax cuts, business incentives, market-based health reform, reduced regulation, a national interest foreign policy and life of the unborn.

But this is where the battle is joined as a matter of political perception.

If Democrat Owens wins, the interpretation will be that the “radical right wing” of the GOP had its wings clipped and is to blame for the Party losing a secure seat in Congress. It will be an indictment for Hoffman supporters to “sit down and shut up.” It will stir an otherwise unnecessary debate within the GOP about the tactics and candidates it should field in 2010.

If Scozzafava wins, it will be in spite of the “radical right wing” doing all it could to undermine her candidacy. A threat, yes, but a threat that can be handled by “decent minded” people.

But if Hoffman is able to move the needle and pull an upset, all hell is going to break loose. It will be interpreted in the crazed elite media as a harbinger of a sinister remorseless, hard-edged and radicalized Republicanism that is completely out of step with the American mainstream.

You see, that is the all interpretation that Democrats have – and are going to need- going into 2010. It is that perception that Republicans must at all costs, stand against.

Consider that Obama has had the biggest drop in presidential popularity in 50 years, now at the 50% mark, averaged out. Unemployment is headed to 10% or more despite a trillion dollar economic stimulus.

By 49-39% Americans believe it would be better to do nothing on healthcare than pass the plan(s) before Congress, including 62% of independents.2 This, despite continued congressional action not only on a comprehensive plan, but one that includes the insidious “public option.”

Moreover, on November 3rd, Republicans are likely to be victorious in Virginia and may yet surprise in New Jersey, providing a fairly epic repudiation of Democratic governance overall to date.

The news stories on November 4th will contrast the vote with the current politics and legislation in Washington, forcing moderate lawmakers to rethink where their prospects are best represented.

Liberals will have no choice but to demonize the winning Republicans as something inconsistent with voter sentiment, a pretzel-bending enterprise that will be humorous to watch, but which will necessarily require sewer-level smears to gain traction.

But as far as NY-23, it isn’t a litmus test.

The Democrat isn’t a real Democrat and the Republican isn’t a Republican. Neither Party rank and file should be happy.

But Republicans have taken matters into their own hands and are backing someone who walks and acts like a Republican. Hoffman is no more the revival of some form of hypothetical Republican extremism than Chris Christie or Bob McDonnell are in their respective gubernatorial races.

What Hoffman, Christie and McDonnell represent is a missing tradition in today’s toxic political debate, particularly in Washington:

Common sense.

It is a potentially great opening line for 2010