Did GOP Progressive Radical Push Dede Scozzafava?

In trying to understand how the NY-23 fiasco came about, I'm more interested in trying to understand what's going on at the local and state levels, than I am in jumping on every bandwagon being driven by another top down special interest group. I heard Andy Roth of the Club for Growth blame the national leadership for Scozzafava on the radio this morning. That's either dumb, or simply manipulative in yet another top down approach to reforming the Republican Party.

Real reform has to come from the ground up. I'm not going to blame the RNC, or NRCC, or anyone else in DC for acquiescing to the local party. I thought that's what we wanted them to do, as opposed to dictating any top down approach to our politics?

This article might point to the real problem here for conservatives, meet, or re-introduce yourself to Nixon son-in-law and former Nader-ite, "progressive radical" and McCarthy supporter, Ed Cox. He's the current NY GOP chair and the place to start if you want to reform Republican politics, not the national level. Where were all the fired up NY conservatives when this guy took the helm of the State organization that gave you Dede Scozzafava? Too busy I guess. Gee, too bad.

ALBANY — He appeared on American television screens nearly four decades ago, a blond-haired Princeton man in cutaway and striped trousers who married Tricia Nixon in a Rose Garden ceremony. A New Role for Edward F. Cox Edward F. Cox became an adored son-in-law to President Richard M. Nixon, appearing at the president’s side during some of the nation’s most pivotal moments, including Nixon’s teary farewell address in 1974.

Mr. Cox has never been a fire-breathing partisan and even served on Mr. Cuomo’s transition team in 2006. For decades, he has been a successful corporate lawyer, but he started out as one of the original Nader’s Raiders—the band of idealistic young lawyers marshaled by Ralph Nader to take on corporate and government abuses.

“I remember catching him scraping a McCarthy sticker off of his car,” said Robert Fellmeth, a friend and former Naderite. “I said ‘Ed, what the hell are you doing?’ and he said ‘I have to pick Tricia up.’ I’m sure he’ll say it was the previous owner’s sticker, but I don’t think so.”

Mr. Cox, for his part, said “some friends of mine had put a McCarthy sticker on the car as a joke” and, in his recollection, he left the sticker on to be a sport.

Mr. Nader recalled his old protégé as “deliberate, quiet, intellectual” and “progressively radical,” adding that, “as so often happens, he got ‘realistic’ and got a job.”

Mr. Nader recalled a memorable moment in the receiving line at Mr. Cox’s wedding.

“When I get to Nixon he says, ‘How’s Raiders Naders?’ I said, ‘Mr. President, it’s ‘Nader’s Raiders.’ ” The president, Mr. Nader went on, added: “We were talking about you last night when our toaster broke down. Maybe it should have been recalled!”

Comments

[montee]

Well said Dan. Its understandable why people are bothered. but they need to direct that energy and anger where its appropriate without damaging the party or themselves. Just take a moment and think through whatever position you feel is appropriate, rather than simply jumping on the bandwagon without a clear and complete understanding.

[Jeff Carlson]

so lets support the RINO's because it would hurt the party not too ... ??? is that the thinking ?

[Dan Riehl]

No, Jeff. For F's sake. How many times do I have to say or post that I have never said I endorsed this Dede whatever?

The reality is, if you want to change the GOP, it has to be from the ground up. Reject Dede, I don't care. But if you still have Cox as NY GOP Chair, what do you think you are going to continue to see? A more closeted liberal who doesn't make waves until after they are installed and have the power of encumbency, at best?

The way to take it back and bring real change is to be involved. Did no NY cons know who this guy was when he won the chair? Where were they then? And I imagine he won based on the hope to bring Manhattan money with him.

The story claims he had her in NYC to raise money for an upstate race. DO you think he's going to drag some "bitter clinger" into such a scene and be effective? Not likely, bud. If that's the deal here, the NY GOP is only going to become increasingly liberal.

I myself hardly mentioned Dede. People need to breathe, back up and read my posts for what they say and not be upset because they don't say what they want: Kill Dede!!!! There, everyone happy now? But you'll still have a Left moving GOP in NY.

Mission accomplished! Not!

[richard mcenroe]

Dan, you're right that it's up to the _NY_ GOP decide whether the likes of Ed Cox represents them.

But it damn sure IS up to us if we tolerate the _national_ GOP piling our cash into that campaign to support a candidate we disapprove of. Yelling at Ed Cox won't stop the RNC, RNSC and RNCC from starting a RINO stampede. Confrontingn the national leadership, and redirecting _our_ money, _our_selves to local candidates we approve of nationwide is the only thing that might.

[richard mcenroe]

I might also suggest, politely, that if you're going to raise this possibility re: Cox it's sort of incumbent on you to make an effort now to see if there actually IS any connection. Otherwise, that 'tarring with the same' brush tactic seems vaguely Johnsonish. Pick yer Johnson.

Disclosure: I was a Democrat for over 30 years before I switched in 2008. I cast my first Presidential vote for Jimmy Carter. I am NOT the same man I was then. It seems to me you are obligated to show that Ed Cox still is.

[Dan Riehl]

Richard,

As I'm not calling for his ouster and, as the headline indicates, asking a question, I'm not required to do NY conservative's work for them. Work they obviously haven't been doing while moderate or liberal Rs took over the Republican Party, assuming that's the case. And I would imagine this is all about NYC money and that isn't likely to change.

As for the national org, I disagree. It is a Republican organization, not a conservative one. If you don't want to donate, don't. But don't slam it for giving to a Republican selected by the local GOP. If things were reversed, cons would be screaming about top down influence. Yet, if it were a con that got the R nod, they would be yelling for more cash!!

People have to grow up and realize they can't have it both ways. This is about cons on the ground ignoring the party structure out of disinterest, or laziness.

[Art Deco]

I will second Mr. McEnroe's opinion. I would not assume Edward Cox has the same opinions that he did in 1968, in part because I haven't the same opinions I did in 1990 (the last year I did any canvassing).

In what follows, I am speaking of impressions and speculating.

I would wager (since I know not) that Edward Cox's position as state chairman is held in the same spirit that he might hold a position as trustee of one of the academic institutions he has attended: that he raises funds and performs ceremonial functions but exercises little influence over the operations of the skunk works. I think you need to look lower down and o'er to the side: at the Republican caucuses in the legislature, at the county chairmen, at the mayors and county executives in the North Country, and at kingmakers like Alphonse d'Amato. Someone who makes his living in corporate law I would wager absorbs the attitudes of the circles in which he moves, and it would not surprise me in the least to discover that Cox thinks social conservatives should pony up and shut up. However, the trouble with Dede is not that she is a 'liberal squish' (as one of your commenters said on another thread) but that she functions as a patronage broker and people pleaser. A character like Edward Cox and the firm for which he works may aspire to some sort of candy from the state government, but I do not think those types are truly the source of the pathology Dede manifests.

[Dan Riehl]

You may be right, AD - but that still makes it a local issue. My point re the nat orgs is simple. It is not their place to dictate down to the local orgs. There is nothing unusual in their giving money to a local Republican. If one supports top down Right-side money driving local politics, one would have to accept the alternative - Lft side org money taking the party Left. And for all anyone knows, the bulk of that money may have flowed from moderate R's who have no issue with it.

If more cons were involved on the ground we wouldn't get a Dede. That she got the nod is the problem, not that the nat org is supporting her. Cons complain all the time about DC influence and control over state and local issues. The same concept applies here. If one truly advocates a ground up process, then they need to support it in the party structure, as well as in policy to be principled.

[Gary Maxwell]

Obligated to show he is not the same man you say? I thought Dan already had. His first exhibit is DeDe, the Acorn affiliate backed candidate who is contemplating a switch to the Democrat Party in the near future according to several reports. Seems like summary judgement should be granted here, there are no facts in question...

[davis,br]

Dan?

When?

...as in, maybe since the Tea Party movement is just starting to become self-aware enough and organized enough and vocal enought and politically powerful enough to flex some newly forming electoral muscle ...WHEN is it just a little bit early in the game for someone to be expostulating to finally fed-up conservatives NOW how they failed to anticipate 30 years ago that someone wasn't up-to-snuff?

...and why bemoan this as a "top-down" effort at party change? Aren't you ignoring that this is DEFACTO a "bottom up change" by the very definition of the concept of grass-roots level? (Full disclosure: I quit giving money to the RNC NOVEMBER 5TH 2008 ...and if that's not where "bottom up" politics begins in a nation where money is the life-blood of politics, then I don't know what *would* be!!!)

Sure. We've had RINO's, like, forever. They really hasn't affected much; and the overall equality of partisan power politics was balanced enough to keep all the greedy sob's from actual long-lasting damage to the nation.

That is, we could ignore RINOs ...so long as the Democrats either weren't legislatively effective with truly lunatic leftist policy changes, and the GOP wasn't a version of Dem Lite ...it just didn't matter that much, because the nation could muddle its way through ...so repairing the damage in the good years (while reaping the benefit of the Reagan administration's legacy to the economy) was good 'nuff for those who had real lives to lead.

"Let them play" worked well enough.

But that changed with Gore's attempt to judicially annul the election in 2000, and the subsequent order of magnitude increase (when his judicial ploy was thwarted at the federal level, thank gawd) in overtly rabid partisan lunacy on the Left ...augmented with 40 years of the liberal Academy (but I repeat myself) flooding the journo-market with irrational and incompetent leftist loons (who just flat out lied to the more gullible and inexperienced voting public) ...which resulted in what actually IS in effect a "stolen election" ...and *forced* our attention.

And after the Big Lies (from BOTH parties) of 2008? And the current and ongoing legislative madness?

We realize that we no longer have the luxury of not paying attention at the "local level" ...and how it effects the national level. Or allowing a continuation of the self-serving greed and hypocrisy of the national Party's elites to attempt to regain power purely for the sake of maintaining the ruling clique's full purses, while paying nothing but lip service to the rock-bottom conservative base's horror at their own past complicity in watching the Constitution being shredded.

NOW it matters. NOW we're watching. NOW we're "bottoming up" the demand for change to these elitist self-serving greedy *bastards* who haven't yet noticed that this sh*t IS going to stop.

WE'RE not the problem. The problem IS the Party.

...and it's just too early in the process to start lamenting to the surgeon who's trying to determine if the cancer is even operable about the possible death of the patient.

We're *giving* the GOP "bottom up" changes.

And if that means a Whig Moment for the national party, then by gawd let's have a Whig Moment.

And. What *better* time to clean our own house then when the Democrats are simultaneously suffering political weakness as their lies are being exposed in such a fashion that even their useful idiots in the press can't spin the leftist madness eough to fool even the most gullible of the voting public? I figure the blood-letting on their side about even things up as we seek to clean up our own mess.

Fire.Them.All.

[richard mcenroe]

Actually, Dan, it IS kind of unusual for the national organization to do this. That's why we've only heard about it in what, four races? And in all four they're backing candidates who directly contradict what they're telling the base the party stands for in their fund raising efforts. This is a major problem for the GOP right now.

[richard mcenroe]

Ah, let me amend that. It IS kind of unusual for the national organization to do this IN A PRIMARY, not a general election.

[Art Deco]

Mr. Riehl,

When I was involved in local politics, it was (and I imagine still is) prohibited by law for the official organs of a political party (e.g. county and state committees) to expend funds to influence the outcome of a party primary. There is a reason for that law. What is occurring is a general election, but one held without the opportunity for a primary or a petition campaign. Mr. Hoffman's campaign is in lieu of a primary campaign. Nothing prohibits the central organs of the Republican Party from intervening, but this aspect of Mr. Hoffman's campaign ought to give them pause.

Neither he nor the Democratic candidate have ever held office and are not known to the general public for any other reason. Mrs. Scozzafava at least had general name-recognition in the portion of the district she has represented in the state legislature. The metrics the pollsters have been producing of late - that the experienced pol of the majority party in the North Country has lost the support of two-thirds of the electorate in the district - would suggest that the county chairmen in question have serious misconceptions about the lay of the land. Giving these screw-ups mo' money does not strike this layman as prudent.

[Dan Riehl]

I'm not saying the problem isn't the GOP. The question is, who is the GOP? Obviously in NY it's moderates and somewhat liberal folks. Othewise, you don't get Dede. I've no idea why you think the nat org should start a war with it, tell it what to do, or even change it. It is what it is based upon a ground up building of it.

If people don't want to accept that because it's easier to yell at Washington, go for it. If the Dem wins in NY, the local party will blame the grassroots cons for making trouble. The grassroots cons will blame DC and not much will change, except the GOP may lose more elections.

I'm done debating it, as it's so obvious. If the CFG wanted to change the NY GOP, they should have been advocating for people to get involved there 2 yrs ago. But all they are interested in is a pro business, open immigration party anyway. So, give them control. You still won't get everything you want as they don't touch on illegal immigration as an issue at all. It's against their business driven special interest.

[Art Deco]

The question is, who is the GOP? Obviously in NY it's moderates and somewhat liberal folks.

That might be a passable description of some of the Congressional delegation in recent decades, but by no means is it generally true. With reference to the conventional spectrum of Congress, Sherwood Boehlert, Benjamin Gilman, and Jack Quinn might have been referred to as vaguely liberal and Amory Houghton as vaguely libertarian. If I am not mistaken, James Walsh, John McHugh, J.R. Kuhl, and the crew from Long Island and Staten Island have been common-and-garden Republicans with regard to their expressed policy preferences.

The trouble with the Republican Party in New York is that it is hopelessly hidebound and unimaginative on the one hand, and committed to striking poses about taxation and such while engaging in business as usual on the other. To stick ideological labels on this sort of behavior is to obscure what is problematic. This sort of mossback/crapweasel politics fits well with the political culture of the electorate, which is characterized by a mixture of resentment, addlement and demoralization. To put ideological labels on this stew (e.g. 'moderate' or 'liberal') is to misapprehend it. Elections do not generally tell you what people want; they tell you what people will put up with. In New York, what they will put up with is just about anything the establishment dishes out, what arouses public ire is often perplexing, and who gets blamed and held accountable often seems quite random. What is served up by the political class has to do with the culture of that class and the social dynamics within it. The views of the general public have aught to do with it, except insofar as those recruited into the political class have some affinity with or resemblance to the larger population of which they have been a part.

[davis,br]

^Bingo!

[John]

The idea that she is more electable because she has more moderate views is foolish. The party already has more that enough RINOs and doesn't need to recruit more.
I will not donate another dime to the national party, I will support those candidates that are in fact conservative but I will donate to the RNC elite for more RINOs.