Right Wing Nut House

I’m a little bemused this morning reading lefty blogs who are chortling over Doug Hoffman’s defeat last night. Isn’t that sort of like someone who’s been thrown in a sh*t pile and accidentally discovering a brass ring?

It isn’t just the raw results that should give Democrats a cold chill. The internals of the exit polls reveal several key demographic groups moving strongly back to the GOP including ex-urban whites, as well as suburban women. If that trend continues - and at the moment, that’s a big “if” - the GOP is back in the national ball game with several states that were trending blue like Virginia inching away from the Democrats and returning home.

Of course, the low turnout in these elections make it difficult to really pronounce such trends as harbingers of victory for Republicans in 2010. But moderates and Blue Dogs on the Hill think they’re real enough, which should, at the very least, complicate matters for Nancy Pelosi as she moves the health care reform bill to the floor. I don’t think the results changed anyone’s vote - and that’s the problem for Pelosi. She’s still short a couple of dozen votes for passage of a bill with a strong public option and what happened last night will just make her job of arm twisting Blue Dogs to jump on board that much more difficult.

Of all the results that came in last night, Republicans can take the most heart from the Virginia governor’s race. It’s not that McDonnell won - that was expected. But his margin of victory was astonishing considering that Obama took the state by 7% last November. Deeds finished 12 points behind Obama’s total and the other two statewide races saw similar massacres of the Democratic candidates. Again, it is perhaps folly to read too much into this race, but if you were to ask Axelrod (and if you were able to get an honest response from him), I think he would say that they were most disappointed in what happened statewide in Virginia.

New Jersey is an entirely different narrative. It is pretty clear that Obama’s presidency was a non-player in people’s decision for whom to vote. The issue was a scumbag governor - period - and the clear desire of New Jerseians to kick the bum out.

Nate Silver:

Obama approval was actually pretty strong in New Jersey, at 57 percent, but 27 percent of those who approved of Obama nevertheless voted for someone other than Corzine. This one really does appear to be mostly about Corzine being an unappealing candidate, as the Democrats look like they’ll lose just one or two seats in the state legislature in Trenton. Corzine compounded his problems by staying negative until the bitter end of the campaign rather than rounding out his portfolio after having closed the margin with Christie.

That’s pretty convincing evidence that, at least in the New Jersey governor’s race, “all politics are local” prevailed.

Not so in NY23. I am very disappointed that Doug Hoffman lost. As in any vote, it was a variety of factors that did Hoffman in. Was he “too conservative?” I doubt that. Hoffman wasn’t a bomb thrower nor is he a radical rightie. He was a nice little “gray man” as I called him yesterday, who didn’t impress the locals with his knowledge of local issues nor set them on fire with his personality. And I think the enthusiasm felt for him by national conservatives never translated into support on the ground in the district.

The Dede Factor probably had something to do with Hoffman’s loss. How much is hard to say. And don’t forget the machinations of the national GOP and state party bigwigs who foisted Scozzafava on the district in the first place. If Hoffman hadn’t been on the ballot, I am not convinced she would have won anyway. Owens centrism contrasted badly for the GOP with Scozzafava’s center left voting record as well as her open embrace of such positions as pro-choice and pro-gay marriage. That would have kept many conservatives at home last night watching “V” rather than heading to the polls to vote for the likes of Scozzafava. The notion that she would have won if Hoffman had stayed off the ballot is just not supportable by what we know.

From some New York commenters and correspondents, I am told that redistricting will probably make this a safe Democratic enclave by the 2010 race. We will see about that. It could be that come the mid terms, very few seats in the country would be “safe” for Democrats unless the unemployment rate comes down significantly, and a way is found to lower the deficit. In case you didn’t hear, voters are indeed angry. They appear angry at both parties, but Democrats come in for the lion’s share of the blame simply by virtue of them being the “ins” at the present time.

If I were a Democrat, I would be relieved that the night wasn’t as bad as it could have been. As a nominal Republican, I am pleased but very cautious. I see nothing from those results that shows me the voter is ready to embrace the GOP as an alternative to Obama and the Democrats. I think there was a lot of “holding of noses” by people in Virginia and New Jersey when going into the polling booth. I sense little enthusiasm for choosing Republicans over Democrats - something that can be changed only if the lessons from last night sink in with the mossbacks currently in charge of the party in Washington.

What are those lessons? Listen to conservatives. Not the ones calling for a purge of incumbents that don’t measure up to some idiotic notion of ideological purity. That way leads to madness and defeat:

But their success in Tuesday’s upstate New York special election, where grass-roots efforts pushed GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava to drop out of the race and helped Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman surge into the lead on the eve of Election Day, has generated more money and enthusiasm than organizers ever imagined.

Activists predict a wave that could roll from California to Kentucky to New Hampshire and that could leave even some GOP incumbents — Utah Sen. Bob Bennett is one — facing unexpectedly fierce challenges from their right flank.

“I would say it’s the tip of the spear,” said Dick Armey, the former GOP House majority leader who now serves as chairman of FreedomWorks, an organization that has been closely aligned with the tea party movement. “We are the biggest source of energy in American politics today.”

“What you’re going to see,” said Armey, “is moderates and conservatives across the country in primaries.”

Dick Armey is a fool. He knows full well that incumbents challenged in a primary are much more vulnerable to defeat in the general election than those who run virtually unopposed. And why the challenge? Does the member have ethics problems? If so, then by all means throw the rascal out.

The idea that an incumbent has “betrayed conservative principles” might be cause for removal but who are these national conservatives that they think they can dictate to locals and define “conservatism” for them? They may have their own ideas on how conservative their member is and to have someone else tell them they’re full of it - especially someone from outside the state or district - is a real recipe for a civil war.

I am coming around to the notion that the GOP has to blow their opportunity in both 2010 and 2012 for anything to change. Losing when you should have had a slam dunk win (as I think 2010 should be) might wake up a few people who need a kick in the ass. And that includes throwing out the deadwood in Washington as well as putting the radical righties in their place. Both groups are dragging the GOP down and, like a drunk who has hit rock bottom, will only reform when the alternative is more unpalatable.

UPDATE

Pete Wehner points to something I hadn’t considered:

Among the important by-products of this election is that it will encourage many impressive and capable Republicans from around the country to become candidates. They now believe, with justification, that 2010 looks to be a very good year for the GOP. If an individual ever wanted to toss his hat into the ring, this is the time to do it.

I wrote in both 2006 and 2008 about the way the Democrats far outperformed the GOP in candidate recruitment, and how that factor was one of the primary reasons for their success. There are several factors that go into recruiting a good candidate including having a strong base of support in some part of the district, some nominal name recognition, and, as always, an ability to self finance is seen as a huge plus.

I am willing to bet that Hoffman was not the best conservative candidate available in NY23, although not knowing anything about the district I can’t say for sure. But if the GOP can attract some up and comers, as well as a few old political hands who are known in the district who might be encouraged by what happened last night, more power to them.

There is no way to adequately explain how royally delicious the irony that can be found in this post by Jon Walker at Firedoglake.

To those of us on both sides who look in askance at the excessively ideological fringes of both right and left, the echo that can be heard in Mr. Walker’s piece from conservatives is eerie:

Bill Owens is a conservative Democrat. He is arguably more conservative than the official Republican candidate was (Dede Scozzafava dropped out over the weekend). For example, his opposition to the public option puts him not only far to the right of the bulk of the Democratic party, but significantly to the right of the majority of Americans. He was selected because he fit the Rahm Emanuel philosophy that the only way for Democrats to win right-leaning districts is with conservative Democratic candidates.

The theory is that a center-right Democrat will win the entire Democratic base, most of the independents, and a few of the more liberal Republicans. That theory is getting blown out of the water in NY-23rd. Bill Owens’s remaining competition is the ultra-rightwing Conservative party candidate Doug Hoffman. The vast majority of the district should be ideologically much closer Owens than Hoffman, yet Hoffman is leading in the polls.

If Hoffman wins it will be a big loss for the misguided ideal among some Democrats that the only way to win right-leaning districts is by diligently staking out bland center-right positions. Having a candidate that seems “real” and can really fire up the base is very important. People often vote because they feel elected officials are ignoring them and they want to send a message. Right now, there is a real populist rage out there directed at Washington in general.

Yep - even though the “vast majority” in the district should be supporting Owens because they are closer to his more moderate ideology, somehow, someone is playing a trick! Hoffman is leading in the polls? How is that possible?

Well, maybe the district is closer to Hoffman in their ideology than Owens. But that’s not possible because Hoffman is a radical, far right, loony tunes, ass-upside-down drooling righty.

Or, Mr. Walker has a hole in his head and his cranial matter has been leaking lo these many years.

Now read this from Mac Ranger:

The Republican Party wins ONLY when Conservatism is it’s core. Willy-Nilly RINOISM got us shalacked in 2006 and 2008. Trying to out liberal the liberals, quasi-Republicans made deals with the devil and got burned in the process.

Is that too remarkable for words? One state, two state, red state, blue state - it doesn’t matter. Those in thrall to ideology see things exactly the same only coming at the issue from opposite ends of the spectrum.

Politico had this piece of cheery news today; the True Blue Conservative Brigade will fan out across the country and attack those they see as too “moderate” to be Republicans - even incumbents!

Activists contend that the only way back to majority status is to embrace the conservative principles that the party jettisoned during the past decades once it became too enamored of power. To them, the issue is less about ideological purity than about the compromises they see the party’s Washington establishment making and what they contend is a lack of support for conservative candidates who are deemed unelectable by GOP solons.

“New York 23, on some scale, is the first battle of a larger internal Republican debate over how to define the party,” said former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, a conservative who is challenging Crist for the Senate nomination. “They want us to vote for their candidates, but they don’t want us to run for office.”

Imagine the cheering going on at the DNC upon reading this. Millions and millions of Republican dollars being spent to kill each other off. Brilliant! And then bloodied and nearly broken, some poor senator or congressman goes into a general election nearly broke and facing a well funded, attractive Democratic challenger. The result? Pelosi and Reid laugh all the way to January and the swearing in of even bigger Democratic majorities.

As I’ve repeatedly said, the circumstances in NY23 are unique and serve the valuable purpose of telling those mossbacks in Washington to recruit good conservatives who will remain that way once they get to Washington. But sharpening the long knives for incumbents? To what purpose? It’s not a question of “victory at all costs” but rather “Who’s side are you really on when these actions will help only the Democrats?”

Now Mr. Walker does not go so far as to advocate the targeting of Blue Dogs although that has been suggested numerous times on liberal blogs. But I’m afraid he is dead wrong about Doug Hoffman - who apparently committed the cardinal sin of supporting Glenn Beck’s “9 Principles and 12 Values” which include such radically right wing subversive notions as “1) America is Good.” And for good measure, Mr. Hoffman informed Glenn Beck on his show that he was his “mentor” - a very polite response from an affable, polite man.

Actually, Hoffman is a nice, pleasant, gray little man who’s about as radical as a chicken breast, and a lot less loony than some of his national supporters who want to imbue the nondescript Mr. Hoffman with qualities that would have made George Washington blush. I like the fellow - especially the fact that he is an accountant. Just think of a Congress full of accountants instead of lawyers.

Now that’s a conservatism I would pledge my undying devotion.

But note the chilling similarity in the thought processes between Mac Ranger and Jon Walker. The “key to victory” is ideological purity. Never mind that the district had little interest in voting for Scozzafava once they found out she was not much of a Republican - even for a reasonably moderate conservative district like NY23. And the voters up there are apparently ready to reject a moderately left Democrat like Owens.

Hoffman probably wins because he got a boost from conservative activists who trashed Scozzafava (sometimes unfairly. As I said in this post, she is far from being a “radical leftist”), and propelled the GOP candidate to the front by dint of sheer enthusiasm and successfully portraying him as the only “real” Republican in the race.

If he loses? Well then it’s back to the drawing board. Maybe they’ll be able to find someone even more conservative than Hoffman because, after all, the reason he will lose is because he “just wasn’t conservative enough.”

Unless the GOP is very, very careful, that may be an epithet on the tombstone of many an incumbent when all is said and done in 2010.

I don’t know why it’s taken me five years to realize something of paramount importance to understand if one wishes to make a living as a writer.

I am not the brightest bulb in the room, but I still should have grasped this concept long ago; the reader’s perception and understanding of what is written trumps the author’s own intent to impart meaning every time.

I don’t know why this fundamental rule escaped my notice. I am familiar with literary criticism, where certain schools dominate and great works of literature are examined through a particular prism of understanding. I remember reading a Marxist critique of Moby Dick that had me on the floor laughing. Another critical essay I remember reading about the Melville classic dealt with the influences of Shakespeare on the writer - a brilliant exposition of a particular point of view that forced me to examine the book from a perspective I had never imagined.

But isn’t it ironic that when it came to my own writing, I failed to understand that each of us perceives the ideas and concepts on the page in front of us through our own prejudices, ideology, upbringing, and other elements that make us individuals?

Imagine the hubris it takes to believe that, as the author, your perspective on what you mean is really what counts, and that any notions to the contrary are examples of poor reading skills or worse? That has been the delusion I have been operating under these many years. And while there are almost certainly times when people are incapable of understanding my intent, I suspect that for most who pass through the doors of this web portal, they glean the essence of my thoughts through the same personal prism that I use when reading others.

Now, it may very well be that one of the reasons this is so is that I am not always crystal clear in imparting exactly what I want to say in my writings. My wordy wanderings have great need of an editor, and I really do appreciate those who make an effort to understand my intent, my meaning. I realize this is not always possible, but insofar as my efforts to be precise in my criticism fail, I shouldn’t go off the deep end excoriating someone who may or may not have understood what I was trying to say through no fault of their own.

I don’t know why this is hitting me now, except that my post yesterday was criticized roundly by many conservatives who, in my estimation, missed the point of what I was trying to say. If the criticism had been grouped around one, general theme, I probably wouldn’t have given it a second thought. But in both the comments to the post, and criticism on other blogs, there was wild divergence in what readers found wrong with what I wrote.

Again, it may very well be that my skills as a writer are deficient to the point that the piece was incoherent to most. I know what I was trying to say but hardly anyone picked up on it - even if they agreed with it! Hence, I was struck with the thought that the reason this is so is because either 1) the piece was poorly written and inadequately reasoned in its arguments and conclusions; or 2) the piece was viewed through the personal prism we all use to process what we read and each perceived my arguments in a different reality.

It could be argued that some of both conclusions were at play - something I am incapable of judging to any degree of certainty. But even if it was more of #1 than #2, I still think I have literally stumbled across a truth that writers ignore at peril to authentically understanding the essence of their craft; perception and reality is in the eye of the beholder.

Or, more poetically:

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” - that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’

What is it that possesses certain conservatives to fool themselves so spectacularly into believing that they can create a majority out of a minority?

That kind of alchemy hasn’t been seen since Nostradamus tried to turn lead into gold. In the case of far right conservatives who think that they can turn their meager numbers into a ruling majority all by themselves, the disconnect from reality would normally call for an intervention - except they reject anything from anybody who doesn’t agree with them 100%. Nor can they seem to grasp complex political realities that would complicate their simplistic, ignorant view that their idea of what constitutes a “conservative” reigns supreme all across the land.

The recent Gallup poll showing that 40% of Americans see themselves as “conservative” was leapt upon by these morons as “proof” that their brand of anarcho-conservatism dominates the political landscape. Would that it were true. The fact that there are a dozen different definitions of “conservative” depending on where you live doesn’t seem to penetrate. And the pogrom they wish to carry out against “moderates” who agree with them on 90% of the issues they hold dear but fail their ever more spastic “litmus tests” guarantees Democratic dominance for the foreseeable future.

Why the name calling? Why the harsh, unyielding language? Because I too, believe this country is in enormous trouble. But the way the base is going about trying to overcome the political deficit that George Bush and his cronies placed the Republican party will only lead to permanent minority status for conservatives. In truth, the gloating being done on the far right over the ravaging of Scozzafava has led to a belief that the template used to stick it to the establishment in NY23 can be grafted on to other districts where “RINO’s” are running - GOP incumbents be damned.

The RNC, the NRCC, and other conservatives like Newt Gingrich erred in trying to foist a liberal Republican onto the people of the 23rd congressional district. On this, we can all agree. But when I read bullsh*t like this, a cold chill goes up my spine:

This showed just how bad things have become. The Republican Party has been hijacked. Conservatives have been driven underground by the RINOs and the DIABLOs (Democrats in all but label only). This leftish creep was insidious until we got clubbed over the head when the ultra liberal media picked our presidential candidate — the Gang of 14 tool John McCain.

We all sucked it up. We went along. We embraced the ticket in the spirit of AROO — (any Republican over Obama) — and we held our noses until Sarah Palin came along. Ah, just a spoonful of Sarah helped the medicine go down.

But now it’s time to clean house. Newt and his ilk will be relegated to the dustbin of history, and deservedly so. Enough with the old, in with the true!

A couple of hundred thousand conservatives fill up the mall on September 12 and Geller thinks conservatives have been “driven underground?” What kind of utter nonsense is that? Geller is a full throated member of the Anti-Reason Conservatives - those who reject reality in favor of persecution complexes, wildly exaggerated hyperbole, and a frightening need for vengeance against their imagined “enemies” - despite the fact that those imagined foes agree with them on virtually everything they think they stand for.

The idea that Newt Gingrich should be “relegated to the dustbin of history” - a not uncommon sentiment I’ve read over the past week - demonstrates a determined refusal to objectively analyze the political realities of the unique situation in NY23 and deliberately remain ignorant of the consequences that would have accrued if the Republican party had failed to support the Republican candidate in the district.

A good case can be made that Gingrich especially could have kept his mouth shut about conservatives rightly gravitating to Hoffman. His petulance with national conservatives who sought to replace the liberal Scozzafava with a more palatable choice was uncalled for and further demonstrates his unfitness for the presidency.

But kick him out of the party? Marginalize one of the only public intellectuals on the right who can speak to a broad cross section of America with authority and credibility? Perhaps that’s Newt’s real problem; the anti-intellectualism on the far right that sees any independent thinking deviating from their worldview as suspect. Or perhaps it’s just the idea that Gingrich, through his years of service to the conservative and Republican causes, has become a part of the establishment and hence, a target.

Who do these louts think the party establishment should have supported in NY23? There would have been no real difference if the DC Republicans had supported Hoffman or the Democrat Owens over Scozzafava. The result would have been exactly the same; the national party spitting in the face of local Republican organizations who chose Scozzafava - regardless of her admitted liberalism and regardless of whether her candidacy was rammed through by powerful New York state GOP bigwigs.

The pragmatism demonstrated by the national Republicans in giving Scozzafava the support they felt necessary for her to win is lost on the ideologues who can’t seem to wrap their heads around the idea that majorities are crafted by addition, not subtraction. Scozzafava would have been a beastly congresswoman, as unreliable a Republican vote on the issues as could be imagined. But Congress is governed as much by procedure as it is ideas, and when the whip is cracked by the leadership, she probably would have been with the party most of the time.

In effect, the base is criticizing the Republican establishment for acting like a political party and not a college debating society. The advantage of belonging to the latter is that you can pick and choose members based on whatever subjective criteria you wish. Don’t like the cut of a man’s suit or women with red hair? Fine. But don’t apply your ridiculous litmus tests to a political party trying to fashion a majority.

If you wish to deny membership into your ever shrinking club of “true” conservatives to those who you think don’t live up to your narrow, parochial, rigid definition, that is your problem. But if you care one whit about the United States of America, you would swallow your excessively ideological outlook on politics, take off the blinders, and realize that a party made up of lockstep righties who think like you is not only impossible, but the effort to realize that goal would be monumentally stupid.

The childish view that most of the base has of what it takes to turn politics into a governing majority would be amusing if they weren’t so obstructive in realizing that goal for the GOP. And even if Hoffman goes down to defeat, the wrong lessons - as usual - will be drawn from the effort to elect him. Sending the establishment a message to work harder to find and support good conservative candidates who can win in different regions of the country is one thing. That is an effort worth making, and I applaud activists who are seeking to send that message to the powers that be.

But sending the message to not only seek out conservatives for office but also replace those who fall short of being “true” conservatives in the estimation of the base is loony. It is this kind of gunslinging that guarantees a Democratic majority. It would be a huge waste of resources to attempt such madness. But that is the goal of many in the base who can’t stand the thought of “moderates” calling themselves “Republican.”

I believe in party reform. I believe the GOP should be a friendly place for conservatives - however they define that label. I believe that good conservatives should be running the Republican party and the conservative movement.

But above all of that, I believe in victory. And if that is not paramount in your mind, then you might as well switch parties and vote for the Democrat.

WHAT ANTI-REASON CONSERVATIVES? WHERE?

Bill Quick:

All you need to do to keep track of the thinking in the credentialist, careerist (yes, that describes Moran to a tee - he’s been trolling for some sort of DC establishment GOP job for, like, ever) nuthouse wing of the faux GOP, is read Rick Moran - or as much of him as you can stand to swallow without retching.

I wouldn’t drum anybody out of the party over abortion (though it isn’t my issue) or gay rights, (which I’ve supported for ages), but I would like to see these phony Republicans and fake conservatives remove themselves to the party that mirrors their views.

As to the charge that I want a job in DC - been there, done that and have absolutely no desire to go back. Obviously, Mr. Slowwitted believes DC is the destination of choice for people who wish to make a living writing about politics. For a fellow who never tires of telling us (it’s on his blog’s masthead) that he coined the term “blogosphere,” he seems not to have heard of the internet. This marvelous invention makes working from the comfortable confines of my office here in Streator, Illinois (”Smack dab in the middle of Middle America”) for companies located in California a pleasant reality.

No matter. Quick, like most of the excessively ideological, rabid right, didn’t bother to read what I wrote and simply spouted that I was horrified at the prospects of “conservatives finally asserting themselves in the party that ostensibly claims to represent them.” That must have been in the bits I edited out because I don’t see me writing that anywhere in this particular post, nor do I agree with that notion generally. In fact, lo and behold, there is this:

Sending the establishment a message to work harder to find and support good conservative candidates who can win in different regions of the country is one thing. That is an effort worth making, and I applaud activists who are seeking to send that message to the powers that be.

I dunno, Bill. Sounds like I approve of “conservatives asserting themselves,” but what the fu*k do I know? I’m only the writer.

Quick suggests I change the name of my site. Before I do that, perhaps he should change his to “Idiot Child Pundit” since he gibbers like a two year old without making any sense about anything.

My latest is up at Pajamas Media about the conservative insurgency in NY23 that appears about ready to succeed in handing Doug Hoffman an unexpected victory.

A sample:

What has happened in NY-23 is that the newly empowered conservative base decided the national party had gone a candidate too far in choosing liberal Republican Scozzafava to represent them and decided on their own to adopt third-party candidate Doug Hoffman, while telling the GOP establishment to take a hike.

Why the national party believed this colorless career politician who supports gay marriage and would have voted for the stimulus bill represented Republican principles, much less conservative ones, will remain a mystery. Dan Riehl has uncovered some information that former GOP Congressman Tom Reynolds may have played a large role in choosing Scozzafava, but that only muddies the waters even further. Didn’t those numbskulls at the RNC and the NRCC even bother to check this woman’s credentials before giving her stacks of cash donated by good conservatives?

It may be understandable that they would choose a pro-choice woman to run in New York state, although the man the special election is replacing who served eight terms representing that district, John McHugh, was pro-life down the line. But pro-gay marriage? Where did that come from? And it should go without saying that Scozzafava’s support for the stimulus bill would have made her a pariah in the House Republican caucus since no other GOP congressman supported it.

All of this was known to the national party before they shepherded her choice through the selection process (rammed it through might be a better way to describe what happened). Also known to the GOP elites was the wave of discontent building beyond the beltway via the tea parties and the spectacular success of Glenn Beck, who has ridden the wave to fame and fortune.

And yet, still believing they were in total control, they proceeded as if the protests at health care town halls, the 9/12 phenomenon, and the tremendous grassroots energy those events unleashed didn’t matter. Or perhaps they believed they would be able to co-opt and use all that enthusiasm for their own purposes so they could continue with business as usual. Whatever they were thinking, they blindly allowed an old crony (Reynolds used to run the NRCC), to have his way in choosing a candidate that even Nelson Rockefeller might have had to swallow hard to support.

Hoffman, by the way, is not much more conservative than Scozzafava if you examine their positions on the issues. Dede’s problem was that she served 10 years in the Assembly and had a string of votes that she could be attacked for. But Hoffman is no wild eyed “Stalinist” as Frank Rich seems to think:

The battle for upstate New York confirms just how swiftly the right has devolved into a wacky, paranoid cult that is as eager to eat its own as it is to destroy Obama. The movement’s undisputed leaders, Palin and Beck, neither of whom has what Palin once called the “actual responsibilities” of public office, would gladly see the Republican Party die on the cross of right-wing ideological purity. Over the short term, at least, their wish could come true.

The New York fracas was ignited by the routine decision of 11 local Republican county chairmen to anoint an assemblywoman, Dede Scozzafava, as their party’s nominee for the vacant seat. The 23rd is in safe Republican territory that hasn’t sent a Democrat to Congress in decades. And Scozzafava is a mainstream conservative by New York standards; one statistical measure found her voting record slightly to the right of her fellow Republicans in the Assembly. But she has occasionally strayed from orthodoxy on social issues (abortion, same-sex marriage) and endorsed the Obama stimulus package. To the right’s Jacobins, that’s cause to send her to the guillotine.

Speaking as one who has been sent to the guillotine myself by those same Jacobians, Rich is full of it. Scozzafava was foisted on the district by NY state GOP leaders and especially former Rep. Tom Reynolds (former head of the NRCC as well) who decided one of his proteges should be the nominee. And while there is certainly a lot of anger that the establishment wanted to cram a pro-gay marriage candidate down their throat (a position not even mainstream in the Democratic party), the real rebellion in NY23 centers on the perception that despite the previous month’s activism, the party and the establishment wasn’t listening or “getting it.”

And Dede’s endorsement of Porkulus when not one single GOP congressman voted for it says volumes as well. In short, this cram down by party elites at a time when tea party activists had singlehandedly delayed Obamacare and became the only true organized resistance to the president’s agenda, smacked of disrespect by the GOP leadership who were benefiting from their activism.

I have written extensively about the dangers of this populist wave, and how it could easily become, if not as radical as Rich believes in his overactive imagination, then certainly a detriment to conservatism and GOP hopes in 2010. But the race in NY23 shows that there’s nothing for it now, the base has been empowered and the wave is on the move. My fear is that all this enthusiasm and resentment, and fear will be channeled into unproductive avenues and result in a lost opportunity in 2010.

Andrew Sullivan:

No one knows what might happen now. For the insurgents, it means a scalp they will surely use to purge the GOP of any further dissidence. But the insurgents were also backed by the establishment, including Tim Pawlenty, who’s supposed to be the reasonable center.

What we’re seeing, I suspect, is an almost classic example of a political party becoming more ideological after its defeat at the polls. in order for that ideology to win, they will also have to portray the Obama administration as so far to the left that voters have no choice but to back the Poujadists waiting in the wings. And that, of course, is what they’re doing. There is a method to the Ailes-Drudge-Cheney-Rove denialism. They create reality, remember?

From the mindset of an ideologically purist base - where a moderate Republican in New York state is a “radical leftist” - this makes sense. But for all those outside the 20 percent self-identified Republican base, it looks like a mix of a purge and a clusterfuck. If Hoffman wins, and is then embraced by the GOP establishment, you have a recipe for a real nutroots take-over. This blood in the water will bring on more and more and deadlier and deadlier sharks.

Scozzafava was no “radical leftist” as I point out here. No one who gets the endorsement of the NRA can, by any stretch of the imagination, be termed a “radical leftist.” And someone who opposes cap and trade, Obamacare, and much of the Obama agenda cannot be considered much of a leftist. Her support of card check is a natural given the number of union voters in the district which speaks more of her bowing to practical political realities rather than any deep, leftist ideological commitment.

And the danger, as I have constantly harped upon, is that the calcification of views by the base on issues will become so excessively driven by ideology and partisanship, that unless a candidate is marching in nearly 100% lockstep with them, they will be branded “Marxists” by Beck and “liberals” or “radical leftists” by everyone else.

But as I point out in my PJM piece, Andrew is wrong to conclude that this presages some kind of mass takeover by the far right. The circumstances in NY23 created a perfect storm for the bast that is very unlikely to be repeated in other congressional districts. If the base puts up primary challengers to those they consider insufficiently pure, the normal equilibrium of politics will take over and incumbency, money, and name recognition will overwhelm just about any challenge to the supremacy of the party establishment. In other words, if the conservative base thinks that NY23 is some kind of harbinger for the future, they will be royally disappointed.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t cheer them on in NY23. An establishment that gets too comfortable is no good to anyone. And the message I like being sent from this race is that putting up good, reasonable conservatives like Hoffman for office is usually better than the alternative.