Monday, March 18, AD 2024 9:23pm

Party Loyalty and the New York 23rd Congressional District

Elephants not RINOSI have been a Republican as long as I have been old enough to pay attention to politics.  I have usually found the Republican party to be a much closer fit to my conservative political views than the Democrat party, and therefore my party allegiance was not a difficult choice for me.  It also helped that most members of my family in the paternal line have been adherents of the GOP since the Civil War, although in the case of my late father it was more out of a strong dislike of the Democrat party which he used to call  …, actually, since this is a family blog I will not repeat some of the epithets my father used in regard to the party of Jackson.  Thus I am a Republican both by conviction and heredity.

However, party loyalty is a two way street.  In order for a political party to deserve the loyalty of its supporters, the party must field candidates that broadly stand for what most party members believe in.   In the special congressional election for 23rd district in the New York, the GOP powers that be in that district have singularly failed to do so.  They have nominated  a liberal Democrat in Republican clothes as the standard bearer of the Republican party.  Michelle Malkin in this column here succinctly states why the GOP nominee Deede Scozzafava is running in the wrong party.

“Scozzafava is an abortion rights advocate who favors gay marriage. It would be one thing if Scozzafava balanced that social liberalism with fiscal conservatism. But as a state assemblywoman, she voted for massive tax increases, Democratic budgets and a $180 million state bank bailout. She also supported the trillion-dollar federal stimulus package — which every House Republican voted against.

More troubling, Scozzafava in past elections has embraced the ballot line of the Working Families Party — a socialist outfit whose political DNA is intertwined with scandal-ridden ACORN. ACORN and the WFP have shared office space in New York City, Arkansas and Illinois. ACORN head Bertha Lewis, a close Scozzafava friend and political supporter, wears a second hat as vice chairman of the WFP. The WFP has been listed in ACORN documents dating back to 2000 as an “affiliate.”

Under fire for her cozy relations with organizations that have shown lifelong hostility toward the Republican Party, Scozzafava now claims she would have voted to de-fund ACORN in the wake of the multiple BigGovernment.com sting videos showing ACORN employees advising undercover journalists on how to evade tax laws, lie on housing applications and smuggle underage illegal alien prostitutes.

But there’s another inextricably linked ACORN and WFP affiliate that Scozzafava would not likely disavow: Big Labor.

Refresher: The Service Employees International Union is co-located with several key ACORN offices across the country. ACORN founder Wade Rathke founded influential SEIU Local 100. As John Wilson reported in the New York Post this spring, the WFP’s largest donors are the SEIU, which pitched in more than $300,000, and the teachers union, which donated $200,000. These organizations have worked together to increase left-wing political clout, undermine capitalism and ensure “social justice” on the public’s dime.

Scozzafava’s husband is a leading upstate New York union organizer. She supports the federal “card-check” legislation that would massively boost union rolls — and Democratic voting rolls — at the expense of rank-and-file workers’ free choice. And for that matter, at the expense of Republican electoral prospects. Card check is the key to a Democratic majority in perpetuity. Big Labor bosses have said as much.”

For me, of course, Scozzafava being an abortion advocate would be all that I would need to know to convince me that she should not be given any Republican votes.  Why she got the nod is something of a mystery since this is a reliably Republican district with the former Republican congressman getting 65% of the vote in 2008.  At any rate, rank and file Republicans are up in arms over the choice.

Fortunately, pro-lifers, Republicans and Conservatives have an alternative in this race.  Doug Hoffman, a strong pro-lifer, is running as the Conservative party candidate.  His website is hereHere are his stances on the issues.  I rather liked the abortion stance:  Where do you stand on the issue of Roe vs. Wade?  I am pro-life, period.

Mr.  Hoffman has been endorsed by such conservative groups as The Club for Growth and pro-life groups such as the Susan B. Anthony list.  Perhaps more significantly he has also been endorsed by big name Republicans including former Republican presidential candidate  Fred Thompson.

Hoffman has a decent shot.  He is running a strong third with 23% of the vote in the latest poll and observers in the district believe that he is gaining momentum while Scozzafava is declining as her views become widely known.  The Democrat Bill Owens had 33% in that poll and Scozzafava with 29%.  If Scozzafava’s support collapses, I would not be surprised to see Hoffman win.  At any rate, if I lived in that district I would be strongly supporting Hoffman.  It is important that the leaders of the Republican party clearly understand that either the party is a pro-life conservative party or it is a defeated party.

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American Knight
American Knight
Monday, October 19, AD 2009 8:45pm

Many would dismiss your plug for the Conservative party as simply taking votes away from the alleged Republican and handing the race to the Democrat. This is a false dichotomy becuase we are not officially a two party country. That is just habit. I think it is a bad habit since it is becoming clearer everyday that we are actually a one party system with two factions.

“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.” — John Quincy Adams

What we need is a true defenition of what a conservative is becuase that term is so overused and usually simply means Republican. Some of us authentic conservatives have never been Republicans becuase it seems that party is constantly moving away from or apologizing for alleged conservative principles.

There is now and has always been a group within the Republican party that are not actually conservative. They have been referred to as the Northeast Establishment, country club, chamber of commerce, WASP, RINO, neo-con, etc. Sadly many of them remain in the party and we have only two choices:

Surgically extract them, or,

Establish another authentically conservative party.

Daddy21
Thursday, October 22, AD 2009 3:49pm

American studies confirm this. ,

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Thursday, October 22, AD 2009 10:16pm

[…] ticket, against Dede Scozzafava, the pro-abort leftist Republican, a race that I posted about here earlier in the week.  Sarah Palin’s statement is as […]

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Tuesday, October 27, AD 2009 5:17am

[…] in the latest poll by the Club for Growth Doug Hoffman, the pro-life Conservative Party candidate  in the special election in the New York 23rd Congressional District endorsed by Sarah Palin and other Republican Party luminaries, leads with 31.3% of the vote to 27% […]

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Saturday, October 31, AD 2009 4:16pm

[…] have to give credit to Dede Scozzafava for reading the handwriting on the wall which is more wisdom than most politicians […]

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