Steele Throws Elbow to Palin, Pawlenty on NY-23

If RNC wants to keep any conservatives they need to get a Conservative not a moderate RINO to replace Steele who can not read the writing on the wall. He is dead wrong, grassroots did win a big victory last night, the race was close & it was close without the party machine of Steele, Newt, etc behind the Conservative Candidate.

I am amazed at how these people continue to give Palin credibility! They refuse to let her go by the wayside. It appeared many women took well to Palin during her VP run. If they would just let her fade, but attacking her only solidifies she may actually have some political clout.

i don't know about other states/races, but in NJ , it is about property taxes. i pay over $25,000 a year on a single home. do i think a republican is going to reduce that in 4 years? NO. it's not going to happen until state union contracts are thrown out and written from scratch; until the state stops paying for every state employee's health care and retired workers' health care and pension and starts operating like a real business; until school districts agree to merge and have fewer sets of administrators and office/school buildings...i could go on. no governor in my lifetime has ever been able or willing to try. so let's see what christie will do (he hasn't told us a thing about his plans and we still voted him in). i predict that in 4 years, nothing in this regard will have changed and hope that we elect someone with real guts and ideas.

"I want more Republicans."

Yeah, that sort of thinking resulted in the Democrats letting Lieberman into their caucus...

"I am amazed at how these people continue to give Palin credibility!"
lfrichar | Nov 4, 2009 11:34:27 AM

? She was the Republican's VP candidate less than a year ago. It's not at all unreasonable to me that the Republican's Chair would give her domr credibility. If she went from being strongly pushed by Republicans to be one (old man's) heart beat from the Whitehouse to having no credibility with Republicans in the course of 11 months, that speaks a lot about their ability to chose leaders.

I am lukewarm to Steele but he might be partially right on this one as a matter of fact the amount of money given by the national guys to the people running for any office should be limited. Watch when a Senate or Congressional seat is up for election and one group after another trots in and commences the smearing of the opposition. If a candidate wants an outsider to come in and speak on his or her behalf then it is ok but when people jump in from every walk of life then it is a bit too much. when electing a representative it should be a local decision with local money.
Of course if this happened then DC would be a city that wouldn't be so crowded and full of the stench of rotten political pundits.

I don't care what party they are from, if they all don't quit the bickering and start doing what is RIGHT for the American people, we all lose.
The country is primed and ready for a 3rd party that has American's best interests as it's platform.

"""""it is about property taxes. i pay over $25,000 a year on a single home.""""

Posted by: mb

You pay 0ver $2000 per month in property taxes? And you still live there?

"""that speaks a lot about their ability to chose leaders.""""

Posted by: jhw539

I would have to say the exact same about the Dems choice in Obama. It's like they got together and said "who is the very least qualified for the office" and then turned around and elected him. At this point, I would have felt better about Palin as VP than I do about Obama as POTUS. But, at least we have Biden!

"""""it is better to have a mixed bag of political parties as long as they are reasonable and do what is right for the people, and not just the party.""""

Posted by: geecee827

Agree completely. It would be interesting to see a third party truly emerge and then see a coalition type of government. Talk about mixing it up!

Way to learn the wrong lesson, Mr. Steele. A Republican seat occupied by someone like Dede Scozzafava would have been worthless for Republican concerns, as evidenced by her behavior at the tail end of the campaign.

geecee827 you dems always have an excuse. How about the people are tired of the Obama and gang poicies and want a change now. Polosi, reid, waters, franks and so on lifers and rhinos are next. Most of them will be voted out next.

"If you don't live in the district, your opinion doesn't much matter", according to Steele.

If I follow Steele's logic, we don't need the RNC, either, since it's not a local organization. We only need local organizations supporting congressional candidates.

Can't Steele go more than a day without saying something stupid and illogical?

Steel says 'If you don't live there and don't vote there your opinion doesn't matter' and then proceeds to offer an opinion on the selection process which I suppose by his logic doesn't matter.

If the Republicans continue to try and elect extreme right wingers in constituencies that don't wan them and ignore the local parties then they will continue to lose seats.

Steele says 'If you don't live there and don't vote there your opinion doesn't matter very much' and then proceeds to offer an opinion on the selection process which by his logic doesn't matter very much.

The flawed process of choosing the candidate that Michael Steele refers to is New York elecion law. The law requires that candidates for a special election be chosen my the party's county chairpeople. His call for a primary shows he needs to do a little homework. But he wasn't alone. Made me laugh how little all these experts knew about NY 23rd. I have lived here all my life and most of them were clueless, just reading press releases.

If Steele thinks that a Scozzafava victory would have been good for the gop, he's delusional. All she would have done is vote with the dems, and give them their "bi-partisan" chit. Palin's support for Hoffman was a stand on principle over party. Prior to her endorsement, with a simple statement on Facebook, no less, HOffman was at 20 percent or less, within 24 hours over $116,000 flowed into his campaign, within a few days a flood of other endorsements, and he went on to win 45 percent of the vote. I'd say that was pretty amazing. You also have to take into consideration that Scozzafava had used the $900,000 given to her by the house gop to mainly run ads attacking Hoffman, 0wens also ran adds attacking him, and then Scozzafava dropped out and endorsed 0wens, so 45 percent of the voters went with HOffman, even more amazing.

Flushing out Scozzafava, and getting her to show her true colors was worth the fight. Having a dem in that seat is unimportant right now. He has to run for re-election next year, and hopefully the gop will have its act together, and run a real conservative candidate this time, maybe even Hoffman.

Also, Steele says they will win back the 23rd nest year. If they do it will be short lived because the 23rd will most likely be split in two with each part being absorbed into another district that is represented by a Democrat. NY is going to lose one or two seats, maybe more, after the next census.

THank you Virginia and New Jersey for ignating the flame of real change in America.

Obama....

The constant lying.
The staggering arrogance.
The dangerous narcissism.
The astounding incompetence.

The Obama Buffoon wants to put as much of the private economy under government control as possible to create his nanny state utopia where he is the boy king.

Let's continue to stand strong against Obama in every way and get Congress out of the hands of the insane Pelosi and Reid in 2010.

Obama is a smug, smirking con man. Nothing more.

Steeles an idiot to say this.Does he realize this acorn endorsed daily kos backed liberal in a GOP suit would of given Pelosi bipartisan cover for things like HC and card check?I for one am glad these GOP women had the guts to get her tossed outta that race.

For all the complaints about Sarah Palin and her credibility - What was Hoffman's polling before she endorsed him and at the end of the election? That was a hell of a lot of upward movement in the polls

Even though Hoffman did not win, a "republican" who is more liberal than the democrat was forced out. Better a Blue Dog democrat than a far left republican. In that respect it was a victory for the tea party movement.

Steele needs to wake up and face the new reality...principle over party!

Palin and company cost Hoffman the election. Period. What place did Hoffman finish? Second place means you are the first loser. Regarding all the money spent here, don't forget the $700,000 for Hoffman from the Club for Growth. Once people realized who they were, Hoffman got hurt some more. Some of the poorest people in the country live in the 23rd; Essex, Franklin, St. Lawrence counties; and being the newest member of the 'cut our taxes millionaire club' did not help Doug.

What happened in New York is a warning to the Republican Party that we need to be moderate socially and conservative fiscally. If the Party is to be a success, we must focus of getting the support of the Independent and the moderate Democrat voter. We cannot afford to allow the radical religious right take over our Party because their views are not the views of the norm, moderate or majority of Americans.

"If you don't live in the district, you don't vote there, your opinion doesn't matter very much."

They give RNC money to the canidates in other districts, close to a million for Scozzafava. That's why I won't give money to the RNC. Good job Steele. This is a great way to sell the GOP.