Posts Tagged ‘NRCC’

Sarah Palin and the NY-23

Posted: October 22, 2009 by datechguy in internet/free speech, opinion/news
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Yesterday I wrote the following:

With Rush also mentioning the race I suspect that the question is fast becoming not if people can bring Hoffman over the top but will republicans be wise enough to get ahead of the curve to support the winner.

Followed by this:

Perhaps those who will be looking for the Grassroots support in 2012 might want to get in front while they can still take some credit?

and preceded by this:

if Palin is interested in making trouble for Romney and Paulenty she can come out for Hoffman. That will put them in the uncomfortable position of either joining her (and having them appear as followers) or supporting Dede (and making particularly Paulenty unacceptable to conservatives, Romney is already iffy) or not being willing to stand up for anything.

The party make a bad investment in NY and their stock is crashing. Apparently they’d rather lose their stake then re-invest in Doug Hoffman. What fools.

Today Jim Geraghty says this:

Is Somebody About to Make Doug Hoffman’s Day?

Don’t take this to the bank, at least not yet. But somebody who seems to be in a position to know what’s coming down the pike in New York’s special election tells me that he’s hearing Sarah Palin will publicly endorse Conservative Doug Hoffman over Republican Dede Scozzafava.

If this happens it will be a seismic shift and will change the dynamics of the race (and piss off David Frum but that’s an added bonus, I really shouldn’t say that he’s wrong lately but likely not a bad guy). It also puts the NRCC in a bad spot because they will need Palin in 2010 BADLY!

If it turns out to be true it’s a shame that there isn’t a shoe leather reporter/blogger on the scene to cover it. Oh Wait.

I guess I was wrong at first concerning holding back. Just goes to show you the difference a few days makes.

Vote Hoffman.

In order to aid he who peace is upon on the value of a balanced debate, lets link to a dissenting view by Elizabeth Payne.

Update: Speaking of reporting from the place where the news is being made:

While Scozzafava has the endorsement of Armey’s former congressional colleague Newt Gingrich and the support of the national GOP, grassroots volunteers from the Tea Party movement have bouyed the campaign of Hoffman, running on the Conservative Party line.

“The Republican candidate can’t win,” Armey declared, saying that Gingrich “made the wrong choice” in backing Scozzafava, a New York state assemblywoman whose record puts her to the left of most Democrats here in this largely rural district, where Republican Rep. John McHugh routinely won re-election with 2-to-1 margins.

In the words of Jimmie expect more exclusive reporting

LGF2 on NY-23: Updated with free speech lesson!

Posted: October 22, 2009 by datechguy in internet/free speech, opinion/news
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After touching on the WSJ piece they take the exact opposite view of Morning Joe concerning republicans:

Republicans just opened up their widest lead since 1994 on the generic Congressional ballot poll. Obama is in negative double-digits pretty consistently on Rasmussen’s daily tracking poll of political polarity. Only 43% say they’d vote to re-elect Obama. And – perhaps mosting damning of all for the Democrats – for the first time that I can ever remember at least, the GOP leads the Dems in ALL TEN of the “voters trust” issues – including “Democrat friendly” issues like health care, social security, and education. Also note, the GOP has a sizable trust advantage on abortion – so don’t tell me that social issues are a loser for the GOP. I’m not buying it.

If present trends hold, Republicans look set to take back Senate seats in Pennsylvania and Delaware (two bluish Northeastern states), and conservatives look like they’re going to be sweeping the big three races in Virginia handily (showing that conservative Republicans can definitely win in purple states). The Iowa governourship appears set to revert to conservative Republican hands (another purplish state), and in Ohio (another purple state), a relatively unknown Rob Portman has caught up with and is now virtually tied with each of the better-known, statewide Democrat elected officials that he is matched up against for the open Senate seat. How are Democrats faring in red states? Not good at all – if the news that Blanche Lincoln, Arkansas’s incumbent moderate Democrat Senator trails all four of her potential Republican opponents is any indication.

So please, don’t try to feed me this blithering nonsense about how the GOP needs to run to the centre to win, and is currently perceived as too right-wing to be viable. Quite the opposite is in fact true. The GOP is viewed by its own base as being full of squishes, and is viewed by independents as incapable of providing the leadership on the issues that they want. If that were to change, the GOP would win elections solidly, even in purplish and northeastern districts like NY-23. The reasonably conservative Jim Tedisco lost the special election in NY-20 by only a few hundred votes – and that is a district where the Dems had won handily in both the previous elections, and which Obama easily carried. If that special election were being held today, Tedisco would probably win it.

The question becomes what do they actually want? I’ve actually already answered that here:

If your primary interest as a feudal lord is getting back on the gravy train with the king you certainly don’t want to have the peasants revolt against that largess.

If people who actually plan on acting get elected they will try to act, that might spill the gravy train.

Unfortunately for the GOP establishment there is now too much attention to play the game they way they want.

Now we will see who is who and what is what.

Vote Hoffman!

Update: Dan Riehl makes an interesting point

If grassroots conservatives have dropped the ball in some way, especially in the Northeast, it is that we haven’t done the hard work to take back the Republican Party from the ground up. To truly prevail we must do that.

It disappointed me to hear the Club for Growth’s Andy Roth blame RNC Chairman Michael Steele and the D.C. Republicans for giving us a Dede Scozzafava. He knows better than that, and he shouldn’t play that game simply to get his message across. Scozzafava got the nod based upon a state and local decision. It’s important for conservatives to understand how that came about.

It is not the D.C. GOP’s job to stab a state or local organization in the back, no matter what you may think. Money and support flow up and flow back down. A national political organization capable of winning elections can not afford to function any other way. Let’s stop playing games.

His point about getting involved is well made but that doesn’t change the fact the Scozzafava is a lousy candidate and the national party should have been circumspect about offending the grass roots movement that is making the difference in their support nationally.

Oh and note to Charles Johnson (peace be upon him) this is how you respectfully disagree with someone on a subject without offense, particularly if you agree on so many other subjects and in that spirit let me remind you that there is still space of the statement of common principles for anyone who wants to sign.

Q: How is Doug Hoffman the opposite of Meagan McCain?

Posted: October 22, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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A: He is getting attention from being flat. Flat tax that is:

Okay, enough suspense. Stacy informed me earlier this evening that Doug Hoffman will hold a press conference in the media hub of the region, Syracuse, where he will endorse the flat tax. That may not necessarily seem like a big deal but consider what I wrote earlier. Hoffman makes a good part of his living off of navigating the byzantine tax code for people who are overwhelmed by it. A flat tax will cost him business, since you’ll be able to figure out your taxes each year on the back of a postcard. Doug Hoffman is willing to work against his own financial interest to push something that’s in our best interests. When was the last time a politician did that?

That would certainly explain the Armey endorsement and to some degree the GOP opposition.

But DaTechGuy you say doesn’t the GOP like the flat tax? Are you sure you are just not getting it wrong since it’s 2:45 a.m. and you’re blogging while fixing someone’s PC while waking up on the couch?

Au contrare!

You see tax policy is one of the great powers of congress, by tweaking the tax code one can reward friends, punish foes, and “earn” the dollars of lobbyists from all over. I do my own taxes on paper and on many sections you find yourselves seemingly adding and subtracting numbers for no apparent reason, but the actual apparent reason is because for that .01% of taxpayers (usually a particular company) that particular line or tweak will affect their bottom line.

This is raw power, and if you think the GOP establishment in congress is going to give up that raw power willingly then you must think Romney care is the greatest thing since sliced bread!

The question in my mind is this? Exactly how good can try the club sandwich at the Renaissance Hotel lounge? Which came first the Flat Tax position or the Armey endorsement? and as a corollary: if the Flat tax endorsement came first is THAT the reason why the GOP establishment wants the serpents to strangle this one it the cradle because as a certain reporter wrote today?

Like they said at Chicago in ’68, the whole world is watching. I told Jimmie during our conversation that if Hoffman wins, his campaign here in NY23 will become the template for hundreds of similar grassroots conservative campaigns nationwide at every level next year.

and THAT in a nutshell is why the GOP establishment doesn’t want Hoffman or frankly Palin for that matter. If your primary interest as a feudal lord is getting back on the gravy train with the king you certainly don’t want to have the peasants revolt against that largess.

And if that revolt is successful that will force the GOP to either join the back of the mob al-la the Artful Dodger in Oliver Twist, to try to get ahead of said mob pretending to lead the race a-la Rosie Ruiz or to simply accept it and pretend that they agree a la British Catholic ecumenical leaders trying to deal with the Pope’s historic move this week.

Bonus question! Why should you not blog at 2 a.m. in the middle of fixing someone’s virus infected system?

A: Because you end up writing bad puns like the title of this post.

Apparently they would rather lose that to admit error

Posted: October 21, 2009 by datechguy in internet/free speech, opinion/news
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News keeps breaking from the NY 23. This time it from TCOT report as recorded by Michael Patrick Leahy:

We acted very tone deaf in how we selected this nominee.”

Joseph also took a shot at Clinton County Chairman and Assemblywoman Janet Duprey, who threw the nomination to Scozzafava despite the fact that the majority of the Clinton County committee members who attended a candidate forum voted for the ideologically conservative Paul Maroun, and not for the ideologically liberal Scozzafava.

“I would be as much offended if I was a resident or committee person of that county. This process, that started in an honorable fashion has turned into a tainted runaway election.”

Joseph conceded that because of this, Scozzafava is almost certain to lose the election.

It’s looking a lot like some local GOP people decided to flex the muscles because they could. The damage this is going to do to the party nationally can’t be overestimated, but then again this might be a feature rather than a bug to these guys who are more interested in their own fiefdoms.

Meanwhile Robert Stacy takes a few minutes away from the desperate fight to contain the Flemish Menace to attempt to get the funds to head a bit closer to my neck of the woods.

Right now, I’m on deadline for a Wednesday column about the NY-23 special election. Dick Armey’s going to be campaigning for Hoffman on Thursday. So I plan to leave either late Wednesday or early Thursday to cover it in person. Your continued generosity to the Shoe Leather Fund is necessary to this effort.

Meanwhile he writes the following for the spectator:

However, Hoffman is battling against major party candidates, with the national GOP spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for Scozzafava — angering conservatives like Michelle Malkin — while the Democratic Party pours cash into the campaign coffers of its candidate, Bill Owens.

With high-profile supporters including Fred Thompson, Dick Armey, Bill Kristol and the Club for Growth, the Hoffman campaign has become what John Gizzi of Human Events calls a “national conservative crusade.”

Conservatives have had their eye on the Hoffman campaign for weeks, but now major national media are finally taking notice. “The race the nation should be watching is a special election in upstate New York,” Newsweek magazine’s David Graham wrote yesterday, saying the outcome would show “whether Democrats can hold on to voters who went for Obama in 2008.”

This is actually going to show nothing of the sort as the Democrat candidate is unlikely to break the mid 40’s if he is lucky but it will certainly be a referendum of the NRCC and on Newt who appears to think that the majority of the sales of his new book (my review here) are going to come from NRCC mass purchases than from conservative history buffs or he just wants to keep his viability for income as a party pundit (that’s what many candidacies are actually all about.) hey it’s a living.

Fred Thompson has other sources of income so he is less resistant to picking sides based on conservative beliefs.

The real question is will Rush or Palin risk capital on this race that in the end means very little although it will be used a a propaganda victory for the Obamacult, but if Palin is interested in making trouble for Romney and Paulenty she can come out for Hoffman. That will put them in the uncomfortable position of either joining her (and having them appear as followers) or supporting Dede (and making particularly Paulenty unacceptable to conservatives, Romney is already iffy) or not being willing to stand up for anything.

The party make a bad investment in NY and their stock is crashing. Apparently they’d rather lose their stake then re-invest in Doug Hoffman. What fools.

However it turns out it won’t be boring.

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