send to a friend | print | comment

Republicans eat their young in upstate New York, as Reagan’s ‘big tent’ continues its collapse

When Arlen Specter left the Republican Party earlier this year, he summed up his reasons for departing by saying “I’m not prepared to have my 29-year record in the United States Senate decided by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate, not prepared to have that record decided by that jury.” As Pennsylvania Republicans became Independents and both Republicans and Independents became Democrats, the once diverse Republican electorate narrowed substantially, becoming a more hard-right, conservative group with little patience for Specter’s brand of independence.

Unable to realistically fend off an attack from his right flank, Specter ditched the party he’d belonged to for 30 years.

The same forces that forced Specter’s hand in Pennsylvania are now playing out in New York, where Republican candidate for Congress Dede Scozzafava exited the NY-23 special election last weekend to make way for Conservative Party challenger Doug Hoffman. This is a somewhat bizarre tale. After securing the support of the local Republican activists and leaders in the District, Scozzafava was attacked locally for being too moderate, but also nationally, most prominently by Sarah Palin, who vocally supported the Conservative Party candidate. Though Dede began with GOP establishment support (for example, receiving donations from GOP leader John Boehner), the Palin-teabag axis clearly stood in her path, forcing her out of this race to make way for the more ideologically pure candidate. To top it off, after leaving the race, Scozzafava decided to endorse her Democratic opponent Bill Owens.

Polls show Hoffman leading, which is no surprise in a district that has never elected a Democrat in its history. How it will ultimately play out on Election Day is still hard to say.

Sure, all politics is local. But Scoffaza’s ungraceful exit from this race is indicative of a larger trend in the GOP—of a once relatively diverse party closing its doors to anyone who does not meet an ideological purity test. The Republican brand is clearly in crisis, and looking for a new identity to help sustain it in the Obama era. Running to the hard right—in an essentially centrist, if not center-left country—is attractive to the hardcore teabagging activists, but it seems opposite to the national interests of the GOP.

Republicans should be careful. The Glenn Becks of this world have no trouble forsaking Republicans as quickly as they do Democrats in the name of ideological purity. Purging people like Specter and Scoffaza may be emotionally satisfying and ideologically convincing, but it also bodes ill for Republicans hoping to ever retake governing majorities in America.

November 3, 2009 at 12:36 am

--Adam Schwartzbaum

comments

comments [1] | post a comment