David Karki

While it’s always a risky business to read larger meaning into a handful of smaller off-year elections, especially when so much time remains and so much can happen before next year’s mid-terms, that has never stopped anyone from trying. So here is what I think one can take away from yesterday’s results:

The club.

• With a good candidate that has proper party backing, victory is possible for conservatives even in bluer districts.

The GOP party bigwigs massively screwed up in backing a Democrat in Dede Scozzafava in New York’s 23^rd U.S. House district.

The practical effect was to deny Doug Hoffman money and thus ad buys, as well as to give Scozzafava two lines on the ballot when she was no longer in the race. And she still pulled 5 percent of the vote in a very tight finish.

Had the GOP backed Hoffman from the beginning, he’d have won. He’d have had much more money and ad buys, Scozzafava would not have been on the ballot at all, and it’s hard to believe this 5 percent would have gone to the Democrat, Bill Owens, since he also had two lines on the ballot and these people could simply have selected him had they wanted to. Clearly, they didn’t.

Conventional wisdom would have you believe that a conservative should have no earthly business even contending in a liberal New England state. But without major bungling by the party bosses, and Hoffman himself making a minor mistake or two – the margin of error for conservative candidates is all but non-existent, with a biased media waiting to pounce on and destroy at the first hint of an opening – this would have been a win.

And given this was in a place like New York, that should make conservatives confident and Democrats very nervous.

• Conservatism may have to take on the GOP before the Democrats.

One lesson from that New York race is that the stench of inside-the-Beltway incumbent elitism is just as thick on the Republican side as the Democratic. I have long believed that they two are wings of the same party – the Incumbent Party – and that they will be damned if anyone not pre-approved by them or from their established circles is allowed into their hoity-toity exclusive members-only club.

So much is this the case that a great many GOP bigwigs would sooner continue losing to Democrats than accept having to hitch their wagon to the likes of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in order to re-acquire power. (And after so many Beltway years, they have become closer to Democrats and are more comfortable mingling with them.)

Where these types once accepted an outsider like Ronald Reagan – aided by the Gipper’s shrewd move in putting George H.W. Bush on the ticket in order to unify the party, rather than his personal first choice in Jack Kemp – I don’t know that they will anymore, so insulated are they by raging cases of Beltway-itis.

A great many primary battles might lie ahead, therefore, as well as a big one for the party leadership. So long as Democrats have all the top elected positions, the highest profile spot from which one can publicly counter their message – until the next presidential nominee comes along, at least – is the GOP chairmanship. Michael Steele is beyond ineffective as a spokesman for conservatism or even principled opposition to Obama/Pelosi/Reid and their obsession with forcibly turning America into the New Soviet Union.

This, of course, is not surprising. After all, Steele didn’t get the spot because he was conservative or could at least make a convincing case for it and against the socialist left. He got it because, once Obama was elected president, the GOP cowered in fear of the Democrats’ perpetual playing of the race card, and only cared about canceling that possibility out. (Which could only be done via selecting a non-conservative, not an African-American; just ask Clarence Thomas how spared he was by the left due to being black.)

As ye sow, so shall ye reap. Pick a weak messenger out of fear, get a weak message (if any message at all). Have poor party leadership, get a party that snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.

• The Democrats have just as many problems with their base as the GOP – maybe more.

The Democrats will have have had overwhelming numbers for two years come the 2010 midterms. As one GOP House member put it, they don’t have enough Republicans to stop a one-car parade. And if Obama/Pelosi/Reid still can’t get anything the far left wants passed, there will be hell to pay. Expectations will not have been met, and campaign funds and votes are sure to dry up as a result.

Many House Democrats from swing districts will have been made to walk the plank time and again by Pelosi to no purpose, if the Senate winds up being the graveyard for Obamacare and Cap and Tax. Or if Reid uses the budget reconciliation process to end-run a filibuster and force them through, these Blue Dogs will be the first to suffer the backlash and pay the electoral price. Either way, they are being put in a very tough position.

But do we hear about Democratic “moderates” telling their strident ultra-liberals to cool it, that we have to reach out, expand the tent, accept Blue Dogs who vote against big liberal bills, and so on? Of course not. Their base will be just as furious with them for failing to implement socialism when they had a great chance to do so as the GOP base was for failing to implement conservatism when they controlled everything.

Their “moderates” will have been hung out to dry and be angry about that, just as RINOs whine about having to live up to the label. The Democrats will be the ones on the verge of “civil war.” You just won’t hear about it, except when they psychologically project that onto Republicans.

Meanwhile, conservatives and anyone else upset with what the far left is trying to ram down America’s throat will be fired up and motivated. We’ll have the specter of Obama and the left won’t have the specter of Bush anymore. And perhaps most importantly, the Democrats are the ones with all the seats to lose, just as Republicans were and did in 2006 and 2008. The only direction they can go is down;. The only direction the GOP can go is up.

And the pendulum swings back…

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