What does Doug Hoffman's loss mean?

I think Tobin makes a good point actually. As do you, when you state that voters didn't warm to Hoffman because he couldn't grasp the local issues as well as he should have.

I think a large part of Owens' win was the district sending a message to the rest of the nation: Mind your own business. Don't bombard our district with outsiders who have never been here before. Hoffman attracted a lot of backing from outside the district, for understandable reasons, but I would bet that a lot of NY-23 voters - possibly enough of them to make a difference in the election - were rankled by that.

Since when did Palin = Tea Parties? Or does "Palin-Tea Party-ism" simply fit the narrative?

McHugh is arguably to the right of Scozzofava. Conservatives didn't lose much in this case. Knocking Scozzofava out was a win in itself as she is so downright unacceptable. It's not a matter of purity (Hoffman is an open-borders type), but a matter of having no reason whatsoever to consider Scozzofava a Republican beyond label. Rod himself admits he couldn't vote for her--but I guess his litmus test is more equal than others.

So Toobin is right. The Party leadership needs to assimilate the fact that they can't just toss up someone's favorite gal to win brownie points. OTOH, the Tea Partyers also have to face the fact that they'll have to work within the GOP, like it or not. There's a lot that can be gained from this loss, though it is a bit disappointing.

If Scozzafava hadn't been purged by the Palin-Beck clown hall crowd, the GOP would still have that seat, and everybody knows it.

Dick Armey's sneer at the "parochial" concerns of the actual voters in the actual district is a wonderful epitaph that I hope to hear teabaggers repeat over and over at one doomed contest after another.

Isn't the simple story this: any competent Republican candidate would likely have won.

Scozzafava was not a competent Republican candidate.

Hoffman was a reaction to an incompetent Republican candidate.

Hoffman's loss reflects on the incompetency of the Local Republican establishment to choose a simple candidate that could have walked to an easy victory.

Hoffman/Palin/Beck are not the incompetents here.

Dick Armey's sneer at the "parochial" concerns of the actual voters in the actual district is a wonderful epitaph that I hope to hear teabaggers repeat over and over at one doomed contest after another.

Well, the "actual" voters didn't want Scozzofava. So perhaps you should look at the sneer on your own face. Certainly someone who uses the term "teabagger" isn't in any position to accuse others of condescension.

My takeaway? As I said at the Pawlenty purity thread from Tuesday, contrast McDonnell keeping Palin at arm's length in Virginia with the attention Limbaugh and others paid to the candidates in NY 23.

Tone matters as much as do policy positions. So does EQ. The candidate has to convince enough people that he’s not going to be an anger-driven, childish, or punitive avenger. His high profile supporters can undermine or reinforce that. Comments such as the one Limbaugh made about Scozzafava unnecessarily raised an image of a Beavis and Butthead party (as Paul Krugman recently wrote on his blog about some GOPers) which cares more about putdowns than getting things done. The type of guys in a bar who break up over their own jokes, chortling “Yessss” and high fiving each other as most of the people around them roll their eyes and withdraw to other venues.

No matter how righteous anyone on the right (or the left) feels about their policy issues, going too negative can be risky.

They’re not going to win if their driving motivator sounds like hurting or punishing or putting down people rather than navigating the complex issues facing the nation. To think that the latter tone is effective is to fundamentally misunderstand human nature. And no one wants to put power into the hands of anyone who seems clueless about people. I dare say many of his supporters would acknowledge that Hoffman tried his best but that Limbaugh did him no favors.

I suspect that what was shown was that all politics is local. Find a reliable moderate Democratic district and bring in a Michael Moore-esque candidate who doesn't live there complains that the local paper didn't tell him the questions before the interview (hint: they were printed on the paper's editorial page that morning), and if the Republicans put up someone moderate then I could see that local moderate winning handily. People don't appreciate outsiders bringing in an outsider and proclaiming that he is just what you people, whoever the heck you are, need--someone puuuure.

That said, I imagine that much of the party will be following Marchmaine's advice for another round or two before coming around to polistra's strategy.

"Scozzafava, the nominal Republican, switched to Owens in the closing days and that treachery undoubtedly helped Owens. And, Hoffman was a sincere and decent man but not a professional politician. He exceeded all expectations but was clearly "not ready for prime time.""

Wait. Scozzafava has her campaign sabotaged by national political and media figures on the right, yet she's supposed to say "Thank you, sir! May I have another?" and rally to support a non-Republican who even his supporters admit isn't really up to the job?

Once you stab someone in the back, you really lose the moral high ground to complain about their "treachery".

Mike

What does Hoffman's loss mean?

It means a third-party candidate unknown to everyone 30 days ago and opposed by both major parties lost. It means liberal voters rejected a conservative candidate.

Sometimes the term 'RINO' is an ugly way to separate people who don't toe the line. And sometimes it's the plainest way to getting to the heart of the matter. The GOP nominee was, obviously, the GOP nominee. She was also a liberal.

It's remarkable that Hoffman came as close as he did in as little time as he did. All in all, Tuesday was good for the GOP — and conservatives.

MBunge: "Wait. Scozzafava has her campaign sabotaged by national political and media figures on the right, yet she's supposed to say 'Thank you, sir! May I have another?' and rally to support a non-Republican who even his supporters admit isn't really up to the job?"

Cry me a river! Bowing out of the race was her choice. As for her being "sabotaged," the national party pumped nearly $1 million into her campaign. And then she quit. And, after all that, she ends up endorsing a Democrat after accepting $1 million from the national party? What does that say about her?

It turns out that White House political director Patrick Gaspard got Scozzafava to endorse Owens -- as reported by the Washington Post. Gaspard is a veteran NY state Democratic political operative with close ties to ACORN, SEIU and the Working Families Party (which has also backed Scozzafava).

Scozzafava will undoubtedly be rewarded for her treachery. A plum job in Washington. The presidency of some SUNY campus in upstate New York. Maybe even an ambassadorial appointment to some cushy position with the UN in Geneva or NYC.

this post meant as a joke, right? no one ever heard of the guy a few weeks ago. that might have something to do with his defeat BY ONLY 3 POINTS. oh, and he was outspent by what, 100 to 1?

The Democrat did not break 50% in the vote count. Let's not get in a tizzy.

"Cry me a river! Bowing out of the race was her choice. As for her being "sabotaged," the national party pumped nearly $1 million into her campaign. And then she quit. And, after all that, she ends up endorsing a Democrat after accepting $1 million from the national party? What does that say about her?"

The Republican party would certainly be well within its rights to consider Scozzafave a traitor. You are not. For you to whine about her "treachery", given your view of her suitability as a Republican, is almost infantile.

Fact - The GOP wins in the VA and NJ gubanatorial races were won by candidates self-conciously running moderate, non-ideological campaigns.

Fact - Conservative purity fetishists just handed the Democrats another seat in Congress, one they had no realistic shot at otherwise.

Mike

From Steve Benen's Blog:

As everyone now knows, Bill Owens will be the first Democrat to represent New York's 23rd since the mid-19th century, after defeating Doug Hoffman yesterday. This got me thinking about the representation of the region.

New York has 29 congressional districts. As of today, the state is represented by 27 Democrats. As recently as a few years ago, Dems had "only" 21 seats from New York.

What's more, New England, made up of six states, has 22 congressional districts. Currently, the region is represented by 22 Democrats.

So, north of the Pennsylvania border, there 51 congressional districts representing 34 million people. Republicans have a whopping two seats.

Just a random observation.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/

I had originally thought that Hoffmann winning would have been a great victory for the Democrats, since it would encourage the nutjob contingent to go even further off the deep end. Hoffmann losing might have caused some constructive reflection on their part and led to an adjustment in course that might actually threaten the Democrats down the road.

I'll revise my opinion in that the nutjobs appear to be incapable of constructive self-reflection (something I ought to have remembered from the reaction to the 2008 loss). The lesson apparently learned is that there was nothing at all wrong with Hoffmann, that he would have won had the beltway GOP backed the conservative from the beginning, that it's all the moderates' fault, etc.

And so the significance of NY-23 is that nothing has really changed: there's still a battle between purists and pragmatists for the heart and soul of the GOP, and to the extent that the purists continue to get their way, the GOP will continue to wither in many parts of the country.

Call it the revenge of talk radio. Limbaugh, Beck et al. have made a fortune by appealing to about 20% of the country (PDF). That's an excellent business model. But now it's taking over a political party, where the standard of success is 50% + 1.

What does this mean?

I think it means that everyone should be who they are and let voters decide if they want them in office. WHy do we have debates about whether the parties should react to this by pretending to be A) more moderate B) more conservative C) more strident D) more conciliatory etc. If our parties and candidates react by changing who they pretend to be, then they obviously care only about being in power and do not have enough integrity to hold office.

The outcome in the NY 23 district was, in my opinion, a victory for conservatives and a defeat for the GOP leadership. The reaction of conservatives to Scozzafava's nomination by the GOP was the same as our reaction to President Bush's nomination of Harriet Myers for a seat on the Supreme Court, and the nomination of John McCain for president: "Are you kidding me? Can you really be that dumb?"

The lesson in this election is that when the Republican party nominates liberal candidates, we conservatives will not support them. Scozzafava would never have survived a primary race, and should not have been chosen by the GOP leadership. GOP leadership can no longer count on conservatives to put their liberal candidates in office if we are going to be stabbed in the back again and again. McCain had nothing but contempt for conservatives throughout his career and we conservatives stayed home rather than vote for him. Scozzafava had nothing but contempt for conservatives even DURING the campaign, and we conservatives refused to support her.

The lesson to the GOP is give us conservative candidates, or go the way of the Whig Party.

Am I the only one here who stops reading any post that uses offensive terms for people? People who use derogatory or sexually suggestive terms show themselves to be driven by agendas not worthy of serious consideration. I quit reading and dismiss whatever I have read at that point and move on.

What the loss means is that Republicans who have moved so far left as to be indistinguishable from the Democrats need to rethink their positions, if an unknown, with no name recognition, ultra conservative can come as close as he did running against both the Democrat and the RINO aptly describes the mood of the country.

There is more than meets the eye in this particular election. According to Limbaugh, Owens and Scozzafaza were both on the ballot TWICE because they were both endorsed by two parties. The ballot could not have been more confusing if the mess had been deliberate. Looks as though the outside intervention in this race started long before Thompson and Palin arrived.

"The Democrat did not break 50% in the vote count. Let's not get in a tizzy."

No...but when a candidate that resembled McHugh so closely could not break 50% when McHugh broke 75% just a year before, that is telling. Even if all of Scozzafava's 6K+ votes had gone for Hoffman, he would not have met the same level of support that McHugh had.

"They didn't take kindly to having one of their own driven from the race and they voted for the Dims like their "Republican" candidate asked them to vote. And, wow, there were enough of them to give the Dim a 5 point victory."

There were enough to translate a GOP victory of 25%+ last year to a 5%+ loss this year. That is a 30% swing. If the conservatives in the GOP choose to ignore that then they, and not the Democrats, are the ones deserving of the "dim" label.

Deborah has it about right. Everyone everywhere else in the county has themselves self-hypnotized that "whatever I believed the day before the election has been proved right by what happened in the election, so there." Local voters made a local choice, and will have another vote next year, locally.

I'm pleased with just about all the results, except Michael Bloomberg being re-elected in New York. I speak as someone who voted for Obama in 2008, expects to do so in 2012, and hopes the Republicans nominate a totally fresh new candidate worthy of respect in 2016. I'm not holding my breath. I never liked Jon Corzine. I just can't see a wall street broker re-inventing himself as working class hero. The man would have been a Republican in the good old days of forty years ago. Virginia, it was interesting to see a moderate Republican who played well in the northern suburbs, against a Democrat whose stronger support was in the rest of the state.

Obama's biggest mistake in winning the general election is similar to George McGovern's biggest mistake in winning the 1972 nomination: he tried to pour a campaign for change into the unchanged Democratic Party machinery, and that mixes like oil and water. Polls suggest voters in NJ and VA both support Obama, including many who voted Republican for governor. I donated to Obama for America. I am not donating to the Democratic National Committee. Of course I'm happy to see that Hoffman lost. There should be some standard of competence, discernment, some sense that the candidate has done their homework, no matter what ideology the candidate sincerely offers for voters' consideration. He didn't make the grade. Neither does Sarah Palin.

First, 'contentions' is ALWAYS 'weird and unpersuasive'.

Then, no one here has anything to say about the actual district? Ninty-eight percent Caucasion; 2.7% African-American; less than 1% American Indian. Median income pretty low by standards in the NorthEast: $35--$37K (depends on county). Employment about average for the country (Clinton Co unemployment about 10.9%). Home of Fort Drum, a large (10th Mountain Division) US Army base. Other industry mostly gone overseas in the last decade; mostly rural and agricultural. Can anyone spell Republican?

And, can't someone here look up Ms Scazzofava's actual voting record? Voted NO on the reform of the draconian 'Rockefeller Drug Laws'. Pro-Gun votes on 12 of 13 bills in the Assembly. Reliably Pro-'Law and Order'. But voted FOR the 'stimulus'--ie, to accept the Federal stimulus funds. This last apparently sunk her in the eyes of the Club for Growth lunatics. (http://themoderatevoice.com/50319/dede-scozzafava-the-real-record/)

So a probably rather weak campaigner who seems like a 'normal' NY state Repub is not good enough to be in Congress according to the Dick Armey's and Grover Norquists and Rush Limbaughs. They fuel a minor candidacy more to their liking. Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin get involved. Full scale ugliness descends on Lake Champlain. And the voters of this very very Republican district elect a Dem for the first time in 147 yrs.

And conservatives who comment here know exactly what this event means (we were betrayed! a stab in the back!) without bothering to learn any--you know--facts.

You guys are pathetic. Bring on Rubio. And then Palin. We can't wait.

MBunge - I agree corruption is the issue. And Christie is the perfect example of what that corruption looks like - gives a wife of a big union guy a job, lends her money interest free, then doesn't require her to pay the money back and doesn't report it. That's NJ.

In this state if you want a job as a teacher orcop, you buy a 2,000 dollar ad in the local repub or dem's annual dance book. Real estate developers get planning board approval by selling houses in the development to the board mebers at half price. I could go on but this corruption permeates the entire system and both parties are in it.

This corruption continues because people know the system and think they benefit from it. They get their kids jobs, the get business contracts, the make millions on real estate development. People really don't want it to change. If Christie really does try to cut pre K programs - there will be 100,000 people in front of the state house screaming and the legislature will chicken out. We want lower taxes - but we don't want less services.

To me what I see here is not that different from all the US - we blame Bush, we blame Obama on and on. But the real problem is us.
We want the government to do stuff but we don't want to pay for it and God forbid - we sure don't want to spend any time trying to understand what the real problems are.

"Had Dede not been on the ballot, it's reasonable to project that this race probably would have been a 2-3 point victory for Owens."

And if Ralph Nader hadn't been on the ballot in 2000?

Mike

*According to Limbaugh..."

Can I please see the current results of his drug testing first, before you ask me to accept anything he says as rational?

*We want lower taxes - but we don't want less services.*

Ah yes, the mantra of the baby boomer generation. And it would seem that the Tweeners and Gen-Xers are fast learning the "wisdom" of this saying.

Here's an idea. Let's all stop over-analysing these races and pretending we understand the implications for the 2010 races. Instead, let's focus on Obama's tanking approval ratings (his personal ratings are still good, but policy ratings are dropping like crazy), congress's continued horrible ratings, the nation-wide shift of independents back to the Right, and the intensity of the Right wing backlash (nutty or not) to Obama/Pelosi's incomprehensibly irresponsible plans to borrow/spend us into oblivion. My god, we can't pay for what we're getting now, and their plan is to create the biggest most lavish entitlement program in history. The Dems are going to get a message in 2010 and there won't be any spinning it.

Of course NY23 was a repudiation of GOP leadership, at least on the local level. How in the world could they have thought the rank and file GOP would vote for someone who favored card check and supported the gazillion dollar pork stimulus. The key to GOP resurgence is to stress the common policy points between moderates and conservatives, while somehow tempering the cultural demands of the extreme right. Economic policy is the foundation upon which the winning coalition will be built.

I like kevin s.' post, but have to disagree with the contention that "nobody is demanding purity of any sort." People like Erick Erickson or the blog RedState and Rush Limbaugh are definitely demanding purity. RedState today suggests that Grover Norquist(!) is a traitor to the conservative cause because his organization endorsed Scozzafava. The people who do demand purity are loud, and they don't have as much clout as they think they have, but they do have some. I think the Democrats who gloat too much about the NY-23 victory are off, and the Republicans who think that the two gubernatorial victories herald a sea change are off. Too many factors to draw lasting conclusions.

Owens's win is part of a lengthy, slow, Blue trend in Appalachian districts. In which Democratic pickups happen in the usual pattern of the eastern U.S., i.e. generally north-to-south.

Olympia Snowe was the last Republican to represent the mountainous regions of Maine in the U.S. House, in the late Nineties. Democrats won both House districts of New Hampshire in November 2006 and they've picked up practically all mountainous districts of New York State held by Republicans in the past three years. And they're gaining House districts in mountainous parts of Pennsylvania every election.

The Hoffman/Scozzafava story is internal to the Republican Party and American Right. In the past five years or so the moderate faction in the Republican Party has softened and crossed over or become ambivalent about the hard cultural/generational lines drawn in 1968. It no longer believes in the central tenet of faith of Nixon-to-Bush/Cheney Republicanism. That runs into the militant, but maudlin, orthodoxy of the hardcore Right factions.

National numbers and trends suggest to me that it will take about eight to ten years for the hardcore Right to wear down. Until then there will be quite a run of Doug Hoffmans and Sarah Palins, Ron Pauls and Marco Rubios.

Ummmm...no.

This was actually huge victory for populist, small government conservatives:

http://joshuapundit.blogspot.com/2009/11/conservatives-win-in-ny-23.html

The key here was defeating an obviously far Left GOP candidate nominated by insiders.Had their been a primary, Hoffman would have beaten Scozzafava like a gong.And let's face it, there was nothing to lose. Once Scozzafava got the nomination, it was a choice between
two Pelosi votes any way you slice it. There just cleared things up.
If he had recived backing from the jump and the $900K from the RNC Scozzafava got and Scozzafava was not on the ballot, Hoffman would have won the seat. For crying out loud, the ballot had four spaces to vote for Scozzafava and Owens, and only one for Hoffman!

This sent a message to conservative Democrats as well as the RNC and is huge. Sure, it would have been an extra cherry on top if Doug Hoffman had managed to pull in another few thousand votes and win the seat.But the fact that this went down the way it did at all was a win in itself, and in the big scheme of things, one seat more or less doesn't matter all that much, compared with the overall effect.

Regards,
Rob

"the most sensible lesson for Republicans to take out of yesterday's defeats is that economic anxiety and a related concern about competent governance are the issues that most determine voters' choices."

Yeah, I tend to think this is the most sensible lesson for us ALL to learn from yesterday's elections. We shouldn't be divided into those of us who adore Sarah Palin and those who don't…we are a grouping of unique towns, cities, counties and states, each with its own community priorities and collective values. Politicians and the media's best talent is that of lumping us into this group or that, but we're best when we express our individuality and the unique needs of our community.

McSwan, are you out of yer motherlovin' mind? A victory for conservatives? Only in the sense that Satan won a victory over God in Milton's Paradise Lost when he said, "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven."

What the extremists of both sides simply will not hear is this: your losses are due to your failure to persuade, and your inability to persuade is due to your most deeply cherished assumption: that you're normal and that therefore what would convince you should convince anyone.

Far better, they think, to point to what victories they have and come to the most narcissistic possible assumption about them: that they were the result of "people coming to their senses" or some such. Couldn't possibly be people voting not for you but against the other side, noooo. And that last spin of the roulette wheel that allowed you to end the night almost having broken even was the result of your system finally starting to work, right?

Peter,

Your own graphic supports my point. Am I missing something? I think you are referring to the counties that are contained within the entire district. I am referring to the congressional district. To make the claim, as Pelosi and our dear blogger have, that the citizens that live in that district have never, in their lifetimes, had Dem representation is simply false. It is true for SOME, but not for ALL. That is my point.

Seriously, quit eating the junk that the media spoon feeds you. This seat has been held by eight republicans and FOURTEEN democrats in the last 100 years, most recently in 1993.

Check it out for yourself on wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York%27s_23rd_congressional_district#1843_-_present:_one_seat