They'll Do it Every Time

I just got word on Sunday night that Scozzafava in the NT-23 race, a liberal abortion-supporting, gay-marriage Republican in Name Only (RINO) not only dropped out of the race yesterday as the Republican candidate, but today has come out in support of the Democratic candidate against Hoffman, the Conservative candidate who blew her out of the race.

Something sounds eerily familiar about this. Didn't Arlen Specter stab the Republican Party in the back when he switched parties to bolster the Demorcat's Senate lead in 2008? Wasn't he a thorn in the side of the Republicans for years, voting with the Democrats more often than not? With "republicans" like him, who needs enemies?

I am glad he is gone, and I am glad she is too.

I think Scuzzi did us a favor. She "outed" herself as the kind of political figure that we knew her to be anyway - a Liberal Democrat. She was just hiding in the Republican apparatus like a mole. Had the sleeping voters given her the position, she would have given them a major case of heartburn.

To their deep shame, the witless Republicans of that district did not flush her out, or reject her: they supported her and endorsed her run for the Republican seat in Congress. They are the problem. Not only do we have the voters of that district to thank for supporting the conservative Hoffman, but we have a task for them - oust the local leadership and replace it with solid conservatives. I am sure there are quite a number lurking around the Tea Parties.

Politico today opined that the Republican party in NY is in total disarray, dissolving daily. True enough. But the champaign corks should be retired for the time being. While the Republicans might be stumbling, the Conservative party is alive and well, and I suspect is receiving the lively support of a lot of former Republicans who are busily abandonding a party that has become a Democrat also-ran. Who wants a wannabe Liberal posing as a Republican when you can have the real thing in a Democrat?

What Scozzi's endorsement of the Democrat candidate really signals is the deep ideological decay of the Republicans - a decay in the leadership down even to precinct levels, that has obviously disgusted and dismayed the rank and file. Clearly, there are a lot of registered Republicans who are not being represented by their party. And they are voting with their feet.

Perhaps the long-awaited split and realignment in the national parties is beginning. The conservative voters have been looking for a home, whether they have borne the Democrat or Republican or Independant label. Perhaps this season they will find it. It might not have a mature party apparatus, but it will have that most essential of all qualities - a gathering point around the essentials of a genuine conservative platform. The rest will follow.