I asked Marc Hetherington for his thoughts on NY-23. He has done work on the origins of partisan polarization and is a co-author of a textbook on political parties. I’ve previously noted his new book with Jonathan Weiler on authoritarianism.
Marc writes:
bq. The race in New York’s 23rd congressional district exemplifies the disconnect between polarized political elites and much of the American public, which like moderate alternatives when they are available. Movement conservatives like Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh attacked the moderation of Dede Scozzafava, the Republican nominee, ultimately driving her from the race and causing her to endorse Bill Owens, her Democratic counterpart. This opened the door for the first Democratic victory in the district in more than 100 years. It seems very likely that, others things being equal, a candidate like Scozzafava would have been the choice over Owens in a two person race. The district choked on the type of candidate that Palin and Limbaugh favored.
bq. In the mid-1990s, so called movement conservatives were seen by some as the salvation of the Republican party. Now, they have become its bane, driving the party farther to the right than many mainstream Republicans will accept. Although they have damaged the Republican brand on issues like immigration, in particular, the party’s victories in New Jersey’s and Virginia’s gubernatorial races demonstrate that candidates who present a moderate image to the public can still prosper, even if they aren’t particularly moderate.
bq. Movement conservatives often trumpet poll data suggesting the conservative label has become more popular during the first year of the Obama administration. Importantly much of this increase is due to the South’s increasing embrace of the label. That is not happening in upstate New York, or in much of the rest of the country for that matter. Douglas Hoffman, the Conservative candidate who Limbaugh and Palin embraced despite the fact that he didn’t even reside in the district, might have been broadly acceptable to Republicans in rural Mississippi or Tennessee but not in an increasingly competitive district like the New York 23rd where Barack Obama won a narrow victory over John McCain last year. By not realizing this, movement conservatives provided Democrats with one of their only bright spots on a night when perhaps they warranted none.