Learning Lessons Right and Wrong from NY-23

by John F. Di Leo

Good pollsters will look at the November results from NY-23 and come to the logical conclusion that Republicans won the votes but lost the seat, as the Democratic party got 49% of the vote, while the two Republicans split the 51% of Republican votes. 

The pundits of the state-controlled media (Rush's term for the once-major networks, the liberal big city newspapers, etc.) will, as usual, spin these results to dampen the powerful messages sent by voters in New Jersey and Virginia.  While understandable -- people with the power to spin will do so if they can get away with it -- such interpretations will be wrong. 

Virginia's and New Jersey's November elections were normally scheduled general elections with normal voter turnout, after each had normal primary cycles.  Their results are instructive -- they clearly tell us the reaction of the citizenry to the overswung pendulum of 2006 and 2008.  Study them, learn from them, and if you're a Democrat, fear them.

NY-23 was a special congressional election.  Unlike Illinois, where special congressional elections have a primary cycle first (albeit an abbreviated one), the Democrat and Republican party voters didn't have a chance to choose their nominees in New York.  They rely on their party chairmen to select a nominee appropriate to the party and the district.

The Democratic party leaders of NY-23 used their heads, and selected a semi-reasonable moderate Democrat as their nominee.  Not a real moderate, of course -- Owens is certainly a liberal -- but not a fire-breathing socialist guaranteed to turn off the voters of a Republican district, so he looks moderate for a Democrat.  A reasonably wise choice on the part of the Democrat party leaders.

By contrast, the Republican party leaders of NY-23 blew it.  They selected a fire-breathing socialist state assemblyman, guaranteed to turn off the voters of this solid one-hundred year Republican district.  An amazingly unwise choice on the part of the Republican party leaders.

The Conservative party leaders of New York therefore found it necessary to get involved.  They didn't plan on it -- they had not needed to run a candidate in that district before -- but when the Republican party decided to virtually give up the seat by nominating a liberal, one classified as to the left of half the Democrats in the state house in objective rankings. the Conservative party had no choice.

The Republicans had probably given up the seat by nominating an unelectable candidate, so the Conservatives ran their own mainstream conservative Republican, Doug Hoffman.  He had an uphill battle all along, of course, knowing that the conservative vote could split, but it was necessitated by the Republican party leadership's nomination of a person better suited for ACORN (endorsed by ACORN, in fact!) than for their party.

And they should have known better.  We partisans like to think that we can trust our party leaders to at least understand what we believe in, to agree with their membership on the basic issues... but we often cannot.  Too often, as we painfully learned from NY-23, they don't get it at all. 

The blame for NY-23's results cannot be laid at the feet of the Conservative party, or Fred Thompson, or Sarah Palin, or the many talk show hosts who endorsed Doug Hoffman, stuck with an uphill battle in a difficult situation.  The blame must be assigned where it belongs:  to the local Republican leadership who put us in this impossible situation, and to the national Republican leadership who idiotically, and unforgivably, poured nearly a million dollars of Republican donors' money into the Dede Scozzafava campaign after the real Republicans in the district had left to join Hoffman. 

The national GOP could have stayed out of it, on the dual grounds that they couldn't spend their national donors' money on a RINO, and that, as Republicans, they also couldn't spend that money against the RINO on a third party.  If the national party had just used these good reasons not to put any money in the race, Hoffman might well have eaked out a win last night.  Those weeks of wrongheaded national GOP support for Scozzafava propped her up just enough to get her those few thousand votes that should have gone to Hoffman, costing our party this important seat.

The left will also claim that it was Hoffman's campaign approach that cost him the election -- that he was the wrong kind of candidate -- too conservative on social issues at a time when people don't care about them.   Again, wrong in every way.

Election after election, and poll after poll, confirm that the American people (except for a few wacko lefty urban pockets here and there) are conservative on virtually all the social issues.  Supporting pro-abortion, pro-gay-marriage, pro-alternate-lifestyles candidates is wrong for the party and wrong for the country.

Rather, the American public, particularly the independent vote, tends to gauge candidates by checking whether they have their priorities right.  They want candidates who are right on every issue, but who talk about things in the same order, and in the same proportions, in which the offices they seek will encounter those issues.

In the eyes of the average voter, in the average legislative session, the abortion issue affects a few votes per year.  The handgun rights issue affects a few votes per year.  The "special privileges for gays" issue affects maybe one or two votes per year.   By contrast, general taxation-and-spending issues affect hundreds of legislative votes every session.

The public therefore wants their candidates to be right on all the issues -- and hopefully be eloquent and effective on all the issues as well -- but not to talk about these issues disproportionately.  Candidates should be right on social issues, right on foreign policy, and firm on both... but should focus their spoken words on the tax-and-spend issues that will encapsulate 99% of their lives if we elect them.

Candidates who give every speech on social issues do scare independents... not from disagreement, but from the view of disproportionality. 

Watchers who take the wrong lessons from NY-23 can do great damage to both the party and the country in the future.  Watchers who take the right lessons -- don't nominate a liberal, don't prop up someone anathema to the voters, always be right on both the issues and the proportionate treatment of those issues -- will be poised for success in 2010 and beyond.

copyright 2009 John F. Di Leo

John F. Di Leo is a Chicago-based Customs broker and international trade compliance trainer.  A former county chairman of the Milwaukee GOP, he has been a recovering politician for twelve years and five months.

Comments

[PeteSpeer]

A thoughtful analysis. Sorry you copyrighted it which mans I can not use it elsewhere.

Some other thoughts from my earlier comments on this Blog

----

The voters, with their way of life threatened, turned out to be economic conservatives.

What this means is that the concept of personal responsibility is not dead. Obamaniacs take the opposite view -- it is the government's responsibility to take care of the people.

This is the philosophic opening the Republicans -- conservative or liberal -- need.

The unfortunate news, if we care to read it, is that in a moderate to liberal Republican District -- NY-23 -- a Social Conservative might not win as a third party.

I say 'might' because the situation was unique.

1. Way late in the campaign the putative Republican nominee who had the backing of the State and National Party left the campaign. If she had left quietly, the Conservative may have won. She threw her support behind the Democrat Party and the eventual winner.

2. This late departure didn't allow the Conservative sufficient time to attract Social Conservative Democrats or to focus on additional Republicans.

3. The remaining Republican vote appears to have been Social Republican Liberals and a protest against the Conservative who had left the Republican Party to run as a Conservative Party nominee.

4. The grass roots Conservative Party operatives (Precinct level) were not as well organized as they should have been.

At this early juncture the comments above are surmises. The 23rd is not the State of New York and the parallels with Illinois are not direct.

All we know for sure is that a Democrat was elected. Suggestions that a Social Conservative candidate on the Republican line would have won are not proven.
---------
Regarding Illinois in particular

The whole purpose of politicians, these days, in Illinois is to assure their own reelection. To do that they must make voters comfortable with the level of corruption which is clearly evident should they look around.

I call that permissive corruption and in Chicago it takes the form of small favors by aldermen upon request. Small economic benefits are exchanged for a vote. The cost associated with that benefit is never felt.

Thus, the reform bill -- all hat and no cattle, as the expression gows. Thus, the raises given automatically to legislators unless a vote is taken to reject them -- and in a way, the cost of living increases which are tied to contracts. Thus, the step increases given for no other reason than longevity in a position.

In times of continuing prosperity, a sense of well being pervades. Now, in a depression only the very oldest of us has seen, with jobs lost and, unfathomably, housing values and taxes rising, like coral at low tides, the taxpayer sees the growing cost of supporting corruption. Only when he can figuratively hear the coral scraping the bottom of his boat will he unship his oars.

He has already changed his personal economic habits -- dropping spending, paying down his credit cards, saving where he can part of his income.

The question is, will he change his political habits as well?

[Louis G Atsaves]

So more voters voted the "conservative" platform than the Democratic one. And that is spun into a victory. But the Democrat won the election. So this redefinition of "victory" came at a huge price.

And the whole thing is blamed upon the "Republican leadership" and not on those who tore the Republican candidate to shreds, both personally and ideologically. Even this article calls her a "socialist" and other names which appear to be a severe exaggeration. I've been checking out the ads Hoffman ran against her. No wonder she didn't endorse him! Few people would have under those circumstances.

Ugly campaigning leads to ugly results.

So we "won" but lost the seat held by Republicans for over a century in New York. While Republicans won some serious elections in Virginia and New Jersey, Democrats and some around here will claim a "victory" in New York. New Jersey is about a "blue" a state of any on this planet. This New York "win" certainly allows the Democrats some cover in spinning what should have been clean sweep against their policies.

No, we didn't "win" NY23. We gave it away due to stupid internal civil warring that has been going on in our party for far too long.

Next race to give away?

Louis G. Atsaves

[Phil Collins]

No, Louis, the majority of the voters didn't vote for the conservative platform. They voted against the Democrat. The Republican wasn't conservative.

[Johnny D.]

Louis - Please be reasonable. No Republican is happy with the way things turned out. My point was to clarify where the blame lies.

You apparently think it's worth it to elect another Jim Jeffords or Arlen Specter who will make us pay for every time they consent to generously vote with us, and wait for the time when they can turn coat and leave us for the Democrats when they can do the most damage to us -- when it can get them the greatest personal benefit from the Democrats, with whom they ought to have caucused all along.

Most Republicans don't agree. We think that such nightmarish careers -- which sometimes last for decades, as Specter's did -- are better off stillborn.

Better not to have the issue at all, but once created, better to dispose of it.

JFD

[Ian Howell]

John,

The "gay" issue will certainly garner more than 1 or two votes. Have you not heard -- 31 states have now rejected gay s-called "marriage." Even liberal states like CA and ME. It is a winning issue -- just as the issue of pro-life is a winning issue.

[Bakersfield]

But you didn't get a Jeffords, you got a Democrat.
Um, Congrats?

The bottom of bottom lines is that bad candidates are bad candidates. Bad moderates won't win, bad dems won't win, bad conservatives who live outside the district and cannot grasp local issues won't win. What the heck were team ArmeyLimbaughPalin doing by throwing in with this dope in the first place??? Makes me want to question THEIR judgement.

Nominate and run all the conservatives you want, but if they are clueless they will get drilled each and every time.

[Johnny D.]

Ian - I must apologize... sounds like my final paragraphs were unclear.

I'm not saying that the gay rights agenda position will only change a few votes in an election. Quite the contrary.

I'm saying that an elected state rep, or state senator, or congressman, or senator will only have a couple of votes in the legislature that affect this issue, as opposed to the thousands of votes he or she will cast on tax and spending issues.

Therefore, voters want their representatives to be right on these issues, but not to blather on about them all the time, when in fact they'll be spending most of their time in office on tax and spending. I believe that voters want a sense of proportion. They don't want a candidate to spend 75% of every speech talking about abortion and gay rights, when they'll spend 99% of their time in the legislature voting on economic issues.

I'm sorry I was unclear.

JFD

[spintreebob]

Detailed analysis would be interesting.

Was the turnout proportionatly the same in all precincts? Or did some precincts and demographic groups stay home and other turnout disproportinately?

For precincts of the same demographic profile did some have heavier turn out due to door-to-door work by workers for a candidate?

Were some door-to-door workers (and other supporters) their own worst enemies by being over-the-top and alienating voters with counter-productive demeanor or rhetoric?

The experience is Illinois is that all precincts see the same newspapers, TV and radio. Yet when precincts of the same demographics are compared, some have a much higher turnout for a given candidate than do others. And that turnout can only be explained by the personal contact with supporters of one or the other candidate.

Those non-typical precincts always decide a close election.

[Anon]

Mr. DeLeo's attempt at "blame gaming" contains as much spin as I've ever seen on MSNBC, just to the right not the left.

He obviously does not know much about Bill Owens, the Democrat candidate. Owens was registerd as an "Independent" before being slated, opposes gay marriage and opposes the public option. He is pro-chioce, but just barely, being Roman Catholic. What Owens did bring to the table, however, was a strong record of public service and some experience in successful local job creation. Some "Liberal"!

Mr. DeLeo should also take a close look at Mr. Hoffman. The local papers panned him, observing that while Hoffman had a conservative social agenda down pat, and knew how to parrot Rush Limbaugh, he had next to no knowledge of local issues.

These elections were all about the economy, and Owens simply brought a better product on that issue. Also, Hoffman turned off Moderate Republicans, and it cost him dearly.

[Louis G. Atsaves]

JFD,

You want me to be "reasonable?" I see a Democrat taking a seat held by Republicans for well over a century who got less than 50% of the vote.

What is there to be "reasonable" about?

Lay the blame anywhere you want. Ugly civil wars lead to ugly results. And this one is about as ugly as ugly can be!

[Johnny D.]

Louis - I'm not saying I'm not angry. We're all angry. Yesterday should have been a sterling repudiation of Obamanomics across the board, and NY-23 eliminated that possibility.

But I think it's critical to lay the blame where it belongs, because otherwise, we'll keep on making the same mistakes!

Illinois is poised to do the same thing with our Senate seat by nominating Mark Kirk -- who arguably isn't as bad as Scozzafava objectively, but because we're talking about the Senate, it's even more serious.

This party has to start learning its lesson. Big tent, yes. So big it includes adherents of the Democrat party platform along with our own? Definitely not!

JFD

[John Bambenek]

Can someone explain to me how the Conservatives lost NY-23 for the Republicans when the Republican got 5% of the vote, dropped out and endorsed the Democrat?

Maybe what lost the election was the establishment throwing their weight behind an unelectable politician who had a temper tantrum at the end.

[C'mon!]

Johnny D.

Let's put the shoe on the other foot. The Democratic Party is the mirror image to the GOP, except it is the Far Left that is demanding control and the exclusion of moderates in their party, especially with Obama, Pelosi and Reid in charge.

Had the Democrats employed the ideologically rigid thinking you suggest, they would have put a Hard Left candidate on the ballot, as adherence to party principles would have trumped all. Such a candidate would have been creamed in NY-23.

Instead, they got smart, put in a candidate who was to the right of the Democrat mainstream, but closer to the norm of NY-23, and picked up a seat that had been Republican for over 100 years, and another reliable Demcratic vote in the House.

To me, the question is which lessons must be learned and by whom.

[BillyBoy]

>>>
Instead, they got smart, put in a candidate who was to the right of the Democrat mainstream, but closer to the norm of NY-23. To me, the question is which lessons must be learned and by whom.
<<<

Sorry, Kirk supporters, your claim that the Democrat Party runs DINOs in Republican districts so we therefore should run RINOs in Dem areas doesn't hold water. None of the Democrats are stupid enough to run the kind of politician you want us to run. Mark Kirk is against the GOP on virtually EVERY major issue -- he's 100% pro-abortion, 100% anti-gun, opposes protecting traditional marriage, opposes voluntary prayer in schools, is to the left of Obama on tree hugging, opposes ANWR drilling, lead the fight to oppose the Iraq surge, supports amnesty, voted YES on cap n' trade, SCHIP, TARP, CAPE standards, Pelosi's minimum wage scheme, Charlie Rangle's 90% bonus tax, Hate Crimes" legislation, UN climate change framework, etc., etc. Every item on a laudrey list of liberal priorities.

And the Kirk fans say he "needs" to support all that garbage to "win" in a so-called "blue state".

If the Dems followed that logic, their Senators and Congressmen in "red states" like the Dakotas, Montana, West Virgina, etc. would be:

100% pro-life, 100% pro-gun, pro traditional marriage amendment (so much so that staunch conservative organizations like Eagle Forum prefer them over the Republican nominee) and pro-ANWR drilling, staunch supporters of the surge, anti-EVERY major priority of Obama, Reid, and Pelosi, and loudly gloat about how many times they stabbed their own party in the back and how they're BEST buddies with George W. Bush. (given how Kirk gloats about how much he's "independent" and "stood up to President Bush")

Do you see ANY Democrats like that representing "red states"?

No? Jay Rockefeller isn't doing the Republicans bidding on every major issue because he represents a state that voted for Bush and McCain. In fact, Jay generally votes solidly with his party and wins re-election anyway. So do all the other Dem senators in states that voted McCain/Palin. Gee, how about that. Shocking! Democrats run real Democrats, regardless of what region of the country they're in.

Ordinarily the Dems won't even tolerate people who are 90% liberal like Joe Lieberman.

So if the RATs won't tolerate traitors in their party, why should we?

[BillyBoy]

>>>>
Had the Democrats employed the ideologically rigid thinking you suggest, they would have put a Hard Left candidate on the ballot, as adherence to party principles would have trumped all. Such a candidate would have been creamed in NY-23.
<<<<

No one is demanding the GOP run Jesse Helms clone in every district. The cries that we're all "purists" is a red herring. I rejoiced when a REAL moderate Republican (as opposed to a liberal Republican), Chris Christie, won in NJ yesterday. We're simply asking the Republican Party run actual Republicans who agree with the majority of the Republican platform.

If the Dems were mirroring what the GOP is doing by support marxist traitors like Scozzafava, Kirk, Jeffords, Specter, etc., they'd have to run Zell Miller types in all "heavy red states" like North Dakota and proclaim that's the ONLY way to win. They don't, they run hardcore socialists in those states. And they win anyway. (check Senator Dorgan and Conrad's record if you don't believe me)

Nice try with the phony analogy.

[Sam Pierce]

JFD,

Great work... as usual!

C'mon,

Is Scozzafava an acceptable "Republican"?

Louis,

Is there anything that matters to you beyond to which party a candidate says he or she belongs? Scozzafava was acceptable? Would Hillary Clinton be acceptable if she decided to become a Republican?

[C'mon!]

Billy, the problem for you and others is to live in a world of black and white.

It's intellectually easy, and I'm sure you can find a few who will agree with all you say, but things get harder when reality comes calling, and you wind up on the outside looking in at your own government, with no hope of any relevance to the Liberals you have empowered, or any effect on their actions. Good luck with that.

[making some pop corn ...]

Owens by the way supports health care reform with public option. The folks still went for him over the know-nothing party outsider.

[?]

Here's a quick and interesting read that says alot about Mark Kirk. It's entitled "The Conviction Of Our Own Convictions".

http://www.usip.org/files/Kirk_US%20Institute%20of%20Peace%20Speech.pdf

An excerpt:

“As Americans, we knew right from wrong – we knew the soft power of the human spirit could defeat the hard power of oppression.

In the end, we won the Cold War because we never lost our moral compass.

We never lost the conviction of our own convictions. And that made all the difference.”

[Johnny D.]

Question Mark: Let me get this straight... you're listening to a candidate on the subject of the importance of a moral compass, when he has proven that he has none?

Look, I'm as big a fan of a good speech as anybody. But when you're a legislator, it has to be backed up by a voting record.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan was famous for saying the right thing, all the time... and then voting lefty anyway. It totally undid the benefit of his noble words.

Mark Kirk votes for cap and trade, and opposes drilling, and slams BP for an ordinary perfectly fine refinery, and supports other environmentalist hogwash over the good of his constituents and his country on a daily basis, showing that he values the extremist nuts of the Sierra Club over the livelihood of normal Americans on a daily basis.

I'm not listening to him blather on about a moral compass, thank you. I've seen how much his high words really mean by looking at his voting record.

JFD

[Mark Rhoads]

The problem with Assemblywoman Sozzafava was that she went far beyond RINO to DIABNO (Democrat in All But Name Only). Even Newt Gringrich has to admit yesterday that he mesed up in endorsing her on the theory she would, as a "Republican," have to vote for the GOP candidate for speaker of the House. But the price of her vote would come very high as she showed no loyalty at all to the party leaders that nominated her. If Hoffman had not been in the race, no conservative ideas would even have even been discussed at all for New York 23 voters which of course is the point in running RINOS or DIABNOs against real Democrats. Republican voters don't often try to throw RINOs out but Democrats always try to throw their moderate Democrats out of their tent, just look at the examples of Sen. Joe Lieberman or former Gov. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania (father of the current Gov. Casey.) who dared to be pro-life but was not allowed to speak at his Democratic convention in 1996 because that big tent was not big enough to include anyone who dissented from the pro-abortion lobby.

[PeteSpeer]

JFD

You jump to contusions. Mark Kirk has a moral compass to which he is true. It is just not yours.. He got elected by attuning his moral compass to that of the voters of his District. It may have been a relativist act, but so is politics. Now he is retuning his moral compass to that of an Illinois majority.

The moral compass in politics is like a magnetic compass which varies from True North depending on from where you are located. He can do no good unless in sailing he reaches the port of electoral victory.

I have absolutely no doubt that he will follow the wishes, if elected, of the Illinois voters who got him there. There is no relationship between a Kirk and a Specter.

[Johnny D.]

Absolutely right, Mark... Scozzafava's apostasy was virtually complete.

Pete, I disagree. I think you take either too cynical or too pragmatic a view in considering the geography of our elected officials. Geographical concerns rightly affect the prioritization of a representative's issues, but they don't justify knowingly doing the wrong thing.

Nobody's perfect, but the farther from the platform a Republican is, the more we have to worry.

As for whether there's no relationship between Kirk and Specter, I have to ask on what grounds you base that judgment? Mark Kirk strays from the party line on at least as many issues as Specter did, maybe more, and Specter bolted when he thought it was convenient for him.

Why do you think Kirk won't, too?

... particularly if Kirk thinks in 2011 that he won the senate seat in a fluke because 2010 was a once-in-a-generation year for Illinois, so... if he wants reelection in six years, he'd better become a Democrat...?

I'll go out on a limb and predict here, though I know it'll be six years before you can prove me wrong: I think that if Kirk wins the US Senate seat in 2010 as a Republican, it's at least 50/50 that he'll run for reelection in 2016 as a Democrat.

If you're right, and he doesn't really believe in all that enviro-wacko hogwash he spouts, but just does it to get elected... then isn't my prediction the only logical one to make if he's elected statewide in a blue state next year?

As always on this particular subject, I hope I'm wrong.

JFD