Unless you're a political anorak (mea culpa), it's likely you will have missed the special election (by-election) battle currently raging in New York's 23rd Congressional District (NY-23). The special election has been brough about by the resignation of Republican Congressman John McHugh to take up an appointment as Obama's Secretary of the Army.
This is, however, no parochial contest about local issues. The upstate New York congressional district - which stretches along the state’s western boundary with Vermont and borders Canada to the north - has become a microcosm of the ideological struggle raging for the soul of the Republican Party. As has become all too common in the Republican Party over the past few years, this ideological struggle sadly revolves almost entirely around social issues.
Moderate Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava is facing an increasingly serious and well-funded third-party challenge from the Conservative Party's Doug Hoffman which appears likely to hand victory to Democrat centrist Bill Owens.
Scozzafava, who is well known in the district as a former town Mayor and member of the New York State Assembly, has come under increasing pressure over the past three weeks for her support for limited abortion rights, stem cell research and civil partnership legislation. National Republican after national Republican, from possible 2012 Presidential nominees Sarah Palin and Tim Pawlenty down to local office holders are lining up in their thousands to throw campaign contributions and support to Hoffman over their party's official candidate.
Looking at Scozzafava's past record from a purely British point of view, it does appear a tad perplexing that any candidate who has been endorsed by the National Rifle Association for their "strong and consistent support of the Second Amendment and solid pro-gun legislative record" and who has signed the Americans for Tax Reform written pledge not to raise income taxes can then be branded a “radical leftist” or “RINO” (Republican in name only) by the likes of Palin or journalist Michelle Malkin.
Aside from Presidential hopefuls Palin and Pawlenty, Hoffman’s campaign has picked up the endorsement of the influential Club for Growth, an organization whose sole objective appears to be forcing the likes of moderate Republicans like Senator Arlen Specter and Congressman Joe Schwarz out of the party - losing their seats with them.
The Republican Party is exactly where the Conservative Party was circa 1998: out of touch and seemingly irrelevant to the lives of ordinary people. It appears that Republicans would rather lose seats to the increasingly left-wing Democrat Party than accommodate moderates like Scozzafava in swing districts like NY-23 which supported Barack Obama in 2008.
While the Democrats appear to have adapted the lessons of Reagan’s “conservative coalition” to their own party, increasingly selecting candidates who fit their districts rather than their party, the Republican Party now appears solely focused on ideological naval-gazing.
Are the GOP hell-bent on remaining in eternal opposition and splendid isolation in the political wilderness or are they willing to do what it takes to win? Looking at what's going on in NY-23, you can only conclude that they have judged political hara-kiri to be a preferable option to victory.
Republicans, please; take Newt Gingrich's advice:
“If you seek to be a perfect minority, you’ll remain a minority. That’s not how Reagan built his revolution or how we won back the House in 1994”.
