Houston, we have progress

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I don't follow local Texas politics, and so I didn't see this coming, but... wow:

Annise Parker made history Saturday as Houston's first openly gay mayor.

Parker, who served five years as city controller, beat former city attorney Gene Locke with 53.6 percent of the vote in a runoff election.

Both are Democrats who faced off for the second time because neither emerged with more than 50 percent of the vote in the November 3 election.

"Houston is a multiracial, multicultural, international city," said Parker before the vote, "And I think my election will send a message to the world that Houston is a city that might surprise a lot of folks."

Well... yeah. I might have expected this in Austin, but Houston? Well, I suppose Houston shouldn't be lumped in most of the rest of Texas.

So, Houston, well done.

**********

I must add that Parker's personal story makes a great case for same-sex marriage and for gay rights generally -- you know, because there are many, many anti-gay bigots who believe, stupidly, that homosexuality is essentially a gateway to polygamy, bestiality, etc.

Parker has been with her partner for 19 years. The couple has two adopted children.

Now, let me be clear, I don't think there should be legalized same-sex marriage only on the basis of committed monogamy -- as far as I'm concerned, it's a matter of basic civil rights, and gays and lesbians should be allowed to enter into marriage, conduct themselves in marriage, and exit marriage just as heterosexuals do -- but I realize that there are many skeptics out there who need to see for themselves that gays and lesbians aren't amoral perverts who reject societal norms. Unfortunately, such ignorance is widespread, and Parker, as a visible, successful leader, can do a great deal to counter it.

Glenn Beck's puppet, Doug Hoffman, concedes... again

By Michael J.W. Stickings

It's over. The mentor/puppeteer may not agree with his decision, but Conservative insurgent candidate and Republican favourite Doug Hoffman has un-unconceded, or re-conceded, in NY-23.

The gap between Hoffman and Democrat (and winner) Bill Owens narrowed due to an undercount in some counties, with Hoffman pulling to within about 3,000 votes, but absentee ballots expanded Owens's lead.

Hoffman's second concession runs in sharp contrast to his rhetoric last week. Even as he trailed Owens by a near-insurmountable margin, Hoffman alleged that labor unions and ACORN were responsible for electoral fraud and urged his supporters to donate money to help him contest the results of the election.

Hoffman has toned down the blame game, playing the role of victim of a nefarious plot -- as conservatives do so well (see Palin, Sarah) -- but he remains aggressively defiant. When he unconceded, he called the election "stolen." He is now saying that there were "problems" but that a recount "would most likely not change the election outcome."

So what is it? Were the problems so insignificant as to change nothing if rectified? Or were there no problems at all, just simple human error that was addressed and excuses that continue to be spun, including by Hoffman himself? It's like he wants to have it both ways: continue to present himself as the victim while acknowledging that he lost fair and square.

Hoffman -- who mentions "the government chambers and boardrooms that shape America," as if government and business are all that mean anything -- clearly intends to run again next year as the candidate of "common-sense conservative values" (i.e., extremist right-wing ideology). In the meantime, Glenn Beck will have to find another willing puppet to manipulate.

Is that Glenn Beck's hand up Doug Hoffman's ass?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So, with Democrat Bill Owens's margin of victory narrowing upon recanvassing in NY-23 (from 5,335 to 3,026), and with over 10,000 absentee ballots being counted, Conservative-Republican insurgent Doug Hoffman has unconceded.

And where did he unconcede? Or, rather, who pushed him to unconcede?

Why, Glenn Beck, of course, Hoffman's mentor and manipulator.

Now, let me be clear: Hoffman has every right to unconcede. The vote was close, and it's essential that all the votes are counted (even if Owens has already been sworn in). A reversal may be a "long-shot," as Hoffman himself has admitted (he would need to win 65 percent of the absentee votes), but, well, stranger things have happened.

Still, it's awfully amusing, isn't it, that the Beck-Hoffman relationship is basically akin to the ventriloquist-dummy relationship?

If I were an independent, I'd want David Brooks to stop stereotyping me and claiming to speak for me

By Michael J.W. Stickings

On the surface, a lot of what David Brooks says and writes seems to make sense. And, to be fair, the whole cultural-social stereotyping thing that has propelled him to widespread punditocratic fame, perfected with the Patio Man and Realtor Mom of his exurban paradise, can be quite amusing.

Beneath the surface, though, when you get past the thin veneer of an amusing exterior, is, not to put too fine a word on it, bullshit. And the bullshit is on full display in Brooks's NYT column today, a typical fluff piece that makes grandiose statements based on limited, if non-existent, empirical evidence.

Specifically, Brooks asserts that the results of Tuesday's elections, as well as of recent public-opinion polls on a variety of major issues, show that independents, whom of course he treats as a monolith without any nuance or allowance for diversity whatsoever, have become more conservative. He concludes:

Independents support the party that seems most likely to establish a frame of stability and order, within which they can lead their lives. They can't always articulate what they want, but they withdraw from any party that threatens turmoil and risk. As always, they're looking for a safe pair of hands.

Uh-huh. Whatever.

First, Brooks doesn't seem to consider that shifts in public opinion, including for independents, do not happen in a vacuum. If independents are upset about too much government regulation, perhaps it's because economic uncertainty has them lashing out at those in power, specifically at Obama.

Second, independents could just be wrong. They're more conservative on global warming and immigration? I take that to mean they're a) stupider, given all the evidence against conservative denialism on global warming, and b) more xenophobic in a time of economic uncertainty, desperate to blame someone, anyone, especially a widely vilified Other, for their apparent demise.

One thing about independents is that they're not so much independent as they are self-absorbed egotists who want politicians to cater to their every whim and tend to be easily manipulated. Sorry, that's just the way it is. They're just not the self-aware, generally right-leaning ideal of Brooks's wacky imagination.

For more, see Noam Scheiber at The Stash. I agree that, in general, independents are "just pissed off about the economy." They may say there's too much government regulation and too much government interference in the market, but they don't have "well worked-out views about the proper size of government" and they aren't "supremely self-aware about where they stand on the ideological spectrum, and where politicians stand relative to them at any given moment." They're just not that sophisticated, and it's silly of Brooks, if typical of him, to attribute sense to them where there is, for the most part, just knee-jerk senselessness.

As Maine went...

By Mustang Bobby.

Yes, I am disappointed that Maine voted down keeping the marriage equality law that was passed by the state legislature and signed by the governor last May. Any time a referendum that limits the rights of people gets a majority of the vote, I'm disappointed.

Beyond the analysis of who voted for or against the measure and what part of the state they lived in, one of the questions that arises is whether or not such a question should even be put to a popular vote. Are there some rights that are so fundamental that leaving them up to the whims and the machinations of the campaign trail puts them in danger? Do you really think that the people of Kansas would have repealed state laws that allowed school segregation in 1954? What would the state of civil rights be if, in 1964 and 1965, Congress had not passed federal legislation that established fair housing and voting rights and had instead left them up to the states? Would Virginia have repealed their miscegenation laws without the ruling from the Supreme Court in 1967? Would women have the right to vote had it been left up to the states like it was in 1920 before the passage of the 19th amendment?

The response of a lot of people is that the voters should have the final say, and if they pass a referendum, that's it. That is a noble sentiment, but that's not the system we have. We have a representative democracy; we elect people to go to the city council, the county commission, the state house, and the United States Congress to do our business for us and to do more than just be a rubber stamp. And we have an equal part of our government in the judiciary that oversees whether or not the laws that are passed by the people or the legislature are fair or are equally applied. Just because a majority of voters cast a vote for an issue doesn't make it right; our history is replete with unjust laws that have been voted through. Case in point, Colorado's odious Amendment 2 that "would have prevented any city, town or county in the state from taking any legislative, executive, or judicial action from recognizing gay citizens as a Protected class." It took a Supreme Court ruling in 1996 to say yes, indeed, in some cases, gay citizens have the same rights as everyone else and can sue for discrimination. In short, the voters can -- and have -- made mistakes. They can be swayed by emotional arguments that have no bearing on the law, and as is the case of marriage equality, fear and loathing of Teh Gay isn't far beneath the surface.

The opponents trot out the old canards such as the "slippery slope" that same-sex marriage leads to all sorts of iterations of marriage, including polygamy; except that even someone whose only legal education is watching re-runs of Law & Order knows that a contract can be legally limited to the number of people in the contract. If the state wants to say only two people can be married to each other at one time or set an age limit to the parties involved, that's legal. What should not be legal is limiting the parties based on something that is innate such as gender identification or race.

They claim that people will be able to marry their dog. However, in order to have a valid contract, both parties have to be able to understand the terms of the contract and sign it. If you can find a dog that does understand the terms of the contract and can write his or her name, then getting married would probably not be a priority; you'd have a talking dog with opposable thumbs, and your next stop would be David Letterman.

They say that allowing same-sex marriage would require that schools teach about all the aspects of said marriage, complete with descriptions of intimate behavior. But since the contents of the public school curricula are left up to the state and local school boards and there are likely very few of them that already teach the granular aspects of heterosexual marriage to elementary school children, the chances are remote that the passage of marriage equality would require the overhauling of school curricula.

They claim that marriage equality would force churches that are doctrinally opposed to such unions to perform them or face legal action. But since churches are already free to not perform marriage ceremonies for straight couples that are not part of their congregation -- for example, the Roman Catholic church can refuse to marry a man and a woman if either one of them is not Catholic -- then they are perfectly within their rights to do the same for a same-sex couple. Besides, having the blessing of a religious ritual is not a prerequisite for a valid marriage. All you need is a license and witnesses. The rest is, so to speak, icing on the cake.

The most insidious argument is that somehow same-sex marriage is a perversion of "traditional marriage." Yet they never tell you what tradition they are talking about. Marriage throughout the ages has been more of a business deal, and to read about it in the Old Testament, it was between a man and as many wives has he could afford to accumulate. In the biblical tradition, fathers sold their daughters off to their friends as a trade-off for real estate (which led to the old Henny Youngman one-liner, "I got a dog for my wife. Best trade I ever made"). Arranged marriages were the norm for all classes of people -- where do you think King Henry VIII got his first wife? -- and in some cultures, they still are. The idea of a marriage based on love alone is both a modern and Western invention that is out of step with history and tradition; it's only Christian chauvinism and capitalism that makes it an inviolable tradition.

As for same-sex marriage being a "perversion," that's based on the theory that being gay or lesbian itself is a perversion, and that, above all, is the unspoken truth of the matter. All of the previous arguments are just excuses; a lot of people still have to overcome their own ignorance and homophobia before they can objectively look at the idea of applying all of the laws, rights, and responsibilities of citizenship including marriage to all citizens. When it comes right down to it, no one has yet put forth a valid reason for denying marriage equality -- or all of the other rights that are by law denied to gays and lesbians, such as child adoption in Florida -- to the LGBT community other than the arbitrary canards listed above. Not one. And yet they are able, by lung power and fear-mongering, to get voters to pass laws that do exactly that.

What the election in Maine proved is that even in a state that is known for its practicality and common sense, people can be swayed by lies, misinformation, and religious dogma. It should be obvious that the next recourse has to be through the courts and a chance to make the case for marriage equality based on the facts, not on the emotions. While same-sex marriage has an 0-31 record at the hands of the voters, it has prevailed in the courts in Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Iowa and made into law. The opponents claim that "activist judges" are making up the law and imposing their will on the people; they should only interpret the law as it is written. Well, here is how the law is written:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

If it is activism to live up to the simple precepts of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, then let us make the most of it.

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Reaction election coverage

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The last couple of days have been busy here at The Reaction, with a lot of coverage of Tuesday's votes in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Maine, and Washington, among other places.

Here's a handy list of our posts:

-- Election Day 2009: A good day for the GOP, but don't make too much of it (MJWS)

-- Election lesson (Creature)

-- Tales of Hoffman (Capt. Fogg)

-- Not a bad day at all (Carl)

-- The good, the bad, and the upsets (J. Kingston Pierce)

Check 'em out.

The good, the bad, and the upsets

By J. Kingston Pierce

Much hand-wringing and tea-leaf-reading is destined to follow yesterday’s U.S. elections. Most of those exercises are probably meaningless. Although the GOP would like to spin the capture of the governor’s mansions in New Jersey and Virginia as indicative of its comeback from Southern regional partyhood, such prognostications are more than a bit of a reach.

Virginia has not only demonstrated a habit over the last three decades of electing governors from the party that does not hold the White House, but the governor’s seat there has switched back and forth between the two major parties on a pretty regular basis ever since 1970. Former State Attorney General Bob McDonnell campaigned as a moderate Republican, and despite a brouhaha over his 20-year-old graduate thesis -- in which he “described working women as ‘detrimental’ to the traditional family ... criticized a U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing contraception for unmarried couples, and decried the ‘purging’ of religion from schools” -- he managed to duck the tarring his Democratic opponent, state Senator R. Creigh Deeds, tried to give him. McDonnell outpolled Deeds during most of that contest, and even the White House was heard recently grumbling about how poorly Deeds had followed the successful campaign examples provided by the commonwealth’s two most recent governors, Democrats Mark Warner and Tim Kaine. Deeds’ willingness to curry favor with right-learning Independents by criticizing President Barack Obama -- who last year became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Virginia in 44 years -- and his disinterest in promoting progressive reforms probably didn’t help him drum up Democratic support, either.

The dynamics in New Jersey were rather different. Former U.S. Senator and first-term Governor Jon Corzine was down in the polling early on against his GOP challenger, ex-U.S. Attorney Chris Christie. And despite a seesawing between the two for front-runner status, Corzine was never able to pull far enough head to guarantee a hold on his job. It didn’t help any that he labored under the burden of being a former Goldman Sachs CEO, at a time when Wall Streeters aren’t exactly popular.

In both Virginia and New Jersey, exit polls showed that voters made their decisions based in some part on anxiety over the state of the U.S. economy, but in little or no part on the basis of what they think about President Obama. Republicans who want to paint yesterday’s results as some kind of referendum on Obama are definitely barking up the wrong tree.

More interesting than either of those contests, though, was the upset in New York’s northernmost congressional district, the 23rd, which has been a Republican stronghold ever since the mid-19th century. That race to fill the seat left vacant after GOP congressman John M. McHugh left to become Obama’s secretary of the Army, began as a face-off between Republican Assemblywoman Dierdre Scozzafava and attorney Bill Owens, the Democrat, but turned into a testing ground for right-wing Tea Party insurgents. Despite having been blessed with the GOP’s endorsement, Scozzafava was harshly criticized for being even more liberal than Owens, and finally dropped out of the race after a third-party candidate, accountant Doug Hoffman--who didn’t even live in the district he hoped to represent--won the endorsements of such limelight-loving right-wing pols as half-term Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and ex-U.S. Senator Fred Thompson. Even disgraced former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich -- who can dampen his finger and hold it in the political winds as well as the next schmuck -- switched his endorsement to Hoffman after it became obvious that Scozzafava didn’t stand a chance against someone who called Glenn Beck his “mentor.”

The supposition was that free-floating right-wing anger, coupled with the 23rd district’s history of electing Republicans, would catapult Hoffman into McHugh’s former seat; this, despite efforts by the White House on Owens’ behalf and Scozzafava’s last-minute endorsement of her erstwhile opponent. And some surveys did make a Hoffman victory appear inevitable. However, in the end Owens won with 49 percent of the vote; Hoffman trailed with 45 percent. Regardless of post-game struggles to paint Hoffman’s loss as a win -- with the supposition that it will compel the GOP establishment to tap more “ideologically pure” conservative candidates in the future -- the prospect of more Doug Hoffmans running in the future, and thus driving the already beleaguered and out-of-favor Republican Party farther and farther from the American mainstream, seems like a losing strategy. That may be especially true north of the Pennsylvania border, where, as The Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen notes today, there are “51 congressional districts representing 34 million people” and “Republicans have a whopping two seats.”

Local contests here in Seattle and across Washington state offer favorable tidings, as well. Longtime anti-tax zealot Tim Eyman’s latest ballot initiative, which would have placed a cap on public funds available to city, county, and state governments -- and thereby driven budget deficits skyward -- is going down to defeat. A referendum to expand Washington’s domestic-partnership law appears to be headed for a win, despite opposition from voters living in the state’s more conservative eastern counties. (This victory won’t make up for Maine voters repealing a state law that would make same-sex marriage legal there, but it’s a small sign of hope for equal rights supporters -- and one step toward what is likely to the nation’s eventual legalization of so-called gay marriage.) And Democratic King County Council chair Dow Constantine, angling for the county executive seat vacated earlier this year by Ron Sims (who’s now the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development), declared “overwhelming victory” over his opponent, ex-TV news talking head and closet Republican Susan Hutchison. Political newcomer Hutchison’s refusal to concede the race, even though she’s behind by 13 percent or more, just demonstrates why she hasn’t the class or temperament to hold public office.

So, as President Obama today celebrates a full year since his historic winning of the White House, he can look around the country with some confidence that favorable changes are taking place, even though there’s still considerable work to be accomplished. And the rest of us can go back to our normal lives -- until the mid-term elections next year, of course.

(Cross-posted to Limbo.)

Not a bad day at all

By Carl

What to make of the off-year elections that people were focusing on?

Well, on balance, while not a stellar performance, one has to believe Obama actually gained a little ground yesterday.

Huh? Wha?

You heard me. Here's why:

1) Governor of Virginia - Virginia went 53-46 for Obama last year. However, of the last five elected governors (including McDonnell now) three were Republicans, all elected with a Democrat in the White House. Add to that fact that Creigh Deeds was a nearly unknown state senator and ran a campaign so egregiously bad that even the White House wrote him off weeks before the election, a landslide was all but inevitable.

2) Governor of New Jersey - Chris Christie barely held onto a lead going into the voting booth, and many polls had this as a toss-up. Over the past thirty years, there have been six elected governors: three Republicans, three Democrats. To call New Jersey a Democratic stronghold at the state-wide level is ludicrous. Now, Obama did put in some energy into campaigning for Corzine, but the billionaire lost to the multimillionaire largely because of outside assistance from the right wing of the Republican party.

This was no slam dunk election that was Corzine's to lose, in other words. The entrance of Chris Dagget probably hurt Corzine more than Christie, altho his vote total probably would not have changed the outcome.

IN NEITHER OF THESE TWO ELECTIONS WAS OBAMA A FACTOR! Voters chose based almost strictly on local and statewide issues, not the national scene and in no way should either of these elections be considered as part of a larger "Republican Rescusitation"

3) The key race for Obama's fortunes, however, was NY State's 23rd. There, in a stunning reversal of Republican fortunes, Democrat Bill Owens stunned the right wing of America by kicking the ass of Neoconservative darling, Doug Hoffman.

Hoffman held a significant four point lead in polling over the weekend, so he lost seven points in support in the blink of an eye.

Hoffman was heavily touted by Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the Fucking Republican Loons. This has to strike terror into Sarah Palin's heart, because she so closely tied her Presidential fortunes to the outcome here. It makes her look like a loser who can't even get a Congressman elected in a heavily Republican, very conservative district that is filled with military types!

Pawlenty at least had the smarts to be a little on the QT when he endorsed Hoffman! But Palin?

Ooo-la-la! She shot her chances in the foot with this boo-boo! She pissed off the Republican leadership and still lost the fucking election!

Too bad, so sad, it's ours, Mooseburger...

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Tales of Hoffman

By Capt. Fogg

It's hard to know what to make of Doug Hoffman's defeat last night. After the foam-flecked Glennbeckery, after Sarah's transfusion of roguery by proxy and a million bucks from the Club for Growth, the voters clubbed him with the first Democratic victory in his backwoods Republican bailiwick since the U.S. Grant administration. He had everything going for him but the votes writes Chris Kelly at The Huffington Post.

Everyone seems to want to make yesterday's elections seem like a precursor, an omen and a bad one for Democrats -- at least everyone who gets paid to make a ratings-generating ruckus. I'm not sure what it proves other than that third party candidates have little credibility, have no coat tails to ride on and don't benefit from party loyalty even when the party's big guns are saluting him.

I believe America is turning the page to a new dawn,

said Hoffman. It's easy to say his metaphors are mixed and I think almost as easy to believe the chances of the Freakazoid Right for a comeback are, too.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Election lesson

By Creature

If there's one lesson for the GOP from last night's election result it's to run moderate. Christie and McDonnell both ran away from the crazy and the crazy was rejected outright in NY-23. Will they heed this lesson? Not while Rush and Sarah speak for the party.

Election Day 2009: A good day for the GOP, but don't make too much of it

By Michael J.W. Stickings

UPDATED BELOW.

It is expected to be a good day for Republicans, notably in several key races across the country, including the gubernatorial elections in New Jersey (my former homestate -- I went to high school in Mendham) and Virginia and the special election in New York's 23rd Congressional District. In another high-profile race, independent Michael Bloomberg is expected to win re-election easily as mayor of New York.

My sense is not to make too much of Republican victories today. If Republicans win, it won't be because of a resurgent GOP, or because of voter opposition to Obama, it'll be because of local factors that have little to do with national politics. Referendums on Obama, Congressional Democrats, the economic stimulus package, the bank and auto bailouts, and health-care reform these elections are not, even if voters emphasize the economy.

We all know what the Republican spin will be. Don't let it fool you.

Republicans have done very well in Virginia, where Bob McDonnell has defeated Democrat Creigh Deeds. It would seem that the "nice guy" lost, a nice guy who was also, from what I can tell, a terrible candidate despite a solid record in state government. Yes, Republicans will herald this as a major victory in a state that went for Obama last year and that, in general, has been trending purple, but Virginia has a long history of voting for the out-of power party and, in this case, it also voted for the better candidate.

In NY-23, there seem to have been disruptions at the polls, notably by pro-Hoffman teabaggers.

By the way, there's also a same-sex marriage vote in Maine, where turnout is high, and a domestic partnership vote in Washington. We'll be keeping an eye on those, too.

More later. (As I flip between CNN, the Lakers-Thunder (Zombie Sonics, as Bill Simmons calls them) game, and the Leafs-Lightning game, with one of my favourite cooking shows, Good Eats, coming on at 10 pm.)

**********

By the way, CNN has some of the key results here.

At 9:23 pm, Chris Christie (R) is leading indumbent Gov. Jon Corzine (D) in New Jersey, 50-44, with 44% of precincts reporting. (I expect a narrow Christie victory.)

**********

11:55 pm - Hilarious takedown of the media by Jon Stewart tonight. They do blow everything so ridiculously out of proportion, as if every vote is endowed with meaning well beyond the reality of the situation. Of course, they're in the business of pumping up "the news," and of ratcheting up the drama, we know that, but whatever "analysis" they offer is so typically inane that they just end up undermining whatever minute traces of credibility they have left.

As I say above, the few votes that were held today do not either individually or collectively add up to a referendum on anything. Yes, there is division in the GOP. Yes, what happened in NY-23, where the far right triumphed yet again in its ongoing effort to take over the party, is meaningful, part of a larger historical trend, but it was pretty much inevitable that the Conservative and, in recent days, Republican candidate would do well in a historically Republican district. All a Hoffman victory would mean is no change in the House (the GOP holding a GOP seat) and a more conservative Republican House caucus.

And that's really the story tonight. These races were all local, even NY-23, which had captured broader national attention. Virginia, a red-purple state, went Republican. New Jersey, a blue-leaning swing state that frequently elects Republicans to high state office, kicked out a relatively unpopular Democratic governor and replaced him with a moderate. There isn't much more to say.

********** 

12:19 am - Okay, here's what's going on in ten key races.

In brief:

-- Bloomberg narrowly won re-election in New York City. I didn't follow this race closely, but I was expecting a wider margin of victory, not least because of all the money he spent on himself. Of course, it's not terribly surprising that his opponent, a Democrat, did well in what is overwhelmingly a Democratic city.

-- With 87 percent of precincts reporting, Owens is up 49-45 over Hoffman in NY-23. I'm surprised.

-- In New Jersey, Christie beat Corzine 49-45. More or less as expected.

-- In Boston, Thomas Menino won a record fifth term as mayor, beating Councilor Michael Flaherty 57-42. Menino won for the first time on November 2, 1993. I was a junior at Tufts.

-- In Maine, it looks like the the same-sex marriage law signed by Gov. John Baldacci earlier this year might go down to defeat. 

12:36 pm - CNN has just declared Owens the winner in NY-23! I figured the vote would be close, but this is, I admit, stunning.

Will this shut the right up? No, of course not. It's more emboldened than ever, and it will attribute this defeat to a corrupt and inadequately conservative Republican establishment that picked Scozzafava and was too slow to back Hoffman. And it'll write it off just as it writes off blue states generally.

But what will Glenn Beck do without such a willing protégé in the House? Yeah, he'll move on and apply his madness elsewhere.

I would have liked Corzine to win in New Jersey, but, honestly, I never much cared for him, and I figured the Republicans would sweep Virginia. But Owens' victory in NY-23 makes up for those losses, and more. It's a fantastic outcome.

********** 

12:49 am - More good news: the Leafs lost!

Good night.

Hoffman's mentor: Glenn Beck

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Earlier today, I mentioned that NY-23 Conservative (and now Republican) candidate Doug Hoffman is the Glenn Beck candidate in the race.

Well, it would seem that it goes much further than just Hoffman having the support of Beck's 9/12 group, or Hoffman pledging his support for the 9/12 principles.

As Think Progress is reporting (saving us from having to subject ourselves to such madness), Hoffman was on Beck's radio show today, and Beck and his co-host Pat Gray were aggressively pushing him even further to the right (in this case, on climate change) -- and Hoffman was like a supplicant without any will of his own:

BECK: He's getting stronger, there it is, every second.

GRAY: Every second. What about...

HOFFMAN: I have good mentors here.

BECK: Wait, wait. Wait, wait. Are they mentors that will show –

HOFFMAN: I'm talking about you, Glenn.

BECK: Oh, okay. I was going to say all right, as long as they are standing out from the shadows. [...]

HOFFMAN: No. Yeah, well, I'm going to keep in touch with people like you so I don't get infected with that disease [being bought off].

There's something sick about this exchange, about a candidate for the House of Representatives prostrating himself before a "mentor" like Beck and allowing himself to be molded into a Beck-style paranoid.

And there's something sick about global warming denial, a sickness of willful ignorance that opposes truth.

But that's Beck for you, insane even by the standards of the right.

And that's Hoffman for you, the candidate of the far right -- of neocons, Club for Growthers, mainstream conservatives of all stripes, and, even before Scozzafava's withdrawal, the Republican establishment.

And, it would seem, one of Glenn Beck's puppets.

**********

Steve Benen:

So, the leading congressional candidate in New York's 23rd considers a deranged, self-described "rodeo clown" his "mentor"?

I guess Michele Bachmann and Steve King won't be lonely in the House Mad as a Hatter Caucus meetings.

No, Hoffman, assuming he wins, will be welcomed by a large group of like-minded Republicans, the narrow sliver of ideological extremism that dominates the GOP these days, and that's all that's left of the GOP in the House.

And Glenn Beck will no doubt continue to fill his head with all the glennbeckery he can muster.

Roll the dice

By Carl

Tomorrow could conceivably be the biggest off-year election for the next decade, at least.

It is in this spirit that I believe Barack Obama needs to roll the dice or go all-in:

Democrats and Republicans in three states entered their final full day of campaigning ahead of Tuesday's elections, with the White House carefully targeting its resources in a bid to head off Republican victories.

Vice President Biden plans to join Democratic candidate Bill Owens, who is running against a third-party conservative candidate in an upstate New York congressional election, at a rally Monday morning.

Owens is fighting head-to-head against Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, after GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava dropped out over the weekend. Scozzafava, who was criticized as too moderate by members of her own party, endorsed Owens on Sunday. But it's unclear how much of an impact that endorsement will have, as many of her supporters are expected to drift toward Hoffman's candidacy.

Meanwhile, President Obama headlined two rallies for New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine Sunday, pushing to drive up turnout as Republican challenger Chris Christie did the same.

Having written off the incompetent campaign of Creigh Deeds in Virginia, Obama has put a lot of effort into Corzine's campaign in New Jersey.

The most recent non-partisan polls, like Quinnipiac College, show Corzine with a small lead, but within the margin of error. Obama has made two visits to the state in the past week, with another set for today.

While he's there, however, he might want to consider shoring up White House support in New York's 23rd District.

Yes, Joe Biden will appear there, and yes, that's a high profile appearance, but neither Governor's race will reflect as much on Obama's administration as a race to replace his Secretary of the Army, Republican John McHugh.

As I mentioned in the earlier post I linked to, McHugh's seat is a long-time moderate Republican stronghold, but there's been a twist: the Republican moderate has dropped out of the race...and thrown her support to the Democrat against a conservative insurgent candidate!

This is a situation that cries out for Obama's special attention and a last minute surprise appearance could make that endorsement of Scozzafava not only brilliant, but pave the way for her advancement in politics.

In other words, the New York State Republican party would owe Obama a favor, albeit a minor one, and one he might parlay into something useful to both himself and the nation at large.

Like, perhaps, passing a bill that allows NYS to be a testing ground for a public healthcare option. This would not be inconsistent with former Governor George Pataki's expansion of the Child Health Plus program to cover families, and would be a shot in the arm to retaining businesses in the state.

Win-win, as it were.

Imagine Joe Biden, standing there at the rally in Watertown. Thousands of curious upstaters come out, cheering, and suddenly Joe Biden announces Barack Obama.

Talk about a breaking news story! Talk about a game-changing appearance!

It could happen. It should happen. I hope it does.

(crossposted to Simply Left Behind)

Scozzafava endorses Owens, rejects Republican extremism

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As most of you who follow this sort of thing have surely heard by now, Dierdre "Dede" Scozzafava, the Republican who dropped out of the House race in NY-23 yesterday, has endorsed not the Conservative (and new Republican) candidate, Doug Hoffman, but the Democratic candidate, Bill Owens.

Given that Scozzafava is a moderate who supports abortion rights and gay rights, and that Owens is the flavour of the day of the far right, and that the Republican Party, Scozzafava's party, is moving further and further to the right, and that the right, including many in the Republican establishment, backed Hoffman all along, this is hardly all that surprising. Still, it's yet another sign of what has happened to the GOP, and of where it is headed.

From Scozzafava's statement:

In Bill Owens, I see a sense of duty and integrity that will guide him beyond political partisanship. He will be an independent voice devoted to doing what is right for New York. Bill understands this district and its people, and when he represents us in Congress he will put our interests first.

Please join me in voting for Bill Owens on Tuesday. To address the tough challenges ahead, we must rise above partisanship and politics and work together. There's too much at stake in this election to do otherwise.

How very sensible, and how very admirable. Hoffman, and the right-wing support for Hoffman, isn't about representing the interests of the constituents of New York's 23rd Congressional District, it's about taking control of the GOP, about pushing a right-wing ideology that is well outside the American mainstream. Scozzafava knows that -- and she, the Republican nominee (let us not forget that), has rejected it.

Needless to say, the right is beside itself -- and is lashing out. "This afternoon Dede Scozzafava betrayed the GOP," said top Hoffman advisor Rob Ryan. Actually, no. Scozzafava is a Republican and was happy to run as a Republican. If there was betrayal, it was by those on the right who attacked her and launched Hoffman's insurgent candidacy. More generally, I would add, it's been conservatives who have betrayed what was once the leading spirit of the Republican Party, a party that used to welcome liberals and moderates in its fairly big tent. That tent has shrunk to a narrow sliver on the spectrum, the purge for ideological purification continues, and Republicans like Scozzafava, who is the right sort of Republican for NY-23 and the Northeast generally, have gotten the message. Some, like Arlen Specter, have switched sides. Others have simply dropped out or given up altogether.

(Note that, among other things, Hoffman would appear to be the Glenn Beck candidate in the race. And check out his list of right-wing supporters, including James Dobson and Sarah Palin, as well as supposed GOP mainstreamers like George Pataki and Tim Pawlenty.)

As I tweeted this afternoon, Scozzafava's endorsement may not be enough for Owens to overcome the boost that Hoffman is likely to get now that he's the Republican candidate. Still, one hopes that other moderates will follow her lead and reject the extremism that has taken hold of the Republican Party. There is more than enough room on the other side.

(For more reaction, check out Memeorandum.)

Scozzafava pulls out of NY-23 House race, GOP's extremist right scores another major victory

By Michael J.W. Stickings

On this All Hallows' Eve 2009, Dede Scozzafava, the (official) Republican candidate in the special election in New York's 23rd Congressional District, has suspended her campaign just days before the vote, giving up in the face of simple inevitability and essentially handing her official GOP nod to far-right Republican and Conservative Party insurgent Doug Hoffman.

Of course, the writing was on the wall. Conservatives have been conducting a nasty smear campaign to bring Scozzafava down while pumping up Hoffman as their chosen one, as their cause célèbre. Scozzafava had the party endorsement, but conservative Republicans across the land had declared their support for Hoffman, and the polls showed Hoffman well ahead of Scozzafava and just about even with Democrat Bill Owens. In pulling out, Scozzafava basically acknowledged that she understood what was happening, that she was going to lose, that Republican support was divided, that the only way for the Republicans to win was to let Hoffman pick up the mantle.

And Republicans, with Scozzafava kicked to the curb, have been quick to embrace Hoffman -- those, that is, who weren't already enthusiastically on board, including those at the top of the party apparatus. Here's what RNC Chair Michael Steele said almost immediately after Scozzafava's announcement -- yes, of course it was coordinated:

Effective immediately, the R.N.C. will endorse and support the Conservative candidate in the race, Doug Hoffman. Doug's campaign will receive the financial backing of the R.N.C. and get-out-the-vote efforts to defeat Bill Owens on Tuesday.

And the floodgates opened wider. "National Republican Party officials, who had also endorsed Scozzafava, are now lining up behind Hoffman," reports CNN. "This new show of GOP unity will make it more difficult for Owens to win the election on Tuesday." Of course, that's what this was all about. Scozzafava may or may not have seen the writing on the wall, but she was no doubt informed of it, and she was likely shown the door, or perhaps even pushed out, told that the party wanted her to fall on her sword, or else.

Even Newt Gingrich, who had shown a rare modicum of sanity by endorsing Scozzafava and rightly accusing Hoffman's right-wing backers of conducting a "purge" of the party, has flipped. He's now in Hoffman's corner.

So what now? Is a Hoffman win now pretty much inevitable? Here's Marc Ambinder:

A series of polls showed Scozzafava in third place, well behind Democrat Bill Owens and, suddenly, Conservative Doug Hoffman, who had stolen about half of Scozzafava's base. Where do the rest of her votes go? CW says that most go to Hoffman, but I'm with Jonathan Martin: I think half go to Democrat Bill Owens or they stay home. GOP registration exceeds Democratic registration by nearly 50,000. This is a Republican district that is likely to remain Republican, -- only significantly more conservative than it's been.

So, yes. It's now Hoffman's race to lose. And, in this generally Republican -- if also generally moderate (hence Scozzafava's appeal to locals) -- district (it went for Obama, but it has gone Republican in House races for generations), Owens just won't pick up enough moderate Republican support to counter the expected boost for Hoffman.

And what does Hoffman's seemingly successful insurgency mean, or, rather, how is it likely to be interpreted? Ambinder again:

Republicans will derive two lessons from the results of this race. One is that the activist base of the party is becoming increasingly powerful in the one area that had eluded them: candidate selection. Other conservative Republicans may now feel more comfortable if they decide to challenge incumbents in primaries. Democrats, believing that Republicans will conservatize-themselves to death demographically, will take this as a positive trend for the long-term. The second lesson is that populist, regular guy candidates win in supposedly "moderate" districts.

The race had become a proxy for debates about the future of the party. Since the situation in NY 23 is so unusual, it may be folly to squeeze out more meaning than's already present.

That's fair, sure, but I think this is far more significant long-term for the GOP than Ambinder suggests, and I think Andrew Sullivan is right: 

No one knows what might happen now. For the insurgents, it means a scalp they will surely use to purge the GOP of any further dissidence. But the insurgents were also backed by the establishment, including Tim Pawlenty, who's supposed to be the reasonable center.

Hoffman's insurgency was driven by the usual suspects on the Republican right, where the likes of Michelle Malkin, overcome with ideological madness, think even GOP moderates are "radical leftists," but, Gingrich notwithstanding, many in the Republican establishment had thrown their weight behind Hoffman. He wasn't just the preferred candidate, the preferred Republican, of the fringe but of parts of the mainstream as well.

Let me clarify that. What was once the fringe is increasingly the mainstream, and the right's victory here -- even before the election, the victory in pushing Hoffman over Scozzafava -- is indicative of the larger shift among Republicans as a whole to the (far) right. Moderates and others who dissent from rightist orthodoxy are either leaving or being purged, and what remains is a narrow ideological sliver in which a Doug Hoffman, or a Michelle Malkin, is actually the new center, a center well to the right both of what the Republican Party used to be and of where the overwhelming majority of the American people are. Even in New York it is not acceptable, it would seem, to deviate from the new party line. Scozzafava got the message. I suspect that all Republicans across the country are getting it, too.

Why does Michael Steele hate Republicans?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Politico:

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said Friday that a victory by Doug Hoffman, the third-party candidate in the Nov. 3 New York special election, is a win for the GOP.

The actual Republican nominee, Dede Scozzafava, trails Hoffman, the Conservative Party nominee, and Democrat Bill Owens by double-digits according to a recent poll. But Steele argued during an interview with POLITICO that the GOP doesn't need to worry about Scozzafava's lagging ratings because Hoffman is essentially a Republican.

"You've got two Republicans running in that race. My upside is that one of them will likely win," Steele said. "We want to be supporting the one that wins."

"I don't split the party into conservative or not," he said. "I'm looking as the national chairman to walk out of there one way or the other with a win."

I get it. He's hedging. But, in this race, Hoffman isn't the Republican, Scozzafava is.

Let me repeat that, just to be clear: In NY-23, Dede Scozzafava, not Doug Hoffman, is the Republican nominee. So shouldn't the chairman of the Republican National Committee be actively backing the Republican nominee?

Winning, of course, is what matters, and Hoffman, the Conservative candidate (and also a Republican), has a much better shot of winning than Scozzafava, who has been viciously and relentlessly smeared by the right.

Still, there's something pathetic about Steele's win-either-way approach. If nothing else, it papers over what is the real story here, which is the rapid splintering of the Republican Party and the ongoing rise of the extremist right in what is increasingly a narrow, ideologically extreme party on the fringe of American society.

Hoffman surges, Republicans jump on the bandwagon

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Oh, so now Republican leaders are embracing Doug Hoffman in NY-23. I suppose they got the message loud and clear from the ruckus-making right-wingers who really control the party.

But turning on their on candidate, Dede Scozzafava? It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that Democrat Bill Owens is in the lead, could it, what with Republicans bitterly divided?

Hoffman may very well win the election, but at what cost to the beleaguered GOP? The extremists are proving once more just how powerful they are, and a Hoffman win, spun as conservative insurgent triumph, would only empower them further, boosting their confidence and paving the way for the Great Purge to continue.

A walk in the park

By Carl

Leave it to Republicans to shoot themselves in the foot:

Reporting from Washington - Silvan Johnson adores Sarah Palin, belongs to a conservative discussion group and fumes at President Obama's spending policies. But when it comes to picking a new congressional representative for her upstate New York district, she is in no mood to help the Republican Party.

In fact, Johnson and many other conservatives want to use a Nov. 3 special election to teach the GOP a lesson about sticking to conservative values -- even though that lesson could mean the party loses a House seat it has held for decades. The conservatives are backing a third-party candidate, splitting the Republican vote and giving the Democrat a lead in some recent opinion polls.

"Both parties seem to be more for big government," said Johnson, a probation clerk in Fulton, N.Y. "The Republicans need to learn that the people they are running [for office] do not represent the views of the people."

Clueless Silvan Johnson might want to consider these words of Newt Gingrich:

"We have to decide which business we are in," Gingrich said on his website after conservatives derided his endorsement of[Republican party candidate in NY's 23rd Dede] Scozzafava. "If we are in the business of feeling good about ourselves while our country gets crushed, then I probably made the wrong decision."

The independent candidate, Doug Hoffman, is a rock-ribbed conservative. Lest you think New York as a blue state, it is based on overall population (meaning we have a lot of urban areas here) but swaths of the state make Alabama look progressive and modern, in political outlook.

This election is to fill the seat vacated by Army Secretary John M. McHugh. The last Democrat to win and hold the seat, Peter Peyser, won in 1980. Obama captured 52% of the vote in 2008, with third party candidates drawing an anomalous 2% of the vote. Clearly, some anger at Republicans exists.

While the district is Republican, it tends to elect moderates like McHugh and Sherwood Boehlert. This is what makes Hoffman's entrance into the race, as well as the bizarre divide of the Republican zodiac, so intriguing.

Scozzafava is pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, which has angered an awful lot of the more strident factions in the Republican party, and has Sarah Palin, among others on the list of Fucking Republican Loons, hitching her horse up to pull this wagon.

Sarah Palin, who's about as risk averse as the man wearing a belt and suspenders, is risking a lot to back an insurgency. The party machine in the district hand-picked Scozzafava over Hoffman and others. This cannot be viewed with anything but concern back at RNC HQ.

Should Hoffman win, Palin can count coup and run as an outsider in 2012 despite having burrowed her way deeply into the pile of piglets sucking at National's teat.

Should she lose, it could conceivably mean the end of her fairly sturdy Presidential nomination hopes.

Hoffman has been drawing large sums of money from outside of New York state and is currently out-raising Scozzafava.

But not the Democratic candidate, Bill Owens.

The polling in the district is all over the map: conservative polls tend to push Hoffman, liberal polls tend to push Owens and Siena College polls indicate a whipsaw race, with both Owens and Scozzafava grabbing leads. The most recent and most unreliable poll, taken Oct. 25 and published by the archconservative, Randian Club For Growth, shows Hoffman with a small lead, but I have no doubt this is incorrect, if only for degree not result.

Hm.

I'll say this much: this race is making the Republican nominating process suddenly relevant again. Not because Barack Obama can lose the 2012 election, but because we may be witnessing an historic event.

The complete collapse of a major political party under the weight of its own wrong-headed, heartless ideology. It has been said you can't be too vicious to be a Republican, but it's starting to look like you can!

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)