In a stunning turn of events, a
little-known, hyper-conservative congressional candidate became the darling of
the tea party movement, earned the surprise endorsement of former Gov. Sarah
Palin (R-Twitter), and made a last-minute push in the polls, overtaking the
moderate GOP frontrunner who up to that point had been considered a shoo-in to
win the seat. After emerging as the preferred GOP pick, the tea party
candidate's extreme positions made clear that a race that had once been
considered a GOP-lock had turned into a potential win for the Democrats. As
such, the conservative media were fractured: some complained that Republicans
sacrificed electability in favor of ideology, and were quickly cannibalized by
the bloggers and commentators who insisted either that their new extremist could
win in a general election, or that it was better to lose with a "real"
conservative on the ballot than to win with a "RINO."
I'm talking, of course, about
Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman and the 2009 special election for New
York's 23rd Congressional district. Early polling in the race showed moderate
Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava with a comfortable
lead over Hoffman and Democrat Bill Owens, before the
still-nascent tea party machinery lined up behind Hoffman and Palin lent him her
imprimatur.
As more Republicans defected from their party's candidate to back Hoffman,
former House Speaker Newt Gingrich held
fast, endorsing Scozzafava and explaining
that it was a question of winning: "If your interest is taking power back from
the Left, and your interest is winning the necessary elections, then there are
times when you have to put together a coalition that has disagreement within
it." As a reward for his tent-building efforts, Gingrich was excoriated
by right-wing bloggers, who said he had lost all credibility and didn't support
true conservatism. (He's since made amends by attacking
President Obama's "Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior.")
In the end, Scozzafava dropped out
of the race and the seat that had once been considered hers went instead to Bill
Owens, who defeated Hoffman 48-46 percent. After the election, Rush Limbaugh endorsed
the view of RedState.com blogger Erick Erickson, saying: "It would have been
great if Hoffman won, but the real victory was making sure that a
Republican-in-name-only did not win."
Fast forward one year to the
Delaware Republican Senate primary and, though the races aren't completely
identical, it starts to feel like déjà vu all over again. Republican Christine
O'Donnell, who got thumped by Joe Biden in Delaware's 2008 Senate race, decided
to give it another shot in 2010 and for a long time languished far behind Rep.
Mike Castle in the Republican primary race. That, of course, changed very
rapidly when Sarah Palin decided
that O'Donnell was one of her "Mama Grizzlies" and the tea party dumped a pile
of cash in her lap. Right-wing bloggers quickly aligned with Queen Bee Palin and
ripped into Castle, hysterically claiming that he had voted to
impeach George W. Bush. The same series of events played out:
polling showed O'Donnell
overtaking Castle late in the game, and when the dust settled,
O'Donnell emerged as the unlikely Republican candidate.
And as nasty as the race between
Read more at mediamatters.org
Castle and O'Donnell was, the internecine warfare between conservative bloggers
and journalists over the race was incomparably
vicious. The Weekly
Standard, Powerline, Mark Levin, and other bloggers got into a
massive twist regarding the Standard's long-form
takedown of O'Donnell. Here's a sampling from the
back-and-forth: "I think you're an ass," "a disgrace," "mouthpieces for the
Republican establishment," "lazy and unfair," "smear tactics against O'Donnell,"
"elitist and arrogant attitude," "jackass," "what an idiot."
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