Most people probably know about the current circumstances in New York's 23rd Congressional District. It's a three-way race between moderate Democrat Bill Owens, Republican Dede Scozzafava (who is Libertarian, pro-life, pro-gay marriage, and pro-union), and conservative Independent Doug Hoffman. The establishment GOP (i.e. the NRCC and RNC) have hedged their bets on Dede, who held a respectable lead in early polling.
And the conservative base could not be more angry.
Read more below the fold.
On the 14th of October, Politico broke the news that Dede was facing a funding crisis. Few Republicans in Congress gave to her campaign and RNC hadn't donated anything, save for two staffers. Dede Scozzafava (which I cannot pronounce, could someone please spell it out phonetically for me?) was being outspent in TV ads 12-to-1 by Bill Owens and 5-to-1 by Doug Hoffman.
The week before that, the GOP did some internal polling and found Owens to be ahead, so they did not release the numbers for fear it would hurt morale. Here is a report from Erick Erickson (as much as I dislike Red State, I love reading the posts where they fume at how the establishment is screwing them):
The GOP polled NY-23 last week and found: Owens in first by double digits and DeDe in 2nd with Hoffman coming up from behind and closing. Obviously, they have not released this poll. The NRCC tells me the polling was done, but Owens was not up "by double digits." Owens was still in the lead.
(This quote was taken from this article. Read it for amusement.)
This is corroborated by a Siena College poll that shows Owens with a small lead. It seems that the split vote between the base GOP and the establishment could give us a chance to win this.
Late last week, after that Siena poll came out, the RNC funneled 85,000 dollars to Dede's campaign and an additional undisclosed six-digit amount to the New York State Republican Party. Newt Gingrich also put his foot in and declared his support of Dede Scozzafava, only ticking off the conservative base to new extremes and making the base more determined to redouble their efforts to help Doug Hoffman win as well as solidifying their boycott of the RNC, NRSC, and NRCC.
Although I like Dede's stance on choice, unions, and gay rights, I lost my support of her after seeing this video showing Dede at a tea party conference and pandering to them:
(It's a DCCC ad, I know, but the fact that she is pandering to the teabaggers still bothers me.)
Also, a liberal Republican who wins a house seat is more likely to unseat a Democratic Senator in New York than a conservative Republican. Furthermore, a loss in NY-23 would further repudiate and discourage the GOP similar to what happened when Scott Murphy won in NY-20. Think about that.
Democrat Bill Owens is a fine choice. Bill Owens is moderate, but he still supports civil unions, choice, and economic regulation.
Bill Owens' campaign website is linked HERE!
Feel free to donate to his campaign HERE!
Feel free to discuss this and other elections in the comments.
Now, I leave you with a bit of humor (what the 2008 GOP primary debate in New Hampshire would have sounded like with unnecessary censorship):