The NY 23 race results were very pleasing, the best moment for Democrats in yesterday’s election, as the Democratic nominee defeated the Conservative candidate, after the Republican nominee withdrew and endorsed the Democrat.
This is a congressional seat representing Plattsburgh, Watertown and other “North Country” New York territory, an area that had voted consistently Republican since Ulysses Grant was President in 1872.
This can be seen as a strike against the move toward “purifying” the Republican Party, and the elimination of moderates in that party. It is a repudiation by the voters of Sarah Palin, Fred Thompson, Tim Pawlenty, Dick Armey, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and numerous other Republican leaders and conservative talk show hosts, who if left to their own devices, will destroy the Republican party tradition.
This tradition includes Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Robert LaFollette, Sr., George Norris, Arthur Vandenberg, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, Nelson Rockefeller, Mark Hatfield, Clifford Case, Charles Percy, Charles Mathias,Olympia Snowe, and many other distinguished Republicans over the 155 year history of the party, who welcomed moderates and even liberals and progressives in the party, and contributed mightily to the history of the nation.
If the GOP is smart, they will repudiate the attempt of FreedomWorks and other right wing, self destructive forces. and move back toward the center of the political spectrum where the majority of Americans are found.