In 1994, GOP Leaders managed to release a “Contract with America” just days before voters swept them into office. Establishment types sitting in DC continue to believe that the “Contract” was somehow relevant to their victory. One of us was in the field during that election and can confirm that, at least where we were working, not a single voter had heard of the “Contract.” It was a DC thing.

37958976-GOP-Pledge-to-America –

Within hours, the DC GOP Establishment, desperate to show that they “get it,” will unveil their new “Contract.” They document is out now and is included here.

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Nashville, TN:  As Sarah Palin spoke to the standing room only, sell out crowd at Tea Party convention, activists from across the nation were putting together the finishing touches on a strategy to channel the activism in an entirely new way.  The result is Ensuring Liberty, a 501(c)4 and affiliated PAC.

Many pundits debated the lessons from the the New York “23rd race” and the heralded defeat of Dede Scozzafava and subsequent loss of Doug Hoffman.  A couple things were clear.  The Club for Growth money that went to Hoffman was not enough to bring home a winner.  It was equally obvious from the loss, that the national outpouring of grassroots support from Tea Party activists all over the Country was not enough.

What was clear to those closer to the campaign was that all of the assistance poured into a flawed operation could not put humpty dumpty together.  An axiom from business holds that before you automate a process you must first perfect that process.  The cash and volunteer support were in effect the automation that the Hoffman campaign desperately needed.  The “machine” however, lacked the fine tuning so that most of the “inputs” ended up as waste and proportionally little product flowed out of the campaign apparatus.

Every campaign needs at least two critical element pairings; campaign and money or campaign and people.  Hoffman had plenty of money and people but too little campaign.  Next time, the Tea Party supported candidates will have all three elements.  Enter, the Ensuring Liberty PAC.

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In a city as mercurial as Washington DC words are often ascribed additional weight and meaning.  It is the rare politician that can cut a man down to size with a word or a turn of phrase.  Recently we’ve seen two men who have perfected this, Bill Clinton and Dick Cheney.

Clinton described Barack Obama and his presidential bid as “the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.”  With one phrase, Clinton managed to diminish Obama and his accomplishments.  Rather than conjure to mind images of Kennedy and Camelot, Clinton’s phrase brought forth vivid images of Alice in Wonderland.  Bill Clinton is a calculating man and he understood the weight of his words.  He even had to defend them as the mainstream media finally caught wind of the insult.

Dick Cheney managed to similarly impact Obama’s image with one word, dithering.  The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines dither as:”to act nervously or indecisively.”  When used by Cheney to describe Barack Obama’s stance on Afghanistan it carried more weight.  With the use of one word Cheney managed to portray Obama as weak, indecisive, and unfit to lead.  Dithering certainly doesn’t conjure to mind images of Barack Obama as a mythical figure who can do no wrong.

It’s a rare skill to be able to so dramatically impact one’s image with the use of merely a word or a pithy phrase.

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Doug Hoffman lost his race in the 23rd Congressional District of New York, a seat held by Republicans for the past 120 years. John McHugh held the seat since 1992 and won with such large margins (he was even unopposed in 2002) that when I pitched him to provide polling for his campaign, it was a challenge to even argue why he needed polling in the first place.

Dede Scozzafava was chased out of the race by conservative Tea Party activists. Her campaign may have been inept, and local GOP leaders may have erred in selecting her, but activists had no business dictating terms from afar. Despite her flaws, Scozzafava was ahead in the polls before the Tea Party brouhaha. (So much for respecting local control.) Their result was to actually shrink the Republican caucus in the House of Representatives.  (Moreover, the newly-elected Democrat Congressman Bill Owens may provide the deciding vote on passing Pelosi Care, up for debate tonight in the House.) Just as conservative Democrats voted for Speaker Pelosi, liberal Republicans like Scozzafava would have supported the Party’s leadership. A RINO is better than no R at all.  The good news is that the district is likely to support the Republican candidate in 2010 after what I suspect will be a vigorous primary.

The most laughable criticism of Scozzafava was that she showed no loyalty to conservatives by endorsing the Democrat in the race–this from Tea Partiers who showed no loyalty to the Republican Party by pushing a third party candidate in the first place.

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Republican leadership, at all levels, should have learned a quick lesson about the mood of America’s conservatives from the Dede Scozzafava debacle in upper New York state. Unfortunately, the GOP House Leadership might need some remedial instruction. And a group of conservative Republican lawmakers met Tuesday to draft that lesson plan.

Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has been one of the more vocal opponents of ObamaCare. Last week on Sean Hannity’s television program, Ms. Bachmann announced the “House Call on Congress.” She urged Americans to come to Washington, DC, to a press conference on the Capitol steps at Noon on Thursday, November 5.  After the presser, Ms. Bachmann will lead the citizens through House office buildings to confront Democrats on their own turf. She hopes to draw thousands to DC to tell the Democrats to their faces, “We don’t want a government takeover of our healthcare.” Yesterday, Ms. Bachmann announced that conservative talk radio host Mark Levin would join her.

Leaders, though, tend to be cautious.  Before the Hill brass swooped in to “help” organizers by providing speaker lists and talking points, a band of conservatives formed a steering committee to keep the message and the tactics authentically conservative. These rebels don’t want talking points; they want a battle cry.

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From the Associated Press:

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) – Democrat Bill Owens has captured the special election for a New York congressional seat that became a fight over the identity of the Republican Party.

Owens defeated Conservative Doug Hoffman and Republican Dierdre Scozzafava (skoh-zuh-FAH’-vuh) in the heavily Republican 23rd congressional District in rural northern New York. Scozzafava abruptly withdrew Saturday and supported Owens.

Hoffman has conceded the race.

With 88 percent of the precincts reporting, Owens had 49 percent of the vote to 46 percent for Hoffman. Scozzafava had 6 percent.

The race has been getting national attention, with some calling it a referendum on President Barack Obama and others saying it could help Republicans focus their message to attract more people to the party. (more…)

The withdrawal of Dede Scozzafava from the special election for Congress in upstate New York has predictably set off another wave of media-led hand-wringing about the health of the GOP. (See here and here, for example.) These stories are like crack for reporters, especially those with a hard-left slant. It is always framed as a battle between ‘conservatives’ and ‘moderates,’ but the focus is actually much narrower.

To Big Media, conservatism comes in only one flavor, social conservatism, namely anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage and a smattering of other issues that would fall flat over canapés and seltzer (liberals don’t seem to drink anymore). That Dede was pro-choice and pro-gay marriage fits the narrative perfectly for the media. End of story.

But, the media, and political leaders would be wise to dig a bit deeper into the story. Yes, Dede was pro-choice and pro-gay marriage, but she was also pro-government spending, pro-taxes and pro-Big Labor, to name just a few other issues. When a Republican candidate regularly seeks out the endorsement of ACORN and wins the endorsement of DailyKos, it isn’t much of a stretch to imagine that large segments of the party might have some misgivings about supporting the candidate. (And they would be right, since she has now endorsed the Democrat in the race.)

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The Tea Party movement has been quiet since the September 12 massive rallies in Washington, Quincy, Dallas, and elsewhere.  Paul Krugman was so bold as to write on October 26, “the tea baggers have come and gone.”  On the same day, CBS News blogger Charles Cooper asked rhetorically, “Did the Tea Partiers Party Too Soon?”  The message from the White House talking points memo was clear:  that annoying fit of folksy patriotic crap is over, and we in the political class can get back to the business of tyranny.

Congressional Candidate, and Big Government Contributor, Doug Hoffman took to the New York Post today:

At this time, three months ago, I was wrestling with a decision. A decision as to whether or not to run in a special election to fill the seat vacated by the new secretary of the Army, John McHugh. If you had told me 90 days later I would be penning an op-ed piece for the New York Post, I would have laughed in disbelief. I would have laughed even louder had you told me that I would be receiving endorsement and support from political leaders like Fred Thompson, former Majority Leader Dick Armey, or Sarah Palin. Or appearing on broadcast media with national audiences, as their hosts peppered me with questions about the future of the GOP and our nation. 

You see I’m not a professional politician; I’ve never sought elected office. I grew up poor in Saranac Lake, in the heart of the Adirondacks. My siblings and I were raised in a single-parent household by our mother. We worked to help her pay the mortgage. But, like so many others in this great land, I worked hard, got a good education, did a six-year stint in the military, married, landed a good job with a “big eight” accounting firm and started living the American dream.

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A national coalition of Tea Party activists called Thursday for rallies in several states to announce their dissatisfaction with the Grand Old Party.  In an October 22 press release they state:

We are extremely disappointed that the Republican Party (and leaders like Newt Gingrich) has missed the message of the Tea Parties and continues to take conservative voters for granted. We applaud all courageous statesmen (Fred Thompson, Michelle Bachmann, and Dick Armey) and call on other GOP officials to put America’s values over traditional, often corrupt and morally bankrupt, power structures.

This is nothing new, and it is certainly nothing good.  I am no partisan apologist, mind you, and would not support Ms. Scozzafava.  My first significant political activity was on behalf of Pat Buchanan in the 1992 Republican primary in New Hampshire against a sitting Republican president.  You may remember how that ended: Buchanan lost the primary, and President Bush lost the general election.

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Once upon a time, ‘Republican’ Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava was the front-runner in the special election to replace actual Republican Rep. John McHugh. That was then, the video below is now:

In politics, a good rule-of-thumb is that the candidate calling for more debates is the candidate that is losing. It usually means they are just about out of money and need staged, public events to even hope to get their message out. For a big government liberal like Dede, it figures she would resort to this. It seems noone is buying what she’s selling, so she’s trying to orchestrate her own bailout. That is fairly typical.

What isn’t typical, however, is her campaign’s apparent–and total–lack of competence. Who stages a press conference and fails to control its visuals? City council races in Nebraska have more discipline.

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Tea Partier and blogger Michael Leahy reports:

In an exclusive interview with the TCOT Report, George Joseph, Republican Party Chairman of Oneida County, one of the eleven counties in New York’s 23rd Congressional District, today slammed Republican Party nominee Dede Scozzafava. This damaging news comes on the heels of Scozzafava’s ill advised attempt to intimidate a reporter from the Weekly Standard by calling the cops on him after he asked persistent questions about her position on card check legislation at a meeting held last night in Lowville, New York. Lowville is located in Lewis County, immediately to the north of Oneida County.

According to Joseph

“ I wasn’t sold on Dede from the beginning. That race represents 8% of Oneida County. Throughout the nomination process, I would have thought there would have been more sensitivity, in light of what happened with Tedisco in NY 20, who was the annointed front runner. [Republican Tedisco was defeated in a special election for an open Congresssional seat earlier this year]. Just with [Dede] coming out of Albany — any legislator in Albany is so tarnished why would we nominate them ? We acted very tone deaf in how we selected this nominee.”

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The GOP candidate is the most liberal in the race. As Big Government readers know, there is a philosophical battle brewing in upstate New York. A special election to replace departing Congressman John McHugh features a GOP candidate, Dede Scozzafave, backed by national GOP ‘leaders’, DailyKos and the state teachers’ union, a Democrat, Bill Owens and a Conservative Party Candidate, Doug Hoffman.

National GOP figures claim Dede Scozzafava is the best candidate hold the seat for the GOP. If that is true it begs a question, is it worth holding? Dede Scozzafava has regularly sought the support of ACORN’s Working Families Party, supported higher taxes, increased government spending, the stimulus bill, bailouts, Card Check…oh, lets just stop there. Newt Gingrich has called her “the future of the Republican party.” Well.

I call upon my fellow tea partiers, if you think the GOP should be commited to limited government, individual liberty and lower taxes, join with me in the DumpDede campaign. To act as a clearinghouse and mobilize our support, I’ve created the following website:

www.DumpDede.com

Pass it on to your friends. Battle is engaged.

I did not make the decision to run for Congress lightly. I have never aspired to be a politician, but seeing the direction our country was heading, I had to act. I believe in the bedrock principles that have made our nation great; limited government, individual liberty and personal responsibility.  I also think the public is more receptive to that message than ever before. The tea party and townhall movements have awakened the public and reconnected Independents, Democrats and Republicans to the ideals that made our nation, in the words of Ronald Reagan, “the shining city on the hill.”

Unfortunately, some individuals in the GOP leadership forgot their principles and misread the public sentiment. They orchestrated the nomination of a far-left candidate as the Republican nominee. Rather than compromise the principles I believe, I proudly threw my hat in the ring as the Conservative Party candidate.

The GOP candidate, Dede Scozzafava, has voted for taxpayer funded abortions, higher taxes, more government spending and has regularly sought the support of ACORN’s Working Families Party.  She loudly voiced support for the stimulus bill that has increased our national debt but has failed to improve the economy. She is a vocal supporter of legislation that would force many workers into unions. She is an Olympia Snowe Republican willing to sell out her party and GOP principles of limited government, lower taxes, and more individual liberty.  These are principles I hold strongly.

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Politico today turns its attention to the special election in upstate New York, where GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava is, basically, out of cash:

Dede Scozzafava, the GOP nominee in a key upcoming House special election, is running dangerously low on campaign cash, according to several GOP sources familiar with her spending and fundraising. 

While Scozzafava’s official fundraising numbers will not be known until Thursday, the third-quarter Federal Election Commission reporting deadline, the GOP sources acknowledged to POLITICO that she’s unable to compete financially with her two opponents. 

Scozzafava supporters blame her cash crunch on the Washington Republican establishment, which they contend has not embraced her campaign enthusiastically.

Some of this lack of enthusiasm may be due to the fact that, as Capitol Confidential noted last week, Scozzafava is a long-time ally of ACORN and its Working Families Party in New York. (Doesn’t the GOP have enough problems than to associate themselves with these folks?)

The Politico story also notes that Scozzafava’s campaign tries to dismiss concerns about her chances by mentioning that it has the full backing of the state’s teachers’ union. This is, um, less than encouraging.

Read the whole Politico story here.

Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava is not your typical Republican candidate. Running in a special election in upstate New York for the seat of departing Congressman John McHugh, she has, naturally, picked up the support of state and national Republican party officials. She has secured the full support of the National Republican Congressional Committee and that of its chairman, Texas Rep. Pete Sessions.

But, she has also picked up the support of the DailyKos, not a traditionally deep well of support for Republicans. Oh, and ACORN’s Working Families Party. Below is a memo Big Government obtained circulating among leaders of the conservative movement. It is from New York State Conservative Party Chair, Mike Long:

Donors to the Republican National Congressional Committee have a right to expect their support will help candidates who are broadly in accord with the Republican Party’s fundamental principles. 

There is little doubt, in these lean times, Americans who make contributions to the NRCC would be shocked to learn their dollars are actually supporting the campaign of an unrepentant liberal who opposes the central achievements of today’s Republican Congressional delegation.

Yet that is exactly to sad a state of affairs we now confront.  The NRCC is using the contributions of loyal Republicans across the country to fund the Congressional bid of Liberal New York State Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava. 

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