NY-23 Will Set Course for GOP Between Moderates and Conservatives

In the last month alone, New York's special election for John McHugh's congressional seat has featured a coveted Sarah Palin Facebook endorsement, a less coveted Rush Limbaugh accusation of beastiality, a country music singer threatening to drop a house on Nancy Pelosi, and the crescendo of any out-of-control political opera: A candidate implosion.

And that's just on the Republican side of the equation.

When voters went to the polls from Plattsburgh to Owsego Tuesday, they saw three names on the ballot: Doug Hoffman, a CPA from Lake Placid running on the New York Conservative ticket (pictured, far left); Dede Scozzafava, a pro-choice, liberal Republican assemblywoman; and Bill Owens (pictured above right), an Air Force retiree and lawyer running as a Democrat. Of course, only Hoffman and Owens remain in the race after Scozzafava dropped out early Saturday.

But why would Scozzafava quit just three days before the election, when she had the Republican Party nomination in hand and endorsements from the likes John Boehner and Newt Gingrich?

Because even with those signs of early success, Scozzafava saw the handwriting on wall in a contest that had become a two-way battle between Owens and Hoffman and a proxy fight for the future of her own party.

Although she nabbed the Republican nod this summer, it came through a vote of 11 local GOP representatives, not a traditional primary contest that would have tested her positions on an increasingly restless conservative base, both in her district and around the country.

After eight long years of free spending and government-growing under George W. Bush, Scozzafava's Republican appointment served as a rallying cry nationally for conservatives about exactly what they think is wrong with the national party: Inside deals, squishy priorities, and Republicans In Name Only who do little in office to advance the first principles they champion.

While Owens welcomed staff, money and visibility from his party's establishment, including an appearance by Vice President Joe Biden on Monday, Scozzafava spent most of her time during the campaign fighting off increasingly angry attacks from the right.

Conservatives, including Dick Armey and Fred Thompson, campaigned against her and for Hoffman. The powerhouse Club for Growth endorsed Hoffman and poured barrels of cash into his campaign after he pledged never to ask for a congressional earmark. In contrast, his Republican predecessor McHugh boasted of bringing more than $100 million to Fort Drum, the district's crown jewel.

When she dropped out of the race Saturday, Scozzafava praised bipartisanship and decried the politics of personal destruction. Two days later, Rush Limbaugh called her "guilty of widespread beastiality."

"She has screwed every RINO in the country," Limbaugh said.

At a Hoffman rally in Watertown Monday, country singer John Rich called out House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Rich told the crowd that voters would drop "a Hoffman house on her." He called Scozzafava "Dede Schizophrenic," and predicted, "Tomorrow, there's going to be a lot of conservative partying going on in this neck of the woods."

Will Rich be right?

Polls taken on the weekend of Scozzafava's announcement showed Hoffman beating Owens by five to 17 points, but it's hard to think that the Republican's chaotic exit from the race would not upend the poll results for the field she led as recently as six weeks ago.

The Tuesday results will give Republicans a sign not only of where their party is heading, at least in one congressional district, but also the direction they may want to take the party in the future. A Hoffman win would argue for back-to-basics conservatism, even in districts that went for Obama, as NY-23 did in 2008. But a win by the under-the-radar Democrat would poke a hole in the hot air trial balloon that the talk radio-and-tea party sent up for themselves with Hoffman inside.

By pulling McHugh out of his congressional seat, the Democratic president set in motion a series of events that gave conservative activists a testing ground for their messages and transformed a placid corner of New York into Ground Zero in the Battle for the Soul of the Republican Party.

Only time will tell if he helped himself or his opponents more by opening the field for the not-so-civil war.