Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, not exactly a poster child for the Right Wing, called on voters to support the Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman over Dierdre Scozzafava.
I heard his explanation on a radio interview the other night, and it was pretty interesting.
As a moderate, he believed in the Big Tent concept, and was willing to overlook a few issues, such as abortion rights and gay marriage advocacy, if supporting Scozzafava would have lead to party unity.
However, he said he could find nearly nothing in her philosophy or actions that could be called "Republican", even by his "standards." And for that reason, he declared that supporting her would in no way stop House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's agenda in Washington.
[How liberal must you be if
Rudy calls you a RINO?]
The interesting thing is that her dropping out may have been the kiss of death for the conservatives' effort.
For those who are not familiar with the history of the New York Conservative Party, they have not just been "spoilers"...
[Hoffman's efforts]...lets the mind drift back to the 1970 Senate race in New York.
The Republican incumbent that year, Charles Goodell, was a moderate-to-conservative congressman from the western part of upstate until he was appointed by Gov. Nelson Rockefeller to succeed Robert Kennedy, who was assassinated while campaigning for president. Not long after his Senate appointment, Goodell shifted drastically to the left, especially on the Vietnam War, on which he became a leading opponent.
Democrats nominated Rep. Dick Ottinger, a Westchester County liberal. Frustrated conservatives saw to it that Jim Buckley, brother of National Review's William F., became the nominee of the Conservative Party. With Republicans split, Ottinger was favored to win.
But with the tacit backing of the Nixon administration, and especially that of Vice President Agnew -- who called Goodell the "Christine Jorgensen of the Republican Party" -- Buckley took advantage of what became a liberal split and won the race in a shocker.
(It was probably the Nixon-Agnew intent to keep attacking Goodell in order to give him credibility among liberals.)
http://forums.signonsandiego.com/showthread.php?t=101810&page=6I haven't lived in NYS since around that time, but it seems that the majority of the state is still split between upstate "Rockefeller Republicans" and the liberal Dems nested around NYC.
Not a place for a conservative to go one-on-one against a liberal...
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