An administration that came to Washington promising to rise above politics has quickly immersed itself in trying to influence an array of state-level elections, with an eye to both the fate of President Obama's agenda and his prospects for winning a second term in 2012.—Anne E. Kornblut and Rosalind S. Helderman (see story)Like a sneeze she has come and gone. Congressional Republican Candidate for New York’s 23rd District Dede Scozzafava has quit.
Now for the good health of the Republican Party, Republicans most move forward from the impure Party corrupting politics of the past of which Newt Gingrich advocates and which handpicked GOP Candidate Dede Scozzafava represents. Scozzafava represented the corrupt politics which are now embraced by both Democrat and Republican Party Officials. Scozzafava is a sometimes Conservative, sometimes Liberal. (see story)
This type of old type politics, often referred to as big tent politics has manufacture the dread hybrid and politically confused partial Conservative and partial Liberal candidates that has both the Conservative and Democrat Parties in their current disarray.
Democrat Senator Charles Schumer is credited as the architect who constructed the 2006 Democrat takeover of both Houses of Congress. How did he do it? Schumer recruited and got Conservative Democrats to run against Moderate to Liberal Conservatives who were practicing big tent politics in traditionally Conservative districts and Schumer with Conservative Democrats beat them.
Mr. Schumer should know, having spent the past two years heading the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the firepower behind victories in a half dozen crucial states, which have now given Democrats the Senate reins for the first time since 2002.The upside starting in 2006 up until now Democrats have all the political power in Washington D.C. The downside is Democrats like Blue Dog Democrats have thus far stopped Democrat’s own Obama, Pelosi, and Reid signature legislation in an internal Universal Health Care Reform fight because the Schumer Democrats are worried about being reelected in their Conservative districts
Mr. Schumer was tapped for his fundraising prowess, and on that score he didn't disappoint. ("I didn't waste a nickel," he quips.) But the New Yorker also brought with him a strategic flexibility.
A party that has for years been captive to its more liberal wing, this time went out recruiting moderate candidates who better appealed to red state voters. They steered away from big, ideologically divisive issues such as taxes, Social Security or health care--anything that would allow Republicans to tar them as big-spending liberals. –KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL (see story)
Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker — had argued that local parties should be permitted to pick candidates that most closely mirror the sentiments of the district, even if those candidates vary from Republican orthodoxy on some issues.This is the confusion that Newt Gingrich would have the Conservative Party to continue in. However if Conservatives have learned anything since 2000 it is that the John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collin and Arlen Specter Conservatives are no longer desired in the Party.
“This makes life more complicated from the standpoint of this: If we get into a cycle where every time one side loses, they run a third-party candidate, we’ll make Pelosi speaker for life and guarantee Obama’s re-election,” said Mr. Gingrich, who had endorsed Ms. Scozzafava.—ADAM NAGOURNEY and JEREMY W. PETERS
The big tent political philosophy makes for a political circus as Democrats, fighting among themselves over health reform, are discovering. If Republicans are going to move forward we must stop listening to politicians that still advocate old losing tactics that clearly are not working for anyone.
Politicians like Scozzafava must be inoculated against like they are the swine flu if Republicans are to take back the Party from the business as usual officials of the GOP.
Finally Gingrich’s argument concerning local elections just doesn’t hold water when we have a community organizer in the White House that is using the full weight of the White House to affect local elections. (see story)
Conservatives need politicians who can assess the current political climate and make winning calculations based on what is actually transpiring in the political arena.
Gingrich continues to show why he just isn’t presidential material in this regard.
