Election 2009: Did We Really Care?

I never know how to feel the day after an election. Nothing ever completely goes your way, something will go exactly how you wanted it to, but something else can just wipe that smile right off your face. The two most important races in yesterday’s election were: Proposition 1 in Maine and the Congressional seat in New York’s 23rd district.

Maine voters decided to reject a gay marriage bill signed into law only six months ago, once again outlawing same-sex marriage in yet another state. Gay marriage activists are officially 0 for 30 in these types of votes. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1934432,00.html?xid=rss-topstories

In better news, New York’s 23rd district is officially out of the woods. (For now.) For me what makes New York’s 23rd district election interesting are two things:

1. A brand new party called “The Conservative Party of New York State” decided to insert their own candidate into the election even though The Republican Party already had a candidate Dede Scozzafava on the ballot. And,

2. The Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman took so much of Scozzafava’s base away from her that she actually dropped out of the race three days before the election (drama!!)!

So who is this “Conservative Party of New York State” (CPNYS) anyway? http://www.cpnys.org/ Not to be confused with the American Conservative Party http://www.theamericanconservatives.org/cms/ (Yup, I just figured that out the long way.) To make a long story short, the CPNYS wants to:
* Do away with most taxes
* “Reform” of Medicaid so it looks more like a private health insurance plan
* Have more charter schools
* Restore the death penalty in New York State
* Ban stem cell research
* Constitutionally define marriage as between one man and one woman
* Oppose any government mandate on health care
* Opposes casino gambling (how boring for them)
* And the public property that New York transferred to the United Nations? They would like that property back… please.

All this among other things, of course. Apparently, the problem with the Republican Party candidate, chosen by the Republican Party, was that she just wasn’t conservative enough. In fact, the American Conservative party called her, “an embarrassing, self-serving, union-supporting liberal… She is of questionable fitness to hold a seat in the House of Representatives, and definitely unfit to hold the line against government growth, spending, and abuse of power.” Actually the Conservative Party secretary Charlie Domino (was he a mob boss in his last life?) said that about her. Interesting since he worked for City of Houston Public Works department for twenty years and now has a rather nice pension (provided by the government) that many of us will never even get to dream of having. If you’re interested in how much his pension might be, Houston has a really nifty pension benefits calculator that you can play with here: https://login.hmeps.org/WebBenefitCalc/

Who else was proud to stump for the new Conservative Party candidate, Doug Hoffman? The likes of Sarah Palin, former Presidential Primary Candidate Fred Thompson, and Glenn Beck who Hoffman actually referred to as his “mentor” on Beck’s Fox News show. (Does anyone else find that terrifying?)

But I digress, yesterday the Conservative Party of New York found out if they have a leg to stand on. Can they actually compete with the Grand Old Party? So far it appears to be so. The Conservative Party candidate officially conceded to the Democratic Party candidate Bill Owens with 88% of precincts reporting, however Owens had 49% of the vote, Hoffman had 46% (still a respectable amount), and Scozzafava (who, yes you recalled correctly, isn’t even technically in the race anymore) had 6%. Sounds to me like even though they lost this one, the Conservative Party has a fighting chance, and given how they seem very excited about the right to bear arms, I won’t be surprised if they come out a fightin’ again.