Matthew E. Miller and I spoke regarding Hoffman the other night, and he noted presciently that if Hoffman pulled out a solid win, it could bode poorly for candidates with weak ACU ratings, such as Mark Kirk, our current nominee-to-be in Illinois. Would a Hoffman win embolden them? Look — we can win with a down-the-line conservative if we have the right circumstances! –
Mark Kirk — as well as Mike Castle and dozens of House candidates — can breathe a sigh of relief tonight, as the conservative movement was dealt a terrible embarrassment in NY-23.
NY-23 is really not a conservative district. It is a moderate district where we had a solid shot at getting a slightly-more-conservative-than-McHugh candidate into office, had we played our cards right. From the very beginning, though, things went horribly wrong. Instead of playing by-the-book pragmatism, the establishment defecated all over the place in the form of Dede Scozzafava, who is barely distinguishable from Joe Lieberman — which in turn, predictably, caused an absurdly out-of-proportion backlash from the talk radio contingent of the party.
DaveG is basically right: we saw how not to win tonight. We don’t win by running Rockefeller Republicans, but we don’t win by running Glenn Beck-style Republicans, either. I think that a strong candidate in the latter category has more of a chance than the former — my goodness, Hoffman was a weak candidate who was in way over his head, skipping out on debates and admitting that he knew absolutely nothing about local issues — but it’s not something that we need to risk when we can run amorphous blobs like Chris Christie and walk away with five-percent wins in blue states.
It wasn’t crazy to try with Doug Hoffman — indeed, I supported him over Scozzafava — but it would have been much better to run someone like Chris Christie or Bob McDonnell: competent, issues-oriented candidates that don’t try and bludgeon anyone with the gigantic club of ideology. Running someone like McDonnell in place of Scozzafava wouldn’t have made a statement. But it would have made a Congressman.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:42 am
Alex:
Do you know how down ticket Republicans did in New Jersey? I remember seeing pre-election polls showing Generic Republican beating Generic Democrat in State legislature questions.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:49 am
wait – so is your argument about ideology, platform or message?
November 4th, 2009 at 12:53 am
2 – All. We can win with a Hoffman conservative, but he can’t be a bad candidate. It’s way safer to run a center-right candidate, though.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:59 am
Alex, this post hits me close to home. While Kirk has certainly made some questionable decisions, most notably with cap and tax, if he gives us the best chance to send a Republican to the Senate from the Land of Lincoln, I’ll take him.
Furthermore, one of my good friends from back home has met Kirk (actually, the Congressman held a town hall at my friend’s family’s hardware store) and has nothing but nice things to say about him.
November 4th, 2009 at 1:10 am
this certainly doesn’t repudiate Hoffman like candidates…despite all the factors working against him (including himself)..in a moderate district.. he got nearly 46%…this was no alan keyes in the il senate race
November 4th, 2009 at 1:17 am
5,
Valid point, but you have to consider the context: today’s elections occurred in an environment decidedly favorable to conservatives (anti-incumbent sentiment stoked by an unhealthy economy and overwhelming Democratic majorities in the federal government) – an aberration, not the norm.
November 4th, 2009 at 1:20 am
true…which makes this sad because with even a sliver of money and real organization he would have won this,,but again despite these weaknesses he got very close…
November 4th, 2009 at 1:23 am
Fortunately, we can run candidates you and I would consider more ideal (if I recall correctly you’ve expressed anti-Fed sentiment in previous comments) in more conservative areas. Just look at Rand Paul in Kentucky!
November 4th, 2009 at 1:27 am
There’s more than enough blame to go around in NY 23. The lesson, however, is to avoid fratricide whenever possible. I’ve now read just about everything that can be read and still wouldn’t swear absolutely what Scozzafava’s real postions on certain issues are. If they’re as bad as some have said, the Hoffman candidacy was necessary. Otherwise, it was lunacy. I don’t know, but I do know that you can’t eject sizable portions of your base and still win elections.
November 4th, 2009 at 1:31 am
no, not a big fan of Fed actions of the past 20 years or so, the one thing the Fed has successfully continued to churn out all that time is moral hazard in the financial system, and they are doing it again now…and, despite many mainsteam republicans focusing on fannie and freddie stuff as to the cause of what we have experienced the last few years, the main cause of it has been the insistence of supply siders on turning the Fed into a welfare program for the financial markets (lightweights like Kudlow)
November 4th, 2009 at 2:42 am
Alex you are all over the shop now that you are a Palin freak. You heavily supported Hoffman and thought he would win.
November 4th, 2009 at 2:54 am
Dalke,
I think Paul is losing right now in Kentucky in a general election matchup while Grayson is winning. We may be pushing libertarianism in the wrong places. NY-23 is not a libertarian district (the average income is $8,000 below the median national income from what I read). We almost caught lightning in a bottle but came up a little short.
November 4th, 2009 at 3:48 am
Yeah, I hold strong misgivings as to the ability of Paul to get the middle of the road voters that Democrats will be aiming for in 2010, if he’s anything like his father. If he wins the primary he’ll have to mainstream them to more core voter concerns. And Grayson is likely a much more experienced campaigner.
November 4th, 2009 at 10:46 am
TB and MPC,
You gentlemen may have it right. I prefer to wait longer to see if polls will in time show Rand consistently leading in the general. Again, he doesn’t fit the same mold as his dad. I remain optimistic.
November 4th, 2009 at 11:02 am
I don’t know if Kirk is quite as liberal and totally unacceptable as Judy Barr Topinka during the 2006 election. She was so unacceptable that even “Stufflebeam received 19,020 votes, .5% in his write-in bid for the Governor’s office. This is the largest write-in vote total in Illinois history.” The GOP usually wins when we have conservatives or moderate right nominees on the ballot. If we nominate a liberal or left leaning moderate; many will vote 3rd party…even if they have to remember how to spell a name like “Stufflebeam” to write-in their vote. I hope Illinois has learned from our history in 2006 as well as NY23’s results this year.
November 4th, 2009 at 11:47 am
Why does nobody seem to notice what I think is obvious: that Hoffman probably would have won if the Republican establishment would have backed off their monster candidate Scozzafava? This is a failure of the Republican Party to recognize what its constituents actually want, not a failure of a conservative candidate in his own right.
Also, since everyone pretty much seems to agree that Scozzafava would have been little (or probably NO) different from Owens, why does it even matter that Owens won? I don’t understand the buyer’s remorse with Hoffman. If Hoffman hadn’t gained the traction he did, we probably would have been stuck with that awful Scozzafava wench forever. Which could hardly be any better, the way I see things.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Alex you are all over the shop now that you are a Palin freak. You heavily supported Hoffman and thought he would win.
Palin freak? I just like her. I’m not even supporting her for the presidency or anything. And yes, I heavily supported Hoffman, and yes, I thought he would win. I was wrong!
November 4th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Granny T, I’m going to disagree with you on Topinka. I didn’t perceive her as being terribly liberal and I don’t think liberalism is why she lost. I’m not sure any Republican could have won in Illinois in 2006, but we might have had a chance if we could have run an anti-machine/anti-corruption campaign against Blagojevich.
The smell of corruption was already pretty strong in 2006, but Topinka, with all her ties to Ryan, was hardly the candidate to take advantage of it.
I voted for Topinka, of course, but did so with a considerable lack of enthusiasm. I can’t imagine many independents saw any reason to vote for her against Blagojevich.
November 4th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
According to Cillizza of the Washington Post, Kirk seeks Palin endorsement for his Senate candidacy. Looks like moderate Republicans want Palin Power in Illinois.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/eye-on-2012/il-sen-kirk-seeks-palin-endors.html?wprss=thefix
November 5th, 2009 at 3:07 am
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November 5th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
[...] come out of this mess is the one that’s being pushed by many who advocate the nomination of more liberal Republican candidates. Tuesday night did not prove the need to embrace RINOs (Republicans In Name [...]
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[...] come out of this mess is the one that’s being pushed by many who advocate the nomination of more liberal Republican candidates. Tuesday night did not prove the need to embrace RINOs (Republicans In Name [...]