I think it’s safe to say that Robert Stacy McCain, who has gone up to New York’s 23rd Congressional District to do some on-site reporting, is tired of the nay-sayers:
If Hoffman can pull off a miracle upset victory in NY23, it would be a shot across the bow of Obama, Pelosi and Reid that they won’t be able to ignore.
The Blue Dogs will freak out, and the RINOs will start wondering about the possibility of a Tea Party/Club for Growth/Sarah Palin convergence in their GOP primaries. They’ll find an excuse to pull the plug on ObamaCare and start looking for opportunities to denounce deficit spending. Heck, you might even see some of them work up the gumption to suggest a vote to extend the Bush tax cuts.
All of this is possible, if Hoffman wins. But a Hoffman win isn’t a random hypothetical we can postulate and discuss like we were in some damned poli-sci grad-school seminar. The battle for NY23 is the kind of desperate tooth-and-nail fight that doesn’t lend itself to dispassionate theoretical discourse.
There is a reason why it’s a desperate tooth-and-nail fight, with both halves of the bipartisan Party-In-Government targeting Doug Hoffman – he is a personification of the Tea Party movement. Since Stacy already took a look at what happens if Hoffman wins, and since I’ve done all I monetarily can to help Hoffman win, allow me to take a look at what happens if he doesn’t.
There are actually four scenarios, only two of which are likely – the RepublicRAT Dede Scozzafava wins with Hoffman coming in second, Scozzafava wins with the Democrat Bill Owens coming in second, Owens wins with Hoffman coming in second, and Owens wins with Scozzafava coming in second. Given the most-recent set of polls, I highly doubt that Scozzafava wins the race.
First up, and in my humble opinion the most-likely of the four, a Owens/Hoffman/Scozzafava finish. That would give at worst a flashing yellow light in the middle of the night at an empty intersection to the Blue Dogs to go along with the worst of the Leftist agenda. It would, however, leave the larger battle for the Republican Party’s soul wide open as both sides will claim that, if the other half hadn’t abandoned it, it could have held onto the seat.
The other three, all of which I believe both halves of the PIG would be entirely happy with, would mean an end to the Tea Party movement as a national movement, and the full liberalization of the GOP north of the Mason-Dixon Line. It would give the green light to not just the Blue Dogs, but the liberal Republicans to jump all over the worst of the Leftist agenda.
You’re a few shades too dark.
It won’t be “the end” of the TEA Party movement. It will be a bump in the road, perhaps–Reagan lost in 1976, remember.
But it WILL be a reason to amp up the volume.
I gotta tell you, I love your pessimism, seriously.
But…..
I don’t think that will stop the tea party “movement”. Have you been to one?
They’re not like other protests I’ve been to, I mostly go just watch the moonbats and I went to a pro-war one in 03 or 04, but I’ve been to two tea party ones in DC, 4/15 and 9/13 and they’re totally different even from the pro-war one.
The 4/15 one was much bigger than reports for the simple reason that it was a lunch-time, working day crowd. It was rainy but people kept coming and going from the Metro stop and the buildings in the area, so while there might have been only a couple thousand at a time, it wasn’t the same couple thousand.
And it wasn’t “protestors”, it was people. The people who pay taxes and go to work every day, the people who make this country go. They just went to make their presence known, they weren’t chanting or waving placards or screaming, they just went to be there, they didn’t even really listen to the speakers, they just hung around and then went back to work.
The 9/13 ones were even more so. They were families, it was like going to Disney or Wal Mart or the County Fair, it was just people. There were people all over the place trying to speak and most were just being ignored, I couldn’t even hear the official speakers. There were lots of home-made, witty banners that were all about how they’re fed up and not gonna take it much longer.
Americans are pissed off that our social, moral, intellectual and political betters are not just ignoring us but calling us names and telling us to shut the hell up.
You don’t want to make Americans mad and they’re really, really mad right now.
When Americans get mad, somebody’s in a lot of trouble.
The list of those somebodies is a who’s who of dead dictators and dead proto-dictators.
The GOP has lost two elections because the people were getting mad, that didn’t work so now they’re getting really mad so the GOP had better try to placate us instead of John McCain’s sensibilities if they want to win any elections.