Sarah Palin has upended politics-as-usual again, this time electing a Democratic Congressman in an upstate New York district that has been Republican for over 100 years.
In drumming out of the party Dede Scozzafava, a member of the State Assembly with solid GOP credentials in favor of an inexperienced Conservative with a scared-rabbit persona, Palin has once again demonstrated that her gifts are better suited to show business than elective politics.
Even as voters show their unease in Virginia, New Jersey and even New York City, the Palin wing of the party, by pouring money and endorsements into New York's 23rd District, managed to translate their lust for ideological purity into an unexpected loss.
Scozzafava was so stunned by "the amount of hate and lies and the deceitfulness” aimed at her from all over the country that she bowed out and endorsed the Democrat.
“I don’t believe," she says, "that should be the characteristics that define the Republican Party. I think people should be allowed to have discussions and reasonable disagreements. But this was a full frontal assault on me personally and politically, for weeks.”
On an election night when serious Republicans could find shreds of hope for the future, the Palinistas have given them something to think about in the struggle for their party's soul.
The New York 23rd, was a victory for the republican party, if only they can realize it.
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