The Stakeholder
DCCC Memo: What Does the NY-23 GOP Civil War Mean for House Republicans?
TO: Interested
Parties
FROM: DCCC
Communications
DATE: October 31,
2009
RE: What Does
the NY-23 GOP Civil War Mean for House Republicans?
The news that the NRCC's candidate, moderate Republican Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, was driven out of the NY-23 Special Election to replace former Republican Congressman John McHugh raises questions about the lessons the Republican Party may learn.
DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen said:
Today's developments in NY-23 should send a chilling message to the few remaining moderate Republicans. The extreme right wing of the Republican Party is in control and will not tolerate differing opinions.
National Republicans hoped to harness the energy of the tea party movement and translate it into financial support and voter turnout for their endorsed candidate. Instead, the Republican Party has been hijacked by extreme right wing ideologues with a radical agenda that would effectively dismantle Social Security and Medicare, and are out of step with a vast majority of Americans.
Eight (8) extreme right wing groups spent more than $1 million to defeat the moderate Republican - and NRCC's chosen candidate. Those groups include: Club for Growth, Common Sense in America, Susan B. Anthony, Life and Liberty, Eagle Forum, Minute Men PAC, National Organization for Marriage, and the Family Research Council. In the wake of NY-23, House Republicans now have to contend with an emboldened and well-funded far right focused on ideological purity.
Additionally, the NRCC and House Republican leadership made a series of serious miscalculations that played out during the NY-23 campaign.
- Republican leaders didn't understand the extreme right wing ideologues of their party. They thought that the tea party activist energy of this summer would easily translate into campaign dollars and votes for the establishment candidate. The NY-23 campaign shows that this is not true.
- The Republican Conference is not united. The NRCC could not even lock in the endorsements of House Republican leaders.
- NRCC mishandled the race from day one. The NRCC spent nearly $1 million (which is about a quarter of their current cash on hand) on a race despite not understanding the district or how the NY State party line ballot worked. They actively criticized the Conservative Party candidate and failed to lock in the endorsements of party leaders.
A year ago former NRCC Chairman Tom Davis said, "If the Republican brand were dog food, they would take it off the shelf." The Republican brand has only worsened since then.
The ABC News/Washington Post poll, released last week, found that only 20 percent of those polled identified themselves as Republicans. According to Chris Cillizza, this is "the lowest that number has been in Post polling since 1983." In the NBC-Wall Street Journal poll, released this week, just 25 percent have a positive opinion of the Republican Party, which ties the Republican's low in the survey and which is a worse score than it ever had during the Bush presidency.
The bottom line:
If Republican leaders learn the wrong lessons from NY-23, and they likely will, independent and moderate Republican voters will view Republicans as a party of far right ideologues. The few remaining moderate Republican Members and candidates will hear that moderates are not welcome in the Republican Party and differing opinions will not be tolerated.
Elections are about choices and the Republicans have yet to offer Americans, especially independents, a reason to choose them. In the long term, moving farther to the right will not offer an alternative that is acceptable to most Americans.
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