Fox News just called NY-23 for Owens, meaning that a solid Republican congressional district has fallen into Democratic hands thanks to two candidates who serve as examples of what the GOP should not do. First there was Dede, a Democrat by any other name, who was not only socially liberal, but fiscally liberal as well. As readers know, I’m a pragmatist’s pragmatist, but even I could find very little difference between Dede and a run-of-the-mill Democrat. And not only was Dede a moderate-liberal, but she was a product of the establishment, supporting the bailouts that Americans now view as a giveaway to the robber barons. And the nomination of Dede by the GOP, of course, led to the Hoffman third-party challenge, which resulted in the only right-of-center candidate in the race being focused on the abstract, the theoretical, and the ideological instead of the actual problems facing the actual people of, you know, New York’s 23rd Congressional District.
What this shows is that neither running as Democrats-lite nor as talk-radio-style anarcho-conservatives will win the future for the GOP. What will yield a Republican comeback in 2010 and beyond is the McDonnell/Christie model, where Republican candidates ideologically appropriate for their states and districts run as pragmatic conservatives who are solutions-oriented and who are running to apply their conservatism to public problems. This is the type of Republicanism that can win, and it did win in purple Virginia and blue New Jersey. It did so by contrasting a GOP that was optimistic and problem-solving yet distinctly conservative with a corrupt, interest-group-friendly, tax-and-spend leftist establishment. This is the model that Republicans should emulate, not the Rockefeller-esque model of Dede nor the Palin/Beck model of Hoffman.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:20 am
Dave,
I will re-post my response to a comment you made in the second election thread, since it got overtaken by the gay marriage argument and applies more to this post:
The more I see and learn, the more I have come to agree with your argument. Rush and other prominent talk radio-types love to argue that when the GOP nominates purer candidates, we win, and the opposite for more moderate candidates, but unfortunately, it’s not that simple (if it held true, why didn’t Goldwater do better?). External factors play significant roles.
The commonly cited examples: Reagan, Dole and McCain. As you stated, most voters care about how the candidates would influence the issues that matter the most to them, in the context of (primarily) economic conditions at the time. In ‘80, the Misery Index had risen to sky-high levels. Since the voters associate the economy with incumbents, Reagan’s pro-growth policies sounded more appealing.
On the other hand, 1996 saw very favorable economic conditions. Thus, the electorate felt no need to fire Clinton (of course, Dole’s dullness may have played at least a small role). Last year, voters attributed the morbid economy to Bush and the Republican Party in general and became more receptive to Obama. Now, I have, of course, provided an over-simplification, but my main point remains: in general voters want candidates that appear to have the best solutions to the most salient issues of the day, and the model you described – a Republican “that is distinctly conservative but that is solutions-oriented, reformist, and optimistic” – gives the party and the country as a whole the best chance to win.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:24 am
I feel the need to repost this:
We need BOTH conservative and moderate Republicans (not real RINO’s like Scozzafava) united if we are going to win next year. Governor-elects McDonnell and Christie have shown us how to win in purple and blue states. We just need to apply the lessons from their campaigns to other races and we’ll be fine in 2010.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:25 am
Anarcho-conservative? Lol.
Not quite.
This was Scozzafava’s doing. She endorsed Owens and threw it to him. Her supporters went to him.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:26 am
Jonathan,
I agree with you, on a state-by-state basis. My comment referred to Presidential races, though.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:29 am
#4:
Well, we can adopt some of the tactics that worked in 2009 to use in 2012. Bob McDonnell focused relentlessly on the pocket book issues like jobs and transportation. Chris Christie attacked property taxes and corruption. If our 2012 nominee focuses on those issues and explains what they can do for the people (as opposed to just attacking like Deeds and Corzine did), we can unseat Obama in 2012.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:35 am
Dave,
Right on! Republicans will win when they offer real-world solutions to perceived problems. Americans, now more than ever, are looking for competent governance. Most Americans are fundamentally skeptical of ideologues.
Hoffman’s problem was that he didn’t have a clue about local political issues, which, for some reason, a lot of the people in the district were concerned about. He didn’t even show up for local TV debates because he knew they would ask him about a lot of local stuff.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:36 am
5 – how can you predict what the 2012 issues with be?
November 4th, 2009 at 12:36 am
one could argue the opposite…Hoffman with no money, no organization, and in the Beck model received a very large % of the vote in a moderate to center republican area…and in a two way race he likely wins
November 4th, 2009 at 12:38 am
Nicely put, DaveG. There will be quite a lot of talk about this race – both within the Republican Party and outside it.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:40 am
Jonathan,
I (and I imagine Dave would join me) couldn’t agree more. I meant pocketbook issues when I mentioned “the most salient issues of the day” – the issues that voters care about most. Now, these change, depending on the circumstances (for example, voters focused more on national security than the economy in 2004). But definitely, our nominees should hit on pocketbook issues. If we restrict ourselves to ambiguous philosophical arguments, we lose. Voters will get bored, and we give Dems a chance to gain an advantage, with the feel-good, idealistic rhetoric aptly used by figures like Obama and JFK. Now, I don’t mean Republicans should abandon idealism and optimism. On the contrary, we must lend credence to our idealism and optimism, by describing how conservative policies will make those yearnings reality.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:45 am
We are only 3 years away from celebrating a victory by then-President elect Mitt Romney!
November 4th, 2009 at 12:46 am
#1: The problem with Rush’s analysis is that he is basically working backwards. Ford, Bush 41 (’92), Dole and McCain all lost; therefore they were all moderates. Reagan, Bush I(’88), and Bush II all won, therefore they were conservatives. I am old enough to remember both Bush 41 campaigns and he ran as a much more conservative candidate in ’92 than he did in ’88. And Dole ran as a Kemp/ Gingrich Republican in ’96 (before Gingrich was a curse word). On the other side, Bush 43 gets hailed as a conservative when it was his fiscal recklessness that paved the way for the Obama Presidency by depriving the GOP of all credibility on fiscal issues.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:47 am
One thing is true here. Huckabee and Romney were smart to stay out of it until Dede dropped out.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:51 am
13. That is true. The big winners tonight were Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney. The loser was Newt Gingrich. The epic failures of tonight though were Redstate and Sarah Palin, and to a lesser degree, Tim Pawlenty.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:53 am
Dan,
Absoultely!!
November 4th, 2009 at 12:53 am
A one-word post and I misspell absolutely.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:53 am
14 – Huckabee endorsed Hoffman and his organization worked for his campaign.
Romney was a no-show.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:55 am
The problem with being pragmatic and orientated towards problem solving, is that voters don’t want hear that we need to actually pay for services or not deliver them. In order to actually balance the Federal budget, one would need to raise taxes and cut services. Now who would vote for that?
We are reaching a point where few sane people would choose to run for office. Why would anyone want to run for governor of California? Rush has a $400 million dollar contract, the others like Beck, Hannity and O’Rielly are multi-millionaires, and Sarah Palin is joining the club. It’s much more profitable to be cynical than to actually fix the fiscal mess we are in.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:57 am
I think Romney’s probably done the best with regards to how he positions himself in the party, neither with the establishment 100% of the time nor with the conservative fringe.
If Crist keeps sinking Romney needs to come out and help push Rubio over the top for good. There’s lots of great pragmatic candidates, but Crist probably has sullied himself a bit much to be the type of figure we want to run.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:59 am
18,
All the better than that those types got burned. This was a victory for real Republican government, not some fringe movement types rallying behind Palin and Beck.
November 4th, 2009 at 1:08 am
Although Scossafova may have been liberal, Eric Cantor has had success in rallying the Republicans and getting them to stick together on key issues. My opinion was always that half a loaf was better than nothing. Had Palin and Co. not gotten involved, we probably wouldn’t even be talking about this race but it likely would’ve stayed in the Republican column and Cantor may have had some succes in getting her to caucus with the Republicans on critical votes.
I agree with those who say Romney’s decision to not endorse in this race has been vindicated. It was a no-win for him to endorse a liberal Republican or a third-party candidate who was opposing the Republican Party’s nominee.
November 4th, 2009 at 1:12 am
18,
I disagree. The public favors cutting spending over tax increases, so if Republican candidates can explain why the former would provide more benefit to Americans (for instance, by informing voters that we’ll have a harder time cutting taxes if we don’t get spending under control, as Adam Andrzejewski has begun to do here in Illinois), they don’t necessarily need to settle on tax increases.
Furthermore, pragmatic candidates and officeholders can help the causes of themselves and the country as a whole by resolutely holding the line on current spending and fighting hard against spending INCREASES (similar to what Pawlenty and Romney has done/did during their administrations).
All in all, with the right people and strategy, campaigning and governing pragmatically need not necessarily come with tax increases.
November 4th, 2009 at 1:18 am
Palin turned a pretender into a contender in days and she supposedly loses in this how?
That’s the kind of spin I expect from the left.
This was a “GOP Selection Screw up” and nothing else.
November 4th, 2009 at 1:27 am
McDonnell and Christie snubbed her and stayed focused on the issues at hand. Hoffman embraced her movement as his reason for being.
It’s obvious that the voters vote for Republicans that lead, not for the conservative purist movement.
November 4th, 2009 at 1:30 am
And not for Rockefeller Republicans either, outside of Maine. But no one on the national stage advocates a national movement of Rockefeller Republicans anymore
November 4th, 2009 at 1:34 am
Kristofer,
Romney certainly wasn’t a no-show in Virginia and New Jersey, where Republicans won. He worked hard for those guys and donated PAC money to their campaigns.
November 4th, 2009 at 2:00 am
#21, not only was Romney vindicated, Mike Huckabee as well. Remember, both of them stayed out of this clusterfark, and was slammed mercilessly by Redstate and their ilk for doing so.
November 4th, 2009 at 2:39 am
As to Romney being a no-show in NY-23, I read somewhere this afternoon where Romney ended up providing some quiet, behind-the-scenes support to Hoffman after Dede left the race and the party. If I run across it again, I will post the reference.
He did do some herculean work in New Jersey, campaigning side-by-side with Cristie at the same time Obama was stumping for Corzine. He has been a very active, vocal Cristie supporter since just before the primary
As for Virginia, Mitt practically lived there for several weeks doing work for candidates up and down the ballot.
November 4th, 2009 at 3:19 am
I found the reference. K-Lo at NRO said:
November 4th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Is The Tea Party Over?
http://www.motherjones.com/print/28849
Biden, the Dems’ best closer? NY-23 thinks so. Sarah Palin not so much.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/11/biden-the-dems-best-closer.html
Senate moderates flex muscle on health-care bill
Wielding key votes, centrist lawmakers seek changes to legislation
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/03/AR2009110303801_pf.html
Bush, Clinton Debate At Radio City In February
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/04/bush-clinton-debate-at-ra_n_345175.html
November 4th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
#28,
Mitt references a ‘last minute donation’ to Hoffman in his e-mail sent today to supporters of his PAC.
I have no objection to supporting Hoffman once there was no Republican left in the race but prior to that, it would’ve been un-wise to actively y work against your party’s nominee.
January 27th, 2012 at 10:25 am
old united states coins…
Hoffman Falls Short | Race 4 2012…