The Monster Party

Carpetbagger's got a post about how Scozzafava, a leading candidate for worst name ever, is dropping out as the Republican candidate in a Republican-leaning district in New York because Doug Hoffman, the Conservative Party candidate, is stealing much of her support.  And one of the commenters there insists that Hoffman will get almost all of Scozzafava's supporters because there are no moderate Republicans left; as evidenced by their 25% party ID numbers.

Yet this clearly can't be the case, as Scozzafava is a moderate Republican, while all the hardcore righties already fled to Hoffman.  So it only makes sense that a good number of these people must be moderate Republicans, as they were supporting a pro-choice candidate who doesn't vilify gays.  And yes, there aren't many moderate Republicans left, but that's the reason why Scozzafava is dropping out.  And so it's anyone's guess where Scozzafava's supporters will go on election day.

And this is a recurring theory by many liberals, who believe that all of the remaining Republicans are the hardest of the diehards.  Yet that's clearly false.  Because the folks on the far ends of the political spectrum reject both major political parties, as they see them as being too compromising.  In fact, it's odd to hear this falsehood repeated by people who are so far to the left that they reject Obama and the Democratic Party, yet don't realize that their counter-parts on the right have done the same to the Republican Party. 

And that's a fairly odd mistake to make, seeing as how we're talking about an election in which the Republican Party candidate is dropping out because she's too moderate.  And on the other side, where could all the moderate Republicans have gone?  The reality is that there are moderate Republicans who now refuse to identify themselves as Republicans because the party is too radical for them, but they're still willing to vote for a moderate Republican.  And how else could this make any sense?  If only 25% of the population in this district was willing to vote Republican, none of this would be an issue as the Democrat would easily win.

And now the question remains whether these moderate Republicans will vote for a non-Republican conservative who drove out the moderate they supported, or the non-Republican moderate.  It's not whether or not they're hardcore conservatives, as they're obviously not, but whether they hate Democrats so much that they'd rather vote for the extremist.

One of These Races Is Not Like the Other

And as an add-on of something I read after I wrote this: The AP has their typical false equivalency with an article Third party challenges in NJ, NY are warning sign.  And while I figured they were talking about the Sazzafava-Hoffman challenge, I was wondering why the article was suggesting that Dems have a problem.  But they're wrong, as usual. 

While Hoffman's third-party challenge is knocking the Republican out of the race, the Dem problem is that a third-party candidate is hurting Governor Corzine's chances in New Jersey.  But that's just the typical spoiler role that is often seen in elections, of an outside candidate syphoning votes away from one of the two parties.  And that's not the same as in NY, where the Republican had to drop out of the race for being too moderate for her party.

Because the NY problem highlights a real flaw in the Republican strategy.  Nixon used the "Southern Strategy" to ice the cake by adding social conservatives to the Republican coalition; thus giving him major victories.  Reagan sealed the deal by placing a real emphasis on social conservatives, while also winning liberal and moderate Republicans.  By the 90's, Republicans decided to go Full Southern, which worked in exactly one election (1994).  And after that, Bush faced a backlash and was required to adopt "compassionate" conservativism, as Social Conservatism had offended too many people; and then they used 9/11 to barely win two elections which still avoided the Full Southern strategy of the 90's.

And now Frankenstein's monster has taken over the laboratory and is getting increasingly upset by all the open flames that offend him so much.  Nixon and Reagan were able to give coded messages which went directly to conservative hearts, which is now impossible in the days of YouTube and Macaca.  And here they are, with northern Republicans rejecting a moderate who was handpicked by the local party due to her ability to woo non-conservatives.  But the monster hated that most of all. 

As with progressives, conservatives would rather lose an election than allow an ideological "traitor" to win an election, and the icing that Nixon wanted for the party has now claimed the party as its own.  There will be no Republicans who aren't conservative Republicans, and only the most conservative shall survive.  Honestly, I can't think of a better situation for us.