On November 3, there will be a special election in upstate New York. It’s called a “special election” because it’s being conducted to fill the seat vacated by Republican John McHugh who’s now Obama’s Secretary of the Army, but what really makes it a special election is how the whole thing is actually playing out.
The hand-picked Republican candidate, a state assemblywoman by the name of Dede Scozzafava, had been catching a ton of wrath from conservative Republicans who’ve had enough of traditional RINOs (Republicans In Name Only). Scozzafava is a classic northeast liberal Republican…so liberal that she can’t even get away with being called a centrist…and she’d been receiving, quite thankfully, a lot of grief from a more active, animated, and aware base from both within and without New York. Most notably, her most serious competition had been from a former rival for the Republican nomination, Doug Hoffman, who’s now waging a battle for the slot in the name of the Conservative Party.
Note that I refer to Scozzafava’s candidacy in the past tense, and that’s because she just dropped out of the race. Recent poll numbers showed Hoffman ahead of Democratic nominee Bill Owens, and way ahead of Scozzafava, who was, at one time, leading over both Hoffman and Owens. In a letter to her disappointed supporters, Scozzafava said, in part, “The reality that I've come to accept is that in today's political arena, you must be able to back up your message with money -- and as I've been outspent on both sides, I've been unable to effectively address many of the charges that have been made about my record."
Lack of money was never the issue here, Dede; it was lack of an ability to distinguish yourself from the worst of any of the Democrats. Indeed, the Democratic Party’s choice for this race, Owens, is enough of a blue dog that he’s actually less of a leftist nutjob than the Republican offering in the form of Scozzafava.
The race is getting so much attention because it represents the first opportunity since the manifestation of current conservative populist outrage for a difference to be made in an election. Third-party candidates are normally nothing more than footnotes to elections, but this time may well prove to be different. We should hope and pray for that to be the case. To learn more about Doug Hoffman, please visit: http://www.doughoffmanforcongress.com.
Agree or disagree; please register your comments below.
Follow me on Christian Chirp at www.christianchirp.com/robertyetman.
Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor-At-Large www.ChristianMoney.com
Recent Comments