Here's A Hard Truth For The Hard Right

Here's A Hard Truth For The Hard Right
Posted on Sun, Nov. 8, 2009
Head Strong: Here's a hard truth for the hard right
By Michael Smerconish - Inquirer
Inquirer Currents Columnist

Who is Dede Scozzafava?

If you believe Rush Limbaugh, she's a "liberal woman." Columnist Michelle Malkin called her a "radical leftist." There's "nothing Republican" about her, according to the New York Post editorial board.

Scozzafava was the Republican candidate for Congress in New York's 23d District. Under fire from the right, which was backing Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, Scozzafava quit the race just days before the election. She endorsed Democrat Bill Owens, who won Tuesday.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a prospective GOP presidential candidate, outlined some of the right's issues with the state legislator. Scozzafava, he told me, "supports card check. She voted to raise taxes in New York. She supported the stimulus bill. She supported bank bailouts. She supported a number of other, kind of, budget-busting proposals. The New York Post called her a profligate taxer-and-spender."

On Thursday, I asked Scozzafava if she recognized the candidate that Limbaugh, Malkin, Pawlenty, and others had maligned.

"Absolutely not," she answered. "I know who I am. I'm not sure where they received a lot of the misinformation that they have on me. But I voted with my Republican leader 95 percent of the time in the State Assembly. I think that's a pretty good percentage."

The woman I spoke with at length Thursday afternoon sounded nothing like the granola-munching, tax-and-spend liberal I heard so much about these last few weeks. A supporter of John McCain in 2008, Scozzafava is the head of her party's policy review committee and a floor leader in the State Assembly. She had a succinct answer when I asked her to classify herself: "I'm a Republican."

"This is my party, too," she insisted. "There are a lot of moderate people - Republicans, like me - and I'm hearing from an awful lot of them. And I think the Republican Party needs to know if they don't have room for us and they don't want us working with them, we're going to find a way to work against them."

She acknowledged that many in the GOP would differ with her support for abortion rights and same-sex marriage. But she maintained that she approached those views from a conservative vantage point - a respect for individual liberties.

Her gun-rights bona fides, meanwhile, are beyond reproach. She received an A rating from the National Rifle Association in each election since 2002 (A-plus in 2000) and supported the New York Gun Owners of America in 100 percent of the relevant votes in 2002.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich cited Scozzafava's opposition to cap-and-trade legislation and energy-tax increases in his endorsement of her. This while Scozzafava's votes aligned with the EPL/Environmental Advocates - New York's self-proclaimed "environmental conscience" - 79 percent of the time since 2004.

Between 2000 and 2008, she adopted the perspective of the New York National Federation of Independent Businesses 68 percent of the time. (Her most recent rating was 75 percent.)

She also riled the federation by declaring her support for the Employee Free Choice Act, anathema to fiscal conservatives and business leaders. Her state's largest union, the New York State United Teachers, endorsed her, as did several others, including the local United Auto Workers.

As for the ACORN connection that many alleged, Scozzafava told me she not only had "nothing to do with ACORN" but she also was sponsoring legislation to strip the organization of its funding.

One Democratic ad said she "voted for more taxes and fees for you 190 times." Scozzafava told me those were local sales-tax extensions requested by counties - meaning they weren't tax increases at all. (The local paper of record, the Watertown Daily Times, confirmed that.)

She described herself as pro-Israel and pro-defense spending. Diplomacy, she told me, is only effective if bolstered by a strong defense budget. Iran? "It's hard to put a peace branch out when you're dealing with a regime like that," she said.

In short, Scozzafava is more of a mixed bag than a liberal.

Unfortunately, that wasn't good enough for conservatives and tea-party Republicans. They latched onto Hoffman, whom the Daily Times said was "running as an ideologue."

And to what end? On Friday, Owens became the first Democrat to represent the district in decades.

On Thursday, I asked former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who had called Scozzafava's nomination a "train wreck," whether the GOP was better off with Owens headed to Washington. "No, not at all," he said. "The danger of pushing third-party candidates is that you end up with a Democrat rather than a less-than-desirable Republican." He would rather have seen Hoffman nominated from the start.

The reality is that Scozzafava won the GOP nomination after four hearings that were open to the district's 11 county chairs, committee members, and elected officials. Hundreds had the chance to judge eight prospective candidates, Scozzafava said.

But rather than listen to those local leaders, who thought a mixed-bag state legislator best reflected the sprawling Northeastern district, many on the right backed a third-party ideologue better suited for a House race in Alabama. They would rather lose than support an ideologically impure fellow Republican.

"If people took the time to really know who I was, they would have a Republican member of Congress today," Scozzafava told me.

I agree. Unfortunately, the Limbaugh-Malkin-Hoffman ticket didn't, and a reliably Republican district was handed over to the real liberals.

I think peoples beef with her is that she bailed on the GOP when she dropped out. Most respectable people would drop out as she did and endorse the candidate that she was running against. She went with the Dem guy. That was my issue.

It isn't hard right. It's basically dealing with GOP (or conservative) principles. If you support the issues she supported, then by all means go to the Dem side.

It says that she voted with the Repubs 95% of the time. Why would you go to the Dems if you agree with her principles?

BubbleBliss wrote:It says that she voted with the Repubs 95% of the time. Why would you go to the Dems if you agree with her principles?

Why would she endorse the Dem candidate after she bowed out when she ran as a Repub to start with? Why did she support Dem talking points like abortion rights and gay marriage. It'd be one thing if she balanced that social liberalism with fiscal conservatism. But as a state assemblywoman, she voted for massive tax increases, Democratic budgets and a $180 million state bank bailout. She also supported the trillion-dollar federal stimulus package. Her hubby is a leading upstate New York union organizer. She supports the federal card-check legislation that would massively boost union rolls (and Dem voting rolls) at the expense of workers’ free choice.

Even the dude who runs the Daily Kos website says that Scozzafava has “been willing to raise taxes when budgets require it, and is to the left of most Democrats on social issues.”

My point is that if you're going to be a liberal, then go to the party that espouses liberalism. I don't have a problem with that. When PA senator Spector bolted to the Dems, it didn't bother me. He fits in well there.

Btw, i just looked at her voting record. Go search for it. If you agree with her positions, that's fine and dandy. She's no conservative. That'd be like me saying that a liberal Democrat who wants to get rid of tax increases is still a liberal.

Still voted with her Republican buddies 95% of the time. That percentage doesn't lie and clearly shows where you belong.

So what? McCain voted with the GOP 95% of the time. Whooopie! Now, go find out what those votes were, find what the votes of the opposition were... then get back with me.

When one counts percentages of a persons votes, they don't entail what the vote was. It doesn't tell you if the whole body voted for that measure.

My point is, McCain voted 95% with the GOP but the percentage of those votes where it was passed almost overwhelmingly by both party's can mislead that percentage figure for political posturing.

Personally, i don't pay attention to a individual's percentage votes. I pay attention to what they vote for or against.

I vote for the man, not the party. I know you find that hard to believe. My representative is Collin Peterson of Minn's 8th District. He's a Dem. I voted for him in 2008. I vote for what he stands for not because of his party or his 'percentages'.

Sidetracking...

The fact is that when you vote 95% with a party, not matter what the issue is, you belong to that party. Or would you say that if Huckabee voted with the Dems 95% of the time he could still be a Republican?

If you vote 95% and 75% of those bills were near-unanimous from both sides, it's a misleading figure. You getting what i'm saying?

When does that ever happen, really?

Not too often!

BubbleBliss wrote:When does that ever happen, really?

Not too often!

You're not getting it. If i vote for 100 bills as a Republican and 75 of those bills were passed with bipartisan votes (meaning the Dems voted overewhelmingly with the GOP), then the figure is misleading.

I am getting it, my concern is how many times bills get passed with a largely bipartisan vote...

It all depends on who's in control of the legislature and who's the president or governor. Most states legislatures are modeled after congress. ON a state level it can be as partisan as in D.C. depending on the state. California has a highly partisan legislature because the Dems control it overwhelmingly to the point that being a Republican is almost useless. Minnesota's is fairly partisan because the state is a Dem stronghold but has a Repub guv. The legislature is run by Dems. That bunch are pretty liberal in St. Paul. My state representative is a Dem (whom i voted for and will again). She even gets disgusted by the liberals down there in St. Paul.

Well when you look at the last couple of bills in Congress, not all of them were bipartisan. Not to mention that even if a lot of the bills were, I think the percentage would come out to fewer than 95% if the representative didn't vote with Republicans on the partisan issues.

BubbleBliss wrote:Well when you look at the last couple of bills in Congress, not all of them were bipartisan. Not to mention that even if a lot of the bills were, I think the percentage would come out to fewer than 95% if the representative didn't vote with Republicans on the partisan issues.

That's possible. But then in that case it comes down to that congresspersons issue with the bill via their feelings or their constituents.

What it should come down to is how the constituents want their rep to vote. These days, that's lacking quite a bit.

haha 'quite a bit'? I'd say completely...

That's why you saw those townhalls turning ugly last August... because a majority of those representatives weren't towing the line that their constituents wanted them to. I'd be pissed off, too. The media made those people out to be extremists which was a load of sh!t.

Well, a majority of the people voted for Obama and most of the people at those townhalls were Republicans against Obama.

Misleading. Independents put him in office. Those same independents put Bush in office and got sick of the GOP's bullshit. Those same independents are souring fast on this president. These same independents will boots these Dems out this fall.

Obama getting elected didn't mean that the USA decidedly went to the left. Far from it. Bama put on a good campaign. It was one of the best i've seen. He bullshitted his way thru. If you want, i can post many things he said he was going to do and reneged ion it or mislead people with.

Don't blame me.... i didn't vote for him or McCain. I was going to have none of that sh!t.

Well, the election results showed a clear majority and the tea parties started popping up almost immediately after the Inauguration. The people there were Conservatives that were opposed to Obama's policies.

Of course conservatives were opposed to him. It's not like that's an anomaly. Liberals were opposed to Bush. They would've been even without the Florida bullshit. It's politics. The point is that independents will vote for either side. These people are one's who aren't ideologically motivated like cons and libs are.

TexasBlue wrote:........These people are one's who aren't ideologically motivated like cons and libs are.

I disagree. From my POV, they're MORE ideologically motivated.

Only their ideology is more to the fundamentals that started this country. To hell with political party affiliation, the Independent votes more along the lines of what's actually good for the country more often than not.

The problem now-a-days, is the MSM's, (Main Stream Media) influence in politics.

These so called "News Shows", glorified SitComs really, with little or no real regard for facts...just motivated to spew as much propaganda as possible, with no regard for journalistic "morality".

TexasBlue wrote:Of course conservatives were opposed to him. It's not like that's an anomaly. Liberals were opposed to Bush. They would've been even without the Florida bullshit. It's politics. The point is that independents will vote for either side. These people are one's who aren't ideologically motivated like cons and libs are.

Well you can't launch such organizations like Tea Parties and townhall meeting 'crashers' just because your party lost. The majority has voted for Obama and these people immediately protested. The democratic process will give you results that you won't always like and that includes the fact that your representative may not represent your specific POV.

BubbleBliss wrote:

Well you can't launch such organizations like Tea Parties and townhall meeting 'crashers' just because your party lost. The majority has voted for Obama and these people immediately protested. The democratic process will give you results that you won't always like and that includes the fact that your representative may not represent your specific POV.

The "majority" think that "News Shows" are FACTUAL as well.

The MAJORITY of cattle ALL follow the "Judas Steer" as well.

guido wrote:I disagree. From my POV, they're MORE ideologically motivated.

Only their ideology is more to the fundamentals that started this country. To hell with political party affiliation, the Independent votes more along the lines of what's actually good for the country more often than not.

The problem now-a-days, is the MSM's, (Main Stream Media) influence in politics.

These so called "News Shows", glorified SitComs really, with little or no real regard for facts...just motivated to spew as much propaganda as possible, with no regard for journalistic "morality".

By ideological motivation, i mean on how libs and cons think. It's true that they vote for what's good (or perceived to be good). Liberals and conservatives will vote for their guy even if he has a turd for a mustache. Most independents that i know are fence sitters. They're more socially liberal and fiscally conservative. They don't subscribe to either ideology's talking points.

TexasBlue wrote:
By ideological motivation, i mean on how libs and cons think. It's true that they vote for what's good (or perceived to be good). Liberals and conservatives will vote for their guy even if he has a turd for a mustache. Most independents that i know are fence sitters. They're more socially liberal and fiscally conservative. They don't subscribe to either ideology's talking points.

Yep Yep.