This Just In: Dede Scozzafava Drops Out

Since the centrist candidate just got forced out of the race I'm not sure what point you are trying to make.

Scozzafava isn't a liberal. The same people claiming Scozzafava is a liberal were not claiming James Tedisco was liberal when he was running in a special election this year in neighboring 20th district. And yet, Tedisco's voting record was far more liberal than Scozzafava's. If the members of the New York State Assembly are arranged from left to right, Scozzafava is in the 83rd percentile (aka, she's more conservative than 83 percent of the New York State Assembly). She's also in the 58th percentile of the Assembly Republicans, meaning she's more conservative than the average member of Republican delegation in Albany. Yes, she's not conservative in the national context (New York, along with a few other New England states and Hawaii have state parties that are, on average, more liberal than the Democrats are in some of the more conservative regions of the country), but she's far from liberal.

For those interested in the numbers: Scozzafava is a Conservative Republican (in New York) « Boris Shor, PhD

She supports cap n tax, single payer health care, and tax increases. She's a liberal.

yeah, i think your party should be made up of the looniest part of the rabid right....

She supports cap n tax, single payer health care, and tax increases. She's a liberal.

It's not quite so clear how Hoffman stands to benefit from this. Although a majority of Scozzafava's supporters are Republican (about 62 percent, by my reckoning), it is safe to assume that they are mostly rather moderate Republicans, because almost all the conservative Republicans had already gone over to Hoffman. To wit, two-thirds of Scozzafava's supporters say they like Barack Obama. While moderate Republicans are an endangered species elsewhere in the country, that is not true in upstate New York, where a lot of voters are registered as Republicans and vote that way in statewide races but often vote Democratic in federal races. (NY-23 supported Barack Obama 52-47 last November.)

The reality is that a lot of Scozzafava's ex-supporters, many of whom don't like either Hoffman or Owens, simply won't vote. And some of them will still wind up casting their ballots for Scozzafava undaunted, as she'll still appear on the ballot and may have made herself something of a sympathetic figure. Certainly, it would seem to help Hoffman if Scozzafava decided to endorse him -- but only 15 percent of Scozzafava's voters had a favorable view of Hoffman, so they aren't going to come over easily, if at all. (EDIT: It's not clear if Scozzafava has in fact endorsed Hoffman, as the reporting is somewhat contradictory on this -- most sources, apart from the AP, say that she's made no endorsement.)

She supports cap n tax, single payer health care, and tax increases. She's a liberal


You are not mainstream but a far right wingnut who has nothing of relevance to offer this electoral year.

I am a conservative. I support conservatives, not parties. There is nothing loony about that.

I love Newt, but he was dead wrong on this call and he probably knows it now. The GOP had better get their stuff together and hold true to the fiscal conservatism priority or else be a party no more. They know it now and cut the legs out from under Deidre.

Merge-o-rama!

There has been a terrible disturbance in the force at RNC HQ.

What works in a 150 year old Republican district against a Democratic unknown is not going to work out in the toss-up, centrist districts that the Republicans need to win, or win back.

Please tell--which districts are centrist today? I have never seen Americans so ticked off. They're mad as hell over all these government bail-outs & massive government spending bills.

What may have been centrist in 2007--I kind of doubt is today.