{"id":2874,"date":"2009-10-21T18:34:02","date_gmt":"2009-10-21T22:34:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/?p=2874"},"modified":"2009-10-21T19:25:13","modified_gmt":"2009-10-21T23:25:13","slug":"dede-scozzafava-what-the-heck-were-republicans-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/2009\/10\/21\/dede-scozzafava-what-the-heck-were-republicans-thinking\/","title":{"rendered":"Dede Scozzafava? What the Heck Were Republicans Thinking???"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have to confess the November 3rd special election in New York’s 23rd congressional district wasn’t even on my radar until I read this<\/a> Wall Street Journal article… Since then I’ve been keeping a close on the race between erstwhile Republican Dede Scozzafava, Democrat Bill Owens and Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman.<\/p>\n

I can’t for the life of me understand why Republican Party bosses selected Scozzafava, a pro-abortion, pro-union, ACORN backed, Working Families Party-endorsed, tax and spend big government liberal who has more in common with democrats than she does the GOP’s conservative base… Particularly when a viable conservative candidate was available.<\/p>\n

Regardless of her stance on the issues Scozzafava’s bumbled encounter<\/a> with John McCormack of The Weekly Standard ought to doom her candidacy.<\/p>\n

Police questioned a reporter from a conservative publication after receiving a call that he harassed a Republican candidate for Congress who refused to answer his questions about her positions on tax and health issues.<\/p>\n

“I don’t believe it ever escalated to anything that would ever be classified as an emergency,” Fredenburg said.<\/p>\n

No charges were filed against McCormack.<\/p>\n

<…><\/p>\n

In the audio recording of the reporter\u2019s questioning played for The Associated Press by McCormack, the reporter didn\u2019t raise his voice, but repeated his unanswered questions several times, including one about abortion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never screamed, I never yelled, I never shouted,\u201d he said. \u201cMy voice was only loud enough so she could hear my questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement released Tuesday to the blog Politico<\/a>, Scozzafava\u2019s campaign said the reporter \u201crepeatedly screamed questions (in-your-face-style),\u201d but later issued a statement deleting the accusation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bottom line Scozzafava either couldn’t or wouldn’t answer McCormack’s questions and called the police to save her from a report… A call the police chief effectively says was unjustified.<\/p>\n

The situation in New York’s 23rd congressional district is emblematic of the problems facing the GOP. Republicans didn’t the 2006 and 2008 elections because they were to conservative, they lost because they abandoned traditional conservative principles of limited government and fiscal responsibility… Over the last decade they morphed from the party of Reagan into the big spending, big government party of George W. Bush.<\/p>\n

By choosing Dede Scozzafava as their candidate Republican Party bosses have demonstrated they still don’t get it… If Republicans want to win elections they need to draw vibrant contrasts between themselves and Democrats, traditional conservative principles still resonate with the American people… Doug Hoffman is a conservative, Dede Scozzafava isn’t… Michelle Malkin sums things up<\/a> pretty well:<\/p>\n

One thing is guaranteed at the conclusion of the NY-23 special congressional election: The Beltway Republicans who endorsed radical leftist Dede Scozzafava are going to have indelible egg stains on their faces. And GOP establishment fund-raising organizations will be the poorer for it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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