For Floridians, the most significant news to emerge from the off-year elections around the country is that the outcome of an obscure congressional race in upstate New York ensures that the Sunshine State will be a key battleground in the 2010 election cycle. Oh, dear.
As a political bellwether state, Florida’s races always draw national attention. But the fight over the Republican nomination for an open seat in the U.S. Senate between Gov. Charlie Crist and former House Speaker Marco Rubio of Miami is shaping up as epic struggle for the soul of the Republican Party, and that could be a mixed blessing.
In New York’s 23rd Congressional District, a bitter split in GOP ranks developed between supporters of an insurgent conservative, Douglas Hoffman, and the original Republican nominee, Dede Scozzafava, a pro-choice moderate whose support of gay rights alienated the right wing of the party.
Hoffman was endorsed by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and commentators Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, while Newt Gingrich and other GOP luminaries endorsed Scozzafava. The money poured in, but local voters and local issues were overshadowed.
In the end, Scozzafava bowed out and threw her support to Bill Owens, who became the first Democrat to win that seat in more than 100 years. Conservatives who saw this as a fight to purify the party ideologically were energized because Scozzafava was denied a seat in Congress. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele was more realistic: “I don’t see a victory in losing seats,” he said afterward.
Now the conservatives have set their sights on Florida, where Crist is deemed to have strayed from the fold of true believers by adopting a moderate stance on such issues as President Obama’s stimulus package and efforts to pass climate-change legislation.
It’s up to GOP voters to decide who can best represent the party, but the race in New York’s 23rd District is instructive of what can go wrong when outside voices and outside money clash over ideology in local and state races.
For one thing, the concerns of the actual voters are apt to be overlooked and results do not necessarily reflect the will of the majority. The 23rd District may be as “Republican” as it has always been, but now it’s represented by a Democrat thanks to the GOP’s internecine war.
A strong and effective two-party system suffers whenever moderates are made to feel unwelcome. The demand for political orthodoxy leads to polarization and political paralysis, the opposite of what most voters say they want.
The effort to enforce political conformity antagonizes the independents whose votes are needed to forge electoral majorities. There is a lot of anger among the GOP’s conservative base, but the challenge is to turn this anger into the kind of positive energy that wins elections, not into a political witch hunt.
The GOP should heed the advice of Republican stalwart Ed Gillespie, who served as general chairman of the successful gubernatorial race waged by Bob McDonnell in Virginia. He advised GOP candidates to run an “inclusive campaign,” reject personal attacks and extremist rhetoric and focus on why their policies are better than that of their opponents.
It is possible to make too much of GOP victories in Virginia and New Jersey, but the results undoubtedly spell bad news for Democrats. Obama needs to make a better case for his stewardship of the economy. The best way he can do that is to deliver better results.
— The Miami Herald
Email Story
Printer Friendly 
Quick Job Search
@Nyx.replyAnswerText@