23 – Blonde Redhead
A friend asks:
“Is this NY23 thing a big deal? Perhaps more importantly, do we want it to be (I can’t tell whether I want the Republicans to implode after a long season of infighting or return to the middle so that elections can be about more reasonable things again, assuming they ever were)?”
These are fair questions. I think the best take I’ve seen so far is from Jonathan Bernstein here and here. The takeaway is that the race does matter, sort of. And the dynamics of it are almost certainly bad for Republicans, but they’re not necessarily that great for Democrats either. This race has clarified something that was already pretty obvious: ‘mainstream’ Republicans are simply not welcome in modern conservatism.
That will certainly make it harder to recruit the sort of moderate candidates who might be necessary to take back a lot of the more vulnerable seats that the Blue team won in 06 and 08.
At the same time, Hoffman has a pretty good chance of winning this thing – despite being a Glenn Beck-ite, which can’t be very comforting for Democrats. Sure, NY-23 is a traditionally Republican seat, but Obama won it and it “shares a frontier with Vermont and Canada.” Running against a fringe candidate should have made this a solid chance for a pickup.
Of course, while every seat matters, a swing of two votes in the House right now is pretty irrelevant. The real question is what effect this has on 2010 and 2012. And there it’s all about the gamble. If there is a major sea change in attitude and the Republicans can manage a ton of pick-ups despite running candidates like Hoffman it could spell serious damage for Obama, the Democrats in general, and the idea of a sustainable new progressive majority.
On the other hand, if those gains fail to materialize, we could end up with an increasingly apocalyptic minority that spirals down the drain for another few cycles before they get things back together.
My take: Hoffman could very well win, though in a race with so many crazy twists and turns prediction is probably futile. In the longer term, I think the gamble isn’t going to pay off. Districts that can support candidates like Hoffman already have them – they’re the 40% of districts the Democrats haven’t been able to pick off in two landslide elections. Unless there’s some major external problem (scandal, crisis, or most likely a dragging economy that shows no noticeable improvements for the next 12 months), the GOP has a much better shot of putting a dent in the Democratic ruling majority by running RINOs (and then having to put up with their occasional apostasies).
But Jeebus save us all if this pays off. We could seriously end up with the same kind of united, categorical opposition from a party with enough power to literally shut down the government for a few years.
And either way, I think we’re in trouble for awhile re: the goal of having elections be reasonable. Regardless of who wins, it’s going to be close, and that’s going to be enough to make this a template for a lot of other elections driven by Sarah Palin endorsements, breathless coverage, and total ridiculousness.