Patrick Ruffini on the NY-23 race:
The key fact that sticks out in my mind about Doug Hoffman’s incredible momentum in NY-23 is that his election would not have been possible had he been the Republican nominee. The fact that we may be about to elect a non-squish from New York has everything to do with the fact that he is running as a third-party independent, and not a Republican (even if the Conservative Party is an auxiliary of the Republicans in most elections).
Hoffman as a Republican would have been too obvious a target and the subject of a relentless barrage of negative TV, websites, mail, and phones branding him as outside the mainstream, anti-choice, anti-worker, etc. But politically, Hoffman has managed to avoid all that until five days out, when it’s now clear he’s the frontrunner. And as Chris Cillizza points out this morning, Hoffman’s success in the polls is built on the back among strong support among independents and (primarily) not Republican regulars disgusted at Scozzafava.
It could be that with the GOP brand damaged by past GOP actions and the relentless hate campaign against us by the Democrats (and the MSM allies, of course) that in at least some circumstances it might be better to go with a non-GOP conservative or libertarian. This might prove especially true in areas where the GOP has been routed for three or four election cycles (think California and New England). While the GOP can still be massively successful (as we’re about to be in Virginia), we might have to put together new coalitions in other areas of the country currently closed off to us.
Ruffini shows how it might be done:
If you’re a party person, don’t dismiss this just yet. Say you’re the NRCC and you haven’t found a good recruit against a vulnerable House Democrat. Say the Republican nominee is a joke, or the incumbent is unopposed. Three months out, you go to your star recruit who turned you down a year ago and ask him to run as an independent. It’s a three month campaign as opposed to an 18-month campaign. They don’t have to quit their law practice or small business. They enter in the last few miles of the race, and you put serious pressure on the joke nominee to step aside, or put out word through local media and talk radio that this is the guy.
Those out there who have been attentive will realize that I’ve been working along these lines for a while now – as in my concept of running a libertarian against Nancy Pelosi. Lets face facts – no GOPer is going to be elected anything in San Francisco…but a well-funded libertarian who might agree with Nancy on a lot of social issues but is with us on taxes, spending, national defense and judicial restraint? We’d be in 7th heaven if we could pull off such a coup! And while that is an obviously forlorn hope (Pelosi would likely muscle her way to victory…but she’d have to fight for it, and that in and of itself is worth the effort), there are probably 100 seats out there held by Democrats for which a traditional GOPer might not go over so well…but a conservative or libertarian independent just might be able to win, if well funded. And even if its a losing effort, by forcing the Democrats to defend a very large number of seats, we prevent them from concentrating fire on our vulnerable members. I can see no downside to this.
As I’ve said before – I am a Republican and I believe that it will be through a revitalized Republican party that America will be reformed…but I’m also someone who is dedicated to an end to the current power structure, and thus it is in my interest to put as many different view points as possible in the halls of power. It would be ok to me if neither the GOP nor the Democrats had a Congressional majority but had to court independent conservative and libertarian support. It would slow things down; muck things up…and make any resultant legislation a genuine compromise much more likely to serve the interests of the people than the politicians.
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