With mid-terms less than a year away, Tuesday's election results in New Jersey and Virginia should have a chilling effect on wavering Blue Dogs, thus undermining ObamaCare's chances of passing in anything like it's current form.
SanFranNan's already made it abundantly clear she has little concern for these Democrats from conservative districts' fate... she forced them into line while ramming-through Waxman's cap-n-tax and the wasteful and ineffective Porkulus- and using a lot more stick than carrot. And when it comes to any input in creating these bills, moderate-conservative Dems were offered no better than the GOP, either- in other words, treated like a bothersome child, and ignored.
This then will be the situation faced by freshly-minted Congressman Bill Owens from NY-23... who ran on a fairly conservative, pro-business platform to get elected- for a Dem, anyway. How he handles the balancing act of keeping his promises in DC -without offending Pelosi, who sponsored him- over the next 12 difficult months will have a lot to do with his ability to fend-off his next challenge at the polls in November 2010- and whether he can beat a reconstituted Doug Hoffman campaign with full GOP backing from the start... and an admiring national fan-base.
Hoffman’s candidacy generated much talk of a civil war in the GOP. Ironically, it is Owens who is about to learn firsthand what it’s like to belong to a majority that brooks no dissent.
When Blue Dogs voiced their concerns over the speed at which Pelosi was attempting to ram the health-care overhaul through the House, their fellow Democrats responded with contemptuous sneers. ... Former DNC chief Howard Dean warned of primary challenges for Blue Dogs if they didn’t support the public option........
Is Hoffman up for the challenge of another tough campaign? Bob Miller relates a telling anecdote. “When Doug got in the race, I told him, ‘They’re going to come after you.’ And he said, ‘Bob, anything that happens to me is nothing compared to what our Founding Fathers risked to stand up for their principles.’ That’s the kind of person he is.”
The slogan printed on the backdrop at Hoffman HQ last night read, “Fight back.” In the next few months, conservatives will be urging Hoffman to fight on.In other follow-up news, Smitty at The Other McCain has Newt scarfing-down some crow on Hannity -here-
And Stacy has a final sign-off post from a week-long odyssey... with Message from NY-23 -here-
And did you hear Obama's staff claiming he "wasn't watching" any election results? That the NJ and VA governors' races were "just local"- so of course he had little interest in them?
LOL- as Team Obama make it clear just how stupid they think you are, they'd also surely like us to forget the failed-campaign billboards at Moonbattery for these "local" and supposedly unimportant-to-the-Dear Leader contests... where Obama stumped heavily, was the poster-child in campaign materials... and in which the Democrats were trounced... -here-
Dan Riehl finds a GOP establishment with egg on their faces... and in duck-n-cover damage-control mode -here-
Pat at So It Goes in Shreveport has the NRSC finally getting the message -here-
Jay at Stop the ACLU covers Fred Thompson's take on the lessons of NY-23 -here-
Texas for Palin sums-up the effect of Palin Power up there in NY-23... and beyond -here-