Crist, you know it ain’t easy
Balloon Juice — Erick Erickson: The race has now been called for Democrat Bill Owens. This is a huge win for conservatives. [....] I have said all along that the goal of activists must be to defeat Scozzafava. Doug Hoffman winning would just be gravy. A Hoffman win is not in the cards, but we did exactly what we set out to do — crush the establishment backed GOP candidate. [....] For all intents and purposes, NY-23 is a trial run for Florida. And in Florida, the conservative candidate is operating inside the ...

The 2009 Republican Victory & What It Means
Flopping Aces — ... Hoffman was. A ton of cash was thrown to the supposed Republican in the race, not to the one who had real conservative idea’s and principals, all this and maybe the social aspect of it played a part. Either way…the NY-23 race exposed a Democrat masquerading as a Republican and sent a message. Don’t be choosing candidates in the backrooms of power, especially when that person doesn’t represent the real party. The other good post on NY-23 comes from Erick Erickson: There are two big victories at work in New York’s 23rd ...

Conservative Declares Democratic Pick-Up In NY-23 A “Win For Conservatives”
Below The Beltway — No, really: The race has now been called for Democrat Bill Owens. This is a huge win for conservatives. “Whaaaa. . . ?” you say. There are two big victories at work in New York’s 23rd Congressional District. First, the GOP now must recognize it will either lose without conservatives or will win with conservatives. In 2008, many conservatives sat home instead of voting for John McCain. Now, in NY-23, conservatives rallied and destroyed the Republican candidate the establishment chose. I have said all along that the goal of ...

Artificial Light
Whiskey Fire — ... It's all very confusing, but fortunately while everyone else is losing their heads Erick Erickson is able to find his ass, or perhaps his elbow, or possibly Shinola: ...

"Douched Earth Politics": Erick Erickson, Groundbreaker!
Whiskey Fire — ... It's all very confusing, but fortunately while everyone else is losing their heads Erick Erickson is able to find his ass, or perhaps his elbow, or possibly Shinola: ...

'Worth the Fight'
The American Spectator — ... "There were two fights here," Hoffman press aide Sandy Caligiore said after the candidate's wee-hours concession speech. "We won one and we lost one." Republicans who supported Scozzafava, including Newt Gingrich, had warned that the Hoffman campaign risked electing a Democrat in a district that had sent Republicans to Congress since before the Civil War. They will likely rush to claim vindication, but the fight that conservatives waged for Hoffman has not ended with this one battle. Erick Erickson , whose Red State blog helped lead the online brigade of Hoffman's grassroots ...

Larwyn's Linx: Blogospheric Election Night Round-Up
Doug Ross @ Journal — ... 2009 Larwyn's Linx: Blogospheric Election Night Round-Up Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email . You can also install a Larwyn's Linx blog widget . . Election 2009 [image] Blogospheric Election Night Round-Up : Driscoll Indies Fuel GOP Victories in VA, NJ : Times Hoffman Comes Up Short in NY-23 : BigGov The GOP Elite's $1 Million Lesson : Malkin The Strange Case of NY-23 : PJM (Simon) In NY-23, Conservatives Win : RedState GOP: Clarity, Not Civil War : Riehl Tweet of ...

NY-23’s Mission Accomplished Moment: Thanks For Coming Out, Kids
Comments from Left Field — ... Ban-happy GOP purity gatekeeper Eric Erickson struggles with maintaining his already tenuous hold on reality as he gamely attempts to squeeze broken eggshells into lemonade (or something): ...

Election '09 - U.S. House Races
Political Animal — ... , making NY-23 a model for competitive contests elsewhere. Of course, the strategy looks less impressive when the Democrat wins . I found the RedState post on the results especially interesting. Erick Erickson called Hoffman's defeat "a huge win for conservatives." First, the GOP now must recognize it will either lose without conservatives or will win with conservatives.... [W]e have demonstrated to the GOP that it must not take conservatives for granted. The GOP spent $900,000.00 on a Republican who dropped out and endorsed the Democrat. Were we to combine Scozzafava and ...

The Morning After: What Did Tuesday’s Elections Mean?
WSJ.com: Washington Wire — ... Erick Erickson, target=”blank”RedState.com: “This is a huge win for conservatives. “Whaaaa. . . ?” you say…there has all of a sudden been a huge movement among some activists to go the third party route. We see in NY-23 that this is not possible as third parties are not viable. Third parties lack funding and ability for a host of reasons. Conservatives are going to have to work from within the GOP. The GOP had better pay attention. For all intents and purposes, NY-23 is a trial run for Florida. And in Florida, the conservative candidate is operating ...

Down is the new half-backward-sideways
Sadly, No! — ... Now this is the type of hilarious bullshit that makes me love Erick Erickson: In NY-23, Conservatives Win Posted by Erick Erickson The race has now been called for Democrat Bill Owens. This is a huge win for conservatives. If by “win,” you mean a humiliating defeat where you drummed a winning Republican candidate out of the race and handed the Democrats a seat they haven’t held since the 19th century, then sure. First, the GOP now must recognize it will either ...

About Last Night
The Mahablog — ... To the wingnuts, the real prize in NY 23 was defeating the moderate Republican Scozzafava. They believe they have taught the national GOP a lesson. However, the lesson the national GOP might really have learned is that the far right base cannot win elections. The Teabaggers threw everything they had at New York 23, and they lost to a Democrat. ...

Election 2009, From Va. to Local School Board: Mixed Bag, More Good Than Bad
Peoples Press Collective — ... The Bad: In what was a late insurgent campaign, conservative Doug Hoffman loses New York 23 (though Erick Erickson tries to spin it into a favorable light). Tax-limitation initiatives in Maine and Washington went down in flames. ...

Election: Democrats Should Be Nervous, Republicans Should Wake Up
Dr. Melissa Clouthier — ... Doug Hoffman immeasurable gratitude. He overcame impossible odds (single digits just a month ago) to come within two points of defeating Democrat Bill Owens. Hoffman had zero name recognition. National Republican Party officials dumped nearly $1 million into the race on behalf of radical leftist GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava, who then turned around, endorsed Owens and siphoned off 5 percent of the vote with her name still on the ballot after she dropped out. More here. New Jersey: This election could have gone any way. New Jersey, Chicago, ...

O No
Jules Crittenden — ... himself riding an out-of-control express train. He rode it to victory, with some help from erratic McCain actions. But he was right the first time about not being ready for the Oval Office. As president, he seems confused and a bit distant on the issues, leaving the details to congressional Democrats and an ever-growing number of “czars” while he golfs and launches attacks at Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. Ouch. Hurtful, yet true. So was NY-23’s race a Dem win, or a conservative one? RedState and ...

Off-Year Election Reax II
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan — ... GOP when a Democrat wins, but by keeping Dede Scozzafava out of the seat, the GOP has the chance to win this seat back in a year with a better candidate — perhaps Hoffman, perhaps another Republican who shares core principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism.  Dislodging an incumbent Republican would have been considerably more difficult, and a unified GOP should win this district — especially given the signals sent everywhere else to Democrats. Erick Erickson: I have said all along that the goal of activists must be ...

Cornyn: ‘We Will Not Spend Money in a Contested Primary’
The Note — ... With Republicans grappling with the fallout of an intra-party battle that may have cost them a House seat, the head of the Senate Republican campaign effort is making a pledge that may ease some of the anger being directed at the party establishment. ...

Conservatives Furiously Spinning
Little Green Footballs — ... Over at RedState, the all-spin zone, CEO Erick Erickson is trying his best to take the NY-23 loss, dress it up in a cheap suit, and call it a “victory:” In NY-23, Conservatives Win. ...

11/4: The Day After
Blogometer — ... adds: "Whenever a party gains seats in congress, the voters simply are not rebuking that party." Not surprisingly, the NY-23 race was the one that generated the most commentary in the blogosphere. While righty bloggers were disappointed that Dem Bill Owens narrowly defeated Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman , they're still portraying Hoffman's performance as a victory, since he forced GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava to withdraw from the race. Erickson calls the NY-23 result "a huge win for conservatives" and explains: "I have said all along that the goal of ...

After Suffering Humiliating Defeat in NY-23, Sarah Palin and Teabaggers Declare Victory
Firedoglake — Last night, despite the efforts of Sarah Palin, the Club for Growth, Fred Thompson, Dick Armey and various teabaggers, NY-23 went Democratic for the first time since the 19th century. The wingnut reaction to this calamity? We’ve always been at war with Eurasia. Erick Erickson: ...

NRSC Pledges Not To "Weigh In" On Senate Primary
Fired Up! Missouri — ... With Republicans grappling with the fallout of an intra-party battle that may have cost them a House seat, the head of the Senate Republican campaign effort is making a pledge that may ease some of the anger being directed at the party establishment. ...

Spinning Defeat as Victory
Liberal Values — ... the Democratic pick up in New York’s 23rd Congressional district. Many conservative blogs such as Red State are claiming a victory. Erick Erickson argues that  conservatives “have demonstrated to the GOP that it must not take conservatives for granted.” If the point was to show that conservatives could prevent a Republican from winning by supporting a third party candidate there was no need for this exercise. Anyone would have granted them this possibility. ...

The Establishment Caves
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan — ... interpreting a Democratic victory in a super-safe red-state seat as a win for ... conservatives. And the threat of third party candidates against the GOP across the country has obviously spooked the national party leadership. ...

And the Palinites win!
Newshoggers.com — ... With Republicans grappling with the fallout of an intra-party battle that may have cost them a House seat, the head of the Senate Republican campaign effort is making a pledge that may ease some of the anger being directed at the party establishment. ...

Republicans won, Conservative Hoffman lost…now what?
rightofcourse.com — ...  without a run-off in the future.  There is already a problem with that though, as Erick Erickson points out, in a key race in Florida, the NRSC has already committed to backing “moderate” Charlie Crist over the more conservative Marc Rubio.  What does it mean?  What have we learned?  Is anyone in D.C paying attention?  Let’s just see how things play out over the next little while.  At least I’m not alone though, Allahpundit doesn’t seem sure what it all means either ( ...

A View Of NY-23 From The People Who Live There
Below The Beltway — ... on the nuts-and-bolts issues of the complex 23rd Congressional District does a disservice to its residents. No one in Washington votes in this election, but inside the Beltway cadre’s efforts to decide this election is an arrogant abuse of political ambition. It’s also stupid because it completely ignores the old admonition that, in the end, all politics is local. Rather than spending time reading the likes of Michelle Malkin, Erick Erickson, Robert Stacey McCain, and Sarah Palin tell us what NY-23 means, maybe ...

More on Understanding NY-23
PoliBlog: A Rough Draft of my Thoughts — ... One guesses the various politicos who tried to make political hay out of this event will simply pretend like the whole thing never happened (although they will, no doubt, score some political points with true believers).  Regardless, the odds are that none of them really had much of clue about the nature of the district’s politics when they decided that they could use it to their own political ends. e.g., Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, and Erick Erickson-amongst others. And I am not using this term in a derogatory ...

11/5: Sorry, Charlie
Blogometer — ... interpreting a Democratic victory in a super-safe red-state seat as a win for ... conservatives. And the threat of third party candidates against the GOP across the country has obviously spooked the national party leadership." Liberal bloggers, on the other hand, generally support Cornyn's move: THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Governors Matter, Not Elections ...

Losing NY-23 is "what we set out to do—crush the establishment-based GOP candidate”
The Political Carnival — ... after Erickson expressed glee over the outcome of New York’s hotly contested 23rd Congressional District race. With help from Sarah Palin and Dick Armey, Erickson had led the online charge to drive the GOP favorite, Dede Scozzafava, from the race, believing her to be too moderate. Erickson’s preferred candidate went on to lose to a Democrat—handing the GOP its first loss in this Adirondacks-based district in more than 100 years. Erickson nonetheless declared victory, saying he’d done “exactly what we set out to do—crush the ...

How Sarah Palin and Tea Partiers are blowing up the GOP
Capitol Chronicles - Susan J. Demas — ... down in Florida. But a funny thing happened. Hoffman lost, thanks in no small part to Scozzafava's endorsement of Democrat Bill Owens (just as Schauer can thank Schwarz for his seat). But you'd never know it from the alternate-reality universe of the extreme right. Erick Erickson of Redstate.com immediately declared Owens' win a "huge victory for conservatives." Yes, there's nothing like the convoluted wisdom of someone who fails to realize Orwell was being ironic in "1984" with the slogan, "Ignorance is strength." But no one can top the scatological acrobatics of Rush ...

Susan J. Demas: How Sarah Palin and Tea Partiers Are Blowing Up the GOP
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — ... But you'd never know it from the alternate-reality universe of the extreme right. Erick Erickson of Redstate.com immediately declared Owens' win a "huge victory for conservatives." ...

A Coming GOP Purge?
Utah Policy - Politics, Communication & Government Relations — ... that Erick Erickson, who runs the website RedState.com, is leading the charge to kick non-conservatives to the curb.  With help from Sarah Palin and Dick Armey, Erickson had led the online charge to drive the GOP favorite, Dede Scozzafava, from the race, believing her to be too moderate. Erickson's preferred candidate went on to lose to a Democrat-handing the GOP its first loss in this Adirondacks-based district in more than 100 years. Erickson nonetheless declared victory , saying he'd done "exactly what we set out to do-crush the establishment-based GOP candidate."  ...

The Coming GOP Purge
Utah Policy - Politics, Communication & Government Relations — ... that Erick Erickson, who runs the website RedState.com, is leading the charge to kick non-conservatives to the curb.  With help from Sarah Palin and Dick Armey, Erickson had led the online charge to drive the GOP favorite, Dede Scozzafava, from the race, believing her to be too moderate. Erickson's preferred candidate went on to lose to a Democrat-handing the GOP its first loss in this Adirondacks-based district in more than 100 years. Erickson nonetheless declared victory , saying he'd done "exactly what we set out to do-crush the establishment-based GOP candidate."  ...

Erick Erickson and Bloggers’ War on the GOP Establishment
The Note — ... conservatives anxious to find a new senator in one of the nation’s more conservative states. Taking on Bennett, Erickson said, “I think sends a very firm message to the Republicans, if conservatives are able to take out an incumbent Republican.” He had this message for the Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, who disputed Erickson’s claim that the situation in New York’s 23rd congressional district was a “win” for conservatives. “Michael Steele’s problem is that he continues to make ...