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NY 23: It's time for Ed Cox to play Barry Goldwater

Submitted by Ironman on Tue, 10/20/2009 - 23:54
in

In August 1974, President Richard Nixon had reached the end of his political rope. Facing certain impeachment, he was counseled by the wise old man of the Republican party, Barry Goldwater, that the time had come to pack it in and stop fighting a futile battle to retain office.

35 years later, Nixon's son-in-law Ed Cox is now the state chairman of the New York State Republican party. He has but a few days to play the same role as Barry Goldwater did--and explain political reality to 23rd District Congressional nominee Dede Scozzafava.

I'm not going to provide a detailed description of how the wheels have come off the GOP nominee's campaign: suffice it to say it's been the political version of a gory slasher movie.  Perhaps a proper campaign could have been fashioned for Ms. Scozzafava months ago, but the inept, petty, snarky and insolvent team behind her has made victory an impossibility.

As State Chairman, Mr. Cox has an obligation to win as many elections as possible for the NY Republican Party. Retaining Ms. Scozzafava as the active nominee in the 23rd District guarantees a split vote and the election of Democrat Bill Owens.

Cox bears no responsibility for this nomination; it occurred on his predecessor's watch. But now he has the ability to fix things before it's too late. 

He should convene a conference call of the county chairs in the 23rd District to discuss the party's options. And he should make a trip to the North Country and advise Ms. Scozzafava, that--- for the good of the party; her time is up.

There's probably an inability to execute the classic New Jersey "Torricelli switch" at this very late date; but were Ms. Scozzafava to announce her campaign was "being suspended" Republican regulars would clearly get the message to vote for conservative Doug Hoffman.

Ed Cox promised New York Republicans he'd be a new kind of chairman and an active force towards victory.  Here's an opportunity he has to do what Newt Gingrich and Michael Steele won't do---find the best way not to lose a Republican house seat. 

And as of this moment- that requires the weaker non-Democratic candidate to stand down. 

Someone has to do the dirty work of making that happen.   You're on, Ed.

       

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Comments

NY-23: did Hoffman break his pledge to support the GOP nominee?

Submitted by mlindroo on Wed, 10/21/2009 - 03:12.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125564976279388879.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

GOP leaders were outraged, especially since Mr. Hoffman, like other congressional hopefuls, had pledged to support the nominee. "He did say it repeatedly," said Sandra Corey, the former GOP chairwoman of Jefferson County. "And then all of a sudden, it's a no-go, like he hadn't understood her background, which is a falsehood. I would never, ever trust him."

Mr. Hoffman says that during the selection process, he didn't realize that Ms. Scozzafava was as liberal as she is.

Can't see that matters now

Submitted by Ironman on Wed, 10/21/2009 - 03:53.

I could go into a long discussion about Arlen Specter, but that's equally irrelevant.

The bottom line is Scozzafava has flatlined and if she wants to cast blame; good for her. Cox's job is to save the seat. Her reaction as to pique was an EPIC FAIL.

If she and her RINO buddies didn't think the NY Conservative Party was going to come at them hard from the right, with some reasonably qualified candidate,  then she's not old enough to be elected to Congress, because she'd have to have been born yesterday.

It does matter if Hoffman broke his pledge -- a lot

Submitted by mlindroo on Wed, 10/21/2009 - 08:21.

I disagree, Ironman, and not because I favor one candidate or the other.

If the Republican party is correct, there were certain rules and procedures Scozzafava, Hoffman and the other hopefuls promised to obey no matter which candidate was chosen. 

Let's assume the shoe were on the second foot. The GOP establishment thinks long and hard about it, and in the end decides to gamble on Hoffman instead. Scozzafava and her supporters now furiously point out that they did not "know" how impossibly right-wing Hoffman was (=at worst an outright lie, at best an indication of not doing a "due diligence" background check before signing the dotted line), that Obama won the district last year and New York state is trending Democratic ... So she breaks her pledge to support Hoffman  -- the official GOP candidate. She says she will now save the GOP from itself by running as a third party "Rockefeller Republican" spoiler instead, although it almost certainly will make it impossible for either candidate to win. 

Would anyone in this forum regard this as acceptable behavior?? I certainly wouldn't, although I might agree with Scozzafava's assessment (=note, for example, that McHugh has the second-worst ACU lifetime rating of all six NY GOP Representatives and was the most liberal NY Republican last year...there as reason Obama picked him for the job, y'know!).

 

MARCU$

 

(PS: What Arlen Specter did in Pennsylvania is totally irrelevant...two wrongs do not make a right)

Triage, Marcus, triage

Submitted by Ironman on Wed, 10/21/2009 - 08:38.

Plenty of time for hurt feelings after the votes get counted.

McHugh was not Mike Pence but he still got the C Party line every time out; they had made clear than Scozzafava WASN'T going to get it. That said,any non-felon on that line was going to bleed off 5-7%; making it feasible for a Dem to win the seat if he matched the Kerry or Gore losing % in the district. The GOP brain trust in NY not only nominated the woman, she failed to make nice with folks on the ground who might have caused a credible guy like Hoffman not to run. It's like they were on a mission to see how many conservatives they could piss off and still win in this seat.  Insane.

As for your scenario on the "moderate spoiler", see Marshall Coleman, VA 1994. Been there. Done that.

 

Doug Hoffman is the only conservative candidate

Submitted by Freedoms Truth on Wed, 10/21/2009 - 14:08.

Let's be clear: IT'S THE CANDIDATE NOT THE CAMPAIGN.

There is nothing wrong with Dede Skuzzy-favor's campaign that wasnt going on in say Arlen's Specter's campaign or Lincoln Chaffee's. These candidates are not Republicans. Only when Arlen dipped under Toomey in the polls, did Arlen fess up to the fact. Sooner or later, so will Dede ... just watch.

The ultimate problem is that Dede is not a Republican. She adheres to the Democrat position on issue after issue, and is a liberal. She is in bed with ACORN and SEIU. She's a liberal on social issues and a big-spending panderer. We put her in their and we have a vote for taxpayerfunded abortions, Obamacare, cap-and-tax, and union card-check. This is to the left of many 'blue dogs'.

The 'brain trust' did the 'lets get someone electable' game, and put in a total LOSER.

Thanks to this stupidity, I cannot even send money to the NRCC. This of course makes the NRCC weaker and hurts good Republicans, but I and thousands like me are not going to piss our money away on stupid RINOs who vote against our interest.  Whoever pushed Dede are Fools.

I am grateful that Hoffman is doing the right thing and running to defeat these two liberals (Dede and the liberal Democrat). Hoffman is closest to what the district believes and will make the best Representative.

 

 

This is insane (GOP/conservative self-destruction in NY-23)

Submitted by mlindroo on Wed, 10/21/2009 - 14:58.

> Hoffman is closest to what the district believes and will make the best Representative.

 

"Closest to what the district believes?" Based on what evidence, Freedoms Truth?

Let's not forget this is a district that just barely went for Bush twice, before Obama won handily last year. Or that McHugh was ranked no. 171 out of 178 GOP Representatives by the American Conservative Union last year (his lifetime rating made him the 154th most conservative GOP Rep that year, though).

I don't know much about Owens, but at least he cannot be described as a run-of-the-mill liberal Democrat since he has not been affiliated with any political party since 1971. He seems to have a nice enough background from business, academia, as a business analyst on local TV, military career as a USAF captain...he even has a proven track record of creating jobs(!) since he apparently helped set up the Plattsburgh Airbase Redevelopment Corp. after the USAF left Plattsburgh AFB to bring in new private companies instead! It will probably not be easy to demonize this guy.

There is certainly more than enough blame to go around as it seems the Republican Party/ Scozzafava, Hoffman and his Club for Growth(sic) et al. backers all have made mistakes. Now it seems the GOP will spend $0.25 million on Dede while the Club for Growth has announced it will spend at least $0.25 million on TV ads to support Hoffman. This ensures neither candidate will win. It's insane. Incompetent decisions such as this one makes me think that Democratic losses next fall might not be as bad as I thought. Recent opinion polls suggest public faith in the Republican party remains virtually non-existent and few voters express confidence in Republicans' ability to make the right decision if they were to return to power. Was it like this in 1993? I very much doubt it.

 

MARCU$

well, better we learn this now

Submitted by Ironman on Wed, 10/21/2009 - 20:00.

Then see clueless local nominating committees split the party all over the country next year.

One thing a lot of Beltway ( or career legislator) types don't get is the GOP rank-and-file are not in a mood to be given lip service and haugthy attitudes.  Ironically, it seems James Carville figured this out before much of our own party's leadership.