Armey Is Building An Army
Let’s face it, NY-23 was the tea partier’s battle field. It was where they drew the line in the sand. And… there were lessons to be learned. Mainly that a 100 year old Republican seat switched to a Democrat seat. To me this says that people comfortable with always pulling the R lever suddenly changed their ways. It also had practically nothing to do with Owens. Oh yeah, this was definately R on R crime.
Not that I expect the real Republicans to take a moment and ponder this outcome. Actually, I expect them to declare victory. From here on out Republican primaries will be the ones to watch. Pass the popcorn, because Dick Armey is ramping up the purging.
An announcement sent out by MacGuffie proclaimed that he, like Armey, has actively supported Doug Hoffman’s bid to rid the NY-23 special election of moderate Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava (R-NY). Now, both Armey and MacGuffie are planning to purge the Republican Party of more moderate politicians.
MacGuffie has declared that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) are RINOs (Republicans in name only) who “have routinely abandoned or betrayed us.” Similarly, the next step of Armey’s agenda appears to be an intensified crusade to challenge moderate Republicans in primaries. The Politico reports that Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC), Gov. Charlie Crist (R-FL), former Rep. Rob Simmons (R-CT) and other Republicans who have strayed from rigid party-line positions face primaries from candidates inspired by the tea parties and town hall disruption type tactics.
That’s quite a prominent list of “purge” targets. And I have to wonder why Armey and army would take safe Republican seats and make them, well, unsafe. Like I said, there are lessons to be learned in NY-23 – a seat that would have stayed Republican had Republicans not interfered.
Comment by Dan Maloney on 4 November 2009 at 9:00 am:
Your analysis is faulty.
When you look at the number of voters who voted for Scozzafava you need to remember that many of them were absentee voters whose ballots were submitted before she quit the race and endorsed Owens.
I suspect that if Scozzafava had quit the race earlier the outcome would have been different regardless of whether she endorsed the Democrat or not.
2010 will tell the story.
We have not yet begun to fight.
Comment by Geezer on 4 November 2009 at 9:02 am:
Maloney: Your analysis is faulty, too. The seat was held by the GOP for 100 years. Your type made it winnable for the Democrats.
You have begun to fight, and you lost the first battle.
Comment by pandora on 4 November 2009 at 9:15 am:
My point exactly, Geezer! The seat was the Rs to lose, and lost it they did.
Comment by Unstable Isotope on 4 November 2009 at 9:19 am:
I don’t think there were enough absentees to flip the results. Hoffman is behind by 4000 votes and I think there are only 6000 absentees to be counted (I’m going from memory here my numbers could be wrong).
Exactly Geezer. Teabaggers turned a sure R win into a D win, but they I guess their feeling is that someone like Scozzafava has no place in their GOP so a D win was better than a Scozzafava win.
Hey teabaggers, there’s a “moderate” right here in Delaware – Mike Castle. Purge him!
Comment by MJ on 4 November 2009 at 9:22 am:
Heh, heh, heh. Pandora said Dick Armey.
Comment by pandora on 4 November 2009 at 9:28 am:
Well, MJ… perhaps I should have said an army of d*cks.
UI, they’re already working on purging Castle. Frank “I don’t believe in global warming because I had to wear a sweater today” Knotts over at DP has launched RACE (Republicans Against Castle’s Election).
Pass the popcorn!
Comment by Geezer on 4 November 2009 at 9:46 am:
Pandora beat me to it. Unfortunately for Democrats, the person leading the anti-Castle charge is Frank Knotts, who doesn’t have the sense God promised a billy goat.
Comment by B. Goat on 4 November 2009 at 9:51 am:
Excuse me? We have always been a Democrat-leaning species. Your comparison of us to Mr. Knotts is re-but-able (get it? ‘but’? as in goat butting?)
Comment by Dave M. on 4 November 2009 at 9:52 am:
Nobody ever accused goats of having a keen sense of humor. Although they do taste good with garlic and rosemary.
Comment by Unstable Isotope on 4 November 2009 at 10:02 am:
Steve Benen on the NY-23 results:
Yep, moderate Republicans are pretty much screwed. They’re damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
Comment by nemski on 4 November 2009 at 10:03 am:
Dan Maloney is one of the reasons why I wish the US gov’t did not invent the internet.
Comment by PBaumbach on 4 November 2009 at 10:26 am:
JeffreyFeldman on Twitter notes “Despite the result in NY-23, I see this lesson: the Beck and Palin forces have merged and will get stronger.”
Comment by Geezer on 4 November 2009 at 10:31 am:
Apologies to all the goats; it’s just a country expression my father-in-law uses.
Nemski: Who is Dan Maloney? I didn’t recognize the name.
Comment by Geezer on 4 November 2009 at 10:32 am:
“Despite the result in NY-23, I see this lesson: the Beck and Palin forces have merged and will get stronger.”
When were they separate? And strength through defeat is a new concept to me. Other than that, excellent analysis (I don’t know how to produce the eye-roll emoticon).
Comment by Dan Maloney on 4 November 2009 at 10:37 am:
Geezer and Pandora
You continue to make the mistake in thinking that we are all Rs or that we particularly care about the Republican Party.
I think the insurgent battle against the ‘chosen’ R candidate Scozzafava pretty much debunks that theory.
As Geezer said we lost the first battle.
But we have not lost the war.
I think the showing in the other battlefields around the nation show that we are still in the fight and will continue to be engaged.
Comment by nemski on 4 November 2009 at 10:38 am:
Geezer, look above. That’s who. Go to his site and see the horror.
Comment by Geezer on 4 November 2009 at 10:48 am:
I like the flag.
Dan: I’ve said this elsewhere, but I’ll repeat it since you’re a newcomer: In parliamentary politics, coalition-building occurs after the election. In American politics, coalition-building occurs at the party level, before the election. Whatever you may think, you and your allies are only about half of the Republican Party. If you reject the moderate Republicans, whom will you ally with to reach 50%? Granted, the fight is easier in safe Republican districts, but how can you win elsewhere with less than 50% of the voters?
Comment by PBaumbach on 4 November 2009 at 10:50 am:
Please don’t read Feldman’s comments as spin, but as forecasting. I didn’t interpret Feldman as suggesting strength through defeat, but rather monday morning quarterbacking revealing an adjustment to future strategies.
When is the last time that Palin followed anyone’s playbook? She’s more of a loose cannon than McCain! Feldman seems to suggest that national supporters of Hoffman, such as Beck and Palin, may conclude that they could have been more effective if they did some coordination.
Comment by Unstable Isotope on 4 November 2009 at 10:53 am:
I definitely agree with Feldman – Beck is now the intellectual leader of the Republican party and Palin is the chosen one. Pawlenty wants to be but isn’t there yet.
Geezer,
Perhaps the teabaggers want to go to a more parliamentary system. I think they do. I’m not sure how they’re going to convince moderate Republicans to be in a coalition with them if they keep insulting them, though.
Comment by pandora on 4 November 2009 at 10:57 am:
Beck/Palin?
Palin/Beck?
I’m seeing a problem already.
Comment by Geezer on 4 November 2009 at 11:04 am:
PB: That’s problem with Twitter, isn’t it? It’s hard to read between the lines when there’s only one of them.
Comment by cassandra_m on 4 November 2009 at 11:09 am:
The Beck and Palin forces together still don’t get to more than 20% or so of the electorate but I think that as a forecast Feldman is probably right. But I think that what gets coordinated and shared are their delusions of righteousness. And this will be fodder for the media and the punditocracy who work pretty hard to spin all of this as Good For Republicans.
Comment by Dan Maloney on 4 November 2009 at 11:14 am:
Geezer,
I’m fully aware of the differences between parliamentary and American politics. Perhaps in the cirrent context it should be considered whether the Republican Party did ANY coalition building before it chose Scozzafava. All available evidence points to a negative conclusion.
So you’re right and I’m right. As to safe Republican districts, perhaps. We definitely have to better penetrate what are viewed as ‘hostile to conservative’ areas, but even there we are having some success.
Not everyone has drunk the Obama Koolaid:
http://nygoe.wordpress.com/2009/11/01/obama-zombies-at-halloween-parade-103109/
Comment by Geezer on 4 November 2009 at 11:32 am:
Agreed. I haven’t drunk the Obama Kool-Aid, either — but I’m far from a conservative. Some of the dissatisfaction with the status quo comes from those of us on the left who — like many of you on the right felt about Bush by the end — feel we have been betrayed.
Comment by liberalgeek on 4 November 2009 at 11:51 am:
I love this. Dan asserts that the process for selecting Scozzafava was flawed.
Nevermind that she was actually chosen by the method that the Republicans came up with.
Nevermind that the teabaggers lost that round.
Nevermind that this was a special election which is different than a usual election.
Nevermind that the tebagging candidate didn’t actually LIVE in the district.
Nevermind that he had no understanding of the issues of the district.
I wonder if the Republicans are getting the message that their own attitude of “democracy is flawed if my guy doesn’t win” is coming back to bite them in their ass. I am stocking up on popcorn.
Comment by D.C. on 4 November 2009 at 1:12 pm:
“My point exactly, Geezer! The seat was the Rs to lose, and lost it they did.”
So what do you say about NJ? That probably doesn’t matter, right?
You had an incumbent, Democrat governor in a state that strongly supported the Democrat in the last election…who spent $23 million to his opponents $8 million…who had the messiah and his VP (among others) stumping for him…and he still lost the election.
This seems like a much bigger story than a THIRD PARTY candidate losing an election up in NY.
Comment by D.C. on 4 November 2009 at 1:15 pm:
“I wonder if the Republicans are getting the message that their own attitude of “democracy is flawed..”
I wonder if the socialists in the White House are getting the same message?
Spin it however you’d like to but losing VA and NJ (especially NJ) is making a lot of Ds very nervous.
Comment by pandora on 4 November 2009 at 1:19 pm:
Corzine was in trouble – check out his approval rate. And while I preferred him over Christie I wasn’t surprised that he lost. Actually, Corzine made up a lot of ground in the polls over the last few weeks, but the idea that he was going to win is just silly.
And talking of BIGGER stories… remind me again why NY-23 was even on the radar. Oh yeah, you guys put it there. And lost.
Comment by xstryker on 4 November 2009 at 2:00 pm:
We lost NJ, but we didn’t lose it to a conservative. If Christie was running for Senate instead of Governor, you guys would have torpedoed him already.
Comment by Scott P on 4 November 2009 at 3:42 pm:
This seems like a much bigger story than a THIRD PARTY candidate losing an election up in NY.
Not surprisingly, D.C. either willfully or ignorantly entirely misses the point. The story wasn’t that Hoffman lost, the story was that Scozzafava (and the Republican Party) lost. She almost certainly would have won, if it weren’t for
those meddling kidsHoffman and the teabag brigade. Through pretty vicious infighting, they gave away a comfortable seat.Comment by Scott P on 4 November 2009 at 3:49 pm:
You continue to make the mistake in thinking that we are all Rs or that we particularly care about the Republican Party.
Just more evidence that some sort of a split is inevitable. The only question is how much of the GOP does the Conservanut Party peel off. Only a small bit, so that they remain a small fringe and just a pain in the elephant’s arse, or enough to make both of them into small, minor, irrelevant parties. When you’re done with that popcorn, Pandora, send it over this way.
Comment by Geezer on 4 November 2009 at 3:51 pm:
Rick Jensen drank more Kool-Aid than you, DC — he called it an “obscure third party,” which the Conservative Party in New York certainly is not.
Unlike the governor of New Jersey, the Congresscritter from NY23 will actually get a vote on health care, etc. (though he will almost certainly be a Blue Dog, and therefore is no sure vote).
Jon Corzine never topped 45% in any poll during the campaign. Anyone who knows politics — which rules out most of the conservative commenters here — will tell you that an incumbent with less than 50% is vulnerable. Heck, most of the folks here are crowing because Mike Castle stands at 49%. Corzine started the race at, I believe, 37%. There was never a reason to believe he would win.
Comment by Geezer on 4 November 2009 at 4:00 pm:
Another point conservatives whistle past — the two governors avoided talking about Obama, and indeed ran like moderates (McConnell reacted like he took an acid bath when his thesis for Slackjaw University was made public). The guy who talked the conservative game got 46% of the vote. John McHugh got 63.5% in a blue wave election exactly one year ago.