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A Conservative Revolution
By JANE GILVARY, For The Bulletin
What would you call a candidate for the House of Representatives who supported the bank bailouts, the stimulus bill, card check, same-sex marriage, abortion rights, organized labor and tax increases? “Republican” probably isn’t the first word that comes to mind, but that is what Republican candidate for the House of Representatives and New York Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava considers herself. Nationally syndicated talk radio host, columnist, and political moderate Michael Smerconish seems to concur after a recent chat with Ms. Scozzafava.
Apparently, Ms. Scozzafava’s liberal positions on key issues wasn’t enough for Mr. Smerconish, or that Ms. Scozzafava received endorsements from the New York State United Teachers Union and extremely left-leaning blogger Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos. It wasn’t enough, either, that, after the Assemblywoman from New York state dropped out of the race for the 23rd Congressional district, she turned around and endorsed her Democratic opponent instead of the conservative candidate more akin to Republican beliefs.
Mr. Smerconish still thinks that Ms. Scozzafava “is more of a mixed bag than a liberal.” At this point, I have to respectfully suggest that Mr. Smerconish has been drinking too much Kool-Aid.
In an interview with Mr. Smerconish, Ms. Scozzafava claims to have voted with her Republican leader about 95 percent of the time in New York’s state assembly, but if her state leaders have the same left-leaning stances that she has clearly espoused, then her only loyalty is to liberals. Her district is also comprised of mostly moderate Republicans who happened to vote for then-candidate Barack Obama in the ’08 election, so, essentially, she’s a left-leaning representative for moderate voters. Mind you, all of this would be okay if Ms. Scozzafava didn’t claim to be a Republican.
In effect, Ms. Scozzafava is a closet liberal whose positions on key issues were exposed by her conservative opponent Doug Hoffman and his political posse of Sarah Palin, Fred Thompson, Tim Pawlenty, and Steve Forbes – to name a few. She didn’t even win a primary election to earn New York’s GOP support. She was appointed by what conservative talker and bestselling author Laura Ingraham terms “a gaggle of party poo-bahs” who are noticeably and extremely out of touch with their re-energized conservative base of townhallers and tea partiers.
Eleven Republican county chairs essentially chose Ms. Scozzafava, a New York Assemblywoman since 1999, as their candidate for New York’s 23rd Congressional district. Were these party gasbags paying attention on Sept. 12 when hundreds of thousands of Americans marched on Washington to express their distaste for the very things of which Ms. Scozzafava is in favor?
Clearly, the New York GOP was choking on the Republicans In Name Only (RINOs) pill. Luckily, Mrs. Palin was standing by to perform the Heimlich maneuver. The Arctic Fox, much to the delight of conservatives, bucked the GOP establishment by endorsing conservative candidate Mr. Hoffman with nothing more than a simple post on Facebook. The conservative base went wild and wholeheartedly supported Mrs. Palin’s “no more politics as usual” stance. She was a euphoric injection into the vein of establishment party politics, and her political flower has yet to fully bloom. Tuesday’s release of Mrs. Palin’s memoir Going Rogue is likely to firmly establish her as a conservative player jockeying for a pole position in 2012.
While Mrs. Palin emphatically altered the entire complexion of the race in the 23rd district, she, more importantly, confirmed her political clout, her star power, in re-charging a base that was slowly conceding to GOP RINOs content to compromise on certain issues to win elections and water-down our Constitution while doing so – i.e. John McCain. Even liberal talk show host Geraldo Rivera admits, in no uncertain terms, that Mrs. Palin has power, “Whatever you say about Sarah Palin, I think that she is the clear winner here. She won upstate New York.”
What’s more is that Mrs. Palin’s endorsement of Mr. Hoffman and the conservative base’s resounding approval of it show that conservatives want allegiance on certain issues and are no longer willing to compromise principle for party. Just being electable is not good enough anymore, and conservative standard bearers like Mrs. Palin, Mr. Thompson and Mr. Pawlenty are the new voices of limited government, rule of law and traditional American values. They established this in their support for a conservative candidate like Mr. Hoffman. We are only left to speculate a drastically different outcome to this particular race had Mrs. Palin and company legitimized Mr. Hoffman a few weeks sooner than they did.
And as of this writing, an interesting turn of events recently developed. Mr. Hoffman’s officially “unconceded” the race for the 23rd. After a re-canvassing of votes, the margin of Bill Owens’ victory telescoped from 5,335 votes to just 3,026 votes. With still over 10,000 absentee ballots to be counted, Mr. Hoffman hopefuls are holding their collective breaths for a come-from-behind victory, albeit an improbability. Still waiting for the fat lady to sing.
Obviously, a race that continues to captivate the political landscape almost three weeks after Election Day is an auger of things to come for the revitalized conservative base of the Republican Party. For now conservatives may have lost a House seat, but establishment Republicans were issued a stern wakeup call – conservatism a la Ronald Reagan is back and core values matter. In the end, conservative principles will always trump party politics.
Jane Gilvary is a freelance writer and a student in the graduate Writing Studies Program at St. Joseph’s University.
Apparently, Ms. Scozzafava’s liberal positions on key issues wasn’t enough for Mr. Smerconish, or that Ms. Scozzafava received endorsements from the New York State United Teachers Union and extremely left-leaning blogger Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos. It wasn’t enough, either, that, after the Assemblywoman from New York state dropped out of the race for the 23rd Congressional district, she turned around and endorsed her Democratic opponent instead of the conservative candidate more akin to Republican beliefs.
Mr. Smerconish still thinks that Ms. Scozzafava “is more of a mixed bag than a liberal.” At this point, I have to respectfully suggest that Mr. Smerconish has been drinking too much Kool-Aid.
In an interview with Mr. Smerconish, Ms. Scozzafava claims to have voted with her Republican leader about 95 percent of the time in New York’s state assembly, but if her state leaders have the same left-leaning stances that she has clearly espoused, then her only loyalty is to liberals. Her district is also comprised of mostly moderate Republicans who happened to vote for then-candidate Barack Obama in the ’08 election, so, essentially, she’s a left-leaning representative for moderate voters. Mind you, all of this would be okay if Ms. Scozzafava didn’t claim to be a Republican.
In effect, Ms. Scozzafava is a closet liberal whose positions on key issues were exposed by her conservative opponent Doug Hoffman and his political posse of Sarah Palin, Fred Thompson, Tim Pawlenty, and Steve Forbes – to name a few. She didn’t even win a primary election to earn New York’s GOP support. She was appointed by what conservative talker and bestselling author Laura Ingraham terms “a gaggle of party poo-bahs” who are noticeably and extremely out of touch with their re-energized conservative base of townhallers and tea partiers.
Eleven Republican county chairs essentially chose Ms. Scozzafava, a New York Assemblywoman since 1999, as their candidate for New York’s 23rd Congressional district. Were these party gasbags paying attention on Sept. 12 when hundreds of thousands of Americans marched on Washington to express their distaste for the very things of which Ms. Scozzafava is in favor?
Clearly, the New York GOP was choking on the Republicans In Name Only (RINOs) pill. Luckily, Mrs. Palin was standing by to perform the Heimlich maneuver. The Arctic Fox, much to the delight of conservatives, bucked the GOP establishment by endorsing conservative candidate Mr. Hoffman with nothing more than a simple post on Facebook. The conservative base went wild and wholeheartedly supported Mrs. Palin’s “no more politics as usual” stance. She was a euphoric injection into the vein of establishment party politics, and her political flower has yet to fully bloom. Tuesday’s release of Mrs. Palin’s memoir Going Rogue is likely to firmly establish her as a conservative player jockeying for a pole position in 2012.
While Mrs. Palin emphatically altered the entire complexion of the race in the 23rd district, she, more importantly, confirmed her political clout, her star power, in re-charging a base that was slowly conceding to GOP RINOs content to compromise on certain issues to win elections and water-down our Constitution while doing so – i.e. John McCain. Even liberal talk show host Geraldo Rivera admits, in no uncertain terms, that Mrs. Palin has power, “Whatever you say about Sarah Palin, I think that she is the clear winner here. She won upstate New York.”
What’s more is that Mrs. Palin’s endorsement of Mr. Hoffman and the conservative base’s resounding approval of it show that conservatives want allegiance on certain issues and are no longer willing to compromise principle for party. Just being electable is not good enough anymore, and conservative standard bearers like Mrs. Palin, Mr. Thompson and Mr. Pawlenty are the new voices of limited government, rule of law and traditional American values. They established this in their support for a conservative candidate like Mr. Hoffman. We are only left to speculate a drastically different outcome to this particular race had Mrs. Palin and company legitimized Mr. Hoffman a few weeks sooner than they did.
And as of this writing, an interesting turn of events recently developed. Mr. Hoffman’s officially “unconceded” the race for the 23rd. After a re-canvassing of votes, the margin of Bill Owens’ victory telescoped from 5,335 votes to just 3,026 votes. With still over 10,000 absentee ballots to be counted, Mr. Hoffman hopefuls are holding their collective breaths for a come-from-behind victory, albeit an improbability. Still waiting for the fat lady to sing.
Obviously, a race that continues to captivate the political landscape almost three weeks after Election Day is an auger of things to come for the revitalized conservative base of the Republican Party. For now conservatives may have lost a House seat, but establishment Republicans were issued a stern wakeup call – conservatism a la Ronald Reagan is back and core values matter. In the end, conservative principles will always trump party politics.
Jane Gilvary is a freelance writer and a student in the graduate Writing Studies Program at St. Joseph’s University.
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