Victory for New York Republican Party grassroots and the GOP base over the leadership
Today Republican Dede Scozzafava suspended her campaign in a special election for the U.S Senate. Campaign spokesman Matt Burns said Scozzafava was withdrawing from the race, although her name will remain on Tuesday's ballot. As the campaign developed it became increasingly obvious that Scozzafava lacked the support of the overwhelmingly conservative Republican Party grassroots. Her support in public opinion polls had plummeted to 20%. This support had shifted to Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman.Hoffman has won the backing of key GOP conservatives such as Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, Steve Forbes, Dick Armey, Fred Thompson, Jeri Thompson, Michelle Bachmann, Mark Levin, Susan B Anthony List (Pro Life Group), Club For Growth, Bill Kristol (Weekly Standard), Red State Blog, 9/12 Project and Gov George Pataki. Scozzafava voted for 190 taxes increases and has a strong record of voting for increased spending. She is a pro-abortion extremist. She had the support of Acorn and the Daily Kos. In short she has little in common with most Republican Party supporters and is even to the left of the Democratic Party candidate Bill Owens.
The Republican Party establishment, which foisted Scozzafava on the grassroots has been taught a salutary lesson. It must listen to the base or face a plethora of conservative third party candidates in the 2010 mid term elections.
Doug Hoffman is now odds on favourite to take the seat in this conservative bastion.
2 comments:
Justice comes at hard and strange times for the people. We need less jaw jacking and more truth in advertising.
The problem with Scozzafava was that she was foisted on the grassroots by the Republican Party establishment. The people at the top of political parties use the grassroots to mobilise support for them during elections but then ignore the ordinary members views and talk down to them. Throughout the world this is a common occurrence. The party establishments generally formulate party policy-without input from ordinary members. They then arrogantly expect members to sell this on the doorstep.
Luckily people can ventilate their views on the Internet.
If party heads ignore ordinary members they cannot expect them to hang around to do the donkeywork.
Political Parties need to democratise their policy formulation structures if they are to survive.
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