The New York Times has an interesting round up of opinion from political bloggers who live in New York’s 23rd Congressional District about the month-long kerfuffle that recently made it’s way through their area.
The one theme that comes through loud and clear is the feeling that interference from outsiders with a political agenda was neither helpful nor appreciated:
I’m proud to say the district’s voters made a resounding statement with its vote – leave us the hell alone and let us elect our own representatives. Politics, Dick Armey not withstanding, is local. Even if we end up electing an idiot, he’s OUR idiot. In the case of yesterday’s congressional election, I’m pretty happy to say we didn’t elect an idiot – Bill Owens is an intelligent nondemagogue who will do a fine job representing us in Congress. Against all odds, in a large congressional district with a widely varied population, he became the first Democrat in a century and a half to win in Northern New York.
And the incredible, irrefutable irony is this: if the right wing Republicans and the nattering conservative pundits and the self-righteous single-issue religious groups had kept their meddling hands out of the pie, we would be sending yet another Republican to Washington. Without the assault from the right, in a race that contained only our own DeDe Scozzafava and Bill Owens, DeDe would have preserved the seat for the GOP. Last night’s results prove that the core northern counties – Jefferson, St. Lawrence and Lewis – are the mortar that holds the district together, and those counties are Scozzafava Country. In an Owens-Scozzafava election, she would have won handily in those three counties and in heavily Republican Oswego and Madison, and a far more gentlemanly race would have ended up DeDe 56 percent, Owens 44 percent.
So the 23rd district election did send a message to the Republican Party, though not the one intended by those who urged Doug Hoffman to buck the local committees and launch a third-party campaign. No, the message is this: let local politics remain local.
Another blogger pointed out that Hoffman’s smaller-government rhetoric may not have been well-suited to the district he was trying to represent:
Republicans need to remember the North Country is a place that depends on big government for its sustinence. It makes no sense for many to vote for a man who laments the growth of government.
Running on a small-government platform in a district like that makes as much sense as running on an anti-military platform in Texas.
And, finally, one blogger at the Watertown Daily Times observed that the outside interference succeeded in turning a sure-thing Republican seat into a Democratic pick-up:
National conservative talk show hosts lambasted the 11 GOP county chairs who selected Dede Scozzafava as the nominee for the 23rd Congressional seat formerly held by John McHugh.
The chairmen were told they betrayed the party and were out of touch with the common man.
They were lectured by conservative talk show hosts who declared that Doug Hoffman was the true Republican and deserved to be elected, even though his political resume is blank.
They watched as national and state Republicans one by one abandoned Scozzafava and endorsed Hoffman.
They lamented as Scozzafava, the person they believed to be best suited to maintain the GOP hold on this more-purple-than-red district, ended her campaign three days before the vote.
And then they fumed as Scozzafava went nuclear by telling her supporters to vote for the Democrat Bill Owens.
And now?
Does anyone today think Owens, the Democrats’ second choice for the job, would have beaten Scozzafava in a two-person race? Does anyone today think that the 23rd Congressional District would belong to a Democrat if Hoffman hadn’t decided to run?
(…)
Bloggers, commentators, outside agitators, etc. will put their Texas two-step spin on this election as to “what it really means.” Great! Let the dance begin!
But somebody somewhere should note that this sure-bet GOP district is now held by a Democrat because Republicans around the country somehow got it in their heads that to save a village you have to destroy it.
There were signs that the outsider’s strategy wasn’t working weeks ago when Hoffman displayed a complete inability to address the local issues of concern to voters in the 23rd.
As the Watertown Daily Times observed back then:
Here is a short list of issues which have been consistently important in the north country.
■ How do they feel about federal attempts to widen and deepen the St. Lawrence Seaway to accommodate larger oceangoing ships?
■ Do they support winter navigation in the Seaway?
■ How would they help protect the waterway from encroachment of invasive species?
■ Where do they stand on the development of a rooftop highway from Watertown to Plattsburgh?
■ Would they approve of plans to transform the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corp. into a federal power-marketing entity, as proposed by Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio?
■ What factors should determine the location of power-generating facilities in the rural district? Should any areas be off-limits?
■ How should the routing of electrical transmission lines to convey power from rural to urban areas be located and permitted?
■ Will the candidates commit to protecting the power generated at the Moses-Saunders Power Dam that makes possible thousands of jobs in Northern New York?
■ How do they stand on border issues? Should security override citizens’ desire to travel freely between Northern New York and Canada and the need for smooth commercial travel? Should the federal government interrupt fishing trips, picnics and boating excursions in the name of protecting the border?
■ Acid rain. Adirondack issues. Water levels. Dairy issues. Fort Drum. Wind power. In their campaigns so far, the candidates have only touched upon the many areas in which they will be expected to govern if elected.
Voters know where Assemblywoman Scozzafava stands since she has held elective office for 20 years.
However instead of focusing on any of Ms. Scozzafava’s work on all of the above issues, outside interests keep reminding us of what we already know about her positions on abortion and gay marriage.
The scarcity of discussion and debate on the nuts-and-bolts issues of the complex 23rd Congressional District does a disservice to its residents.
No one in Washington votes in this election, but inside the Beltway cadre’s efforts to decide this election is an arrogant abuse of political ambition.
It’s also stupid because it completely ignores the old admonition that, in the end, all politics is local.
Rather than spending time reading the likes of Michelle Malkin, Erick Erickson, Robert Stacey McCain, and Sarah Palin tell us what NY-23 means, maybe we need to listen to the people who actually live there.
Well done sir, this is a great article!