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The duopolist ideologue might well respond: but Hoffman calls himself the "real" Republican in the race, and his campaign has labeled Scozzafava a Democrat. Perhaps here it would do to recall a few apt lines from the Apology of Socrates on the "wisdom" of politicians and poets:
After the politicians, I went to the poets . . . I took them some of the most elaborate passages in their own writings, and asked what was the meaning of them . . . I am almost ashamed to confess the truth, but I must say that there is hardly a person present who would not have talked better about their poetry than they did themselves.Republican Scozzafava's endorsement of Democrat Bill Owens does not demonstrate that she is a Democrat, but rather that the respective factions of the Democratic-Republican Party and the duopoly system of government function as a unit, that the rhetorical opposition between Democrats and Republicans is little more than a facade veiling their shared opposition to independent and third party threats to their lock on elected office and monopolization of political power. Though Hoffman may turn out to be nothing more than a partisan Republican opportunist who is more interested in maintaining the dictatorship of the two-party state than opposing the ossified structures of the duopoly system of government, this does not change the fact that his campaign demonstrates the ease with which the "iron law" of the two-party oligarchy can be broken by an engaged citizenry.
2 comments:
I'm inclined to agree with your assessment but I'm also open to taking seriously Scozzafava's belief that movement conservatives of Hoffman's stripe are a menace. In a non-bipolarchy polity it should neither surprise nor alarm us if Republicans and Democrats ally against a perceived extremist. In the present case, however, it seems to prove Hoffman's argument that Scozzafava stood for nothing. That doesn't mean that there can't be Republicans who want the party to stand for something besides movement conservatism, but those people clearly need to make a better case than Scozzafava did if they want more people to believe them in the future.
Scozzafava's campaign was extremely weak. Their assumption, it seems, is that it was a safe Republican seat and so they did little to nothing to ensure that they would win. It is not very dissimilar to what happened with the Christie campaign in NJ. The GOP assumption was that Corzine was unpopular and all Christie would have to do is sit back and welcome discontented voters into his camp? Where else were they gonna go - this question is virtually a strategic principle for duopolist challengers to duopolist incumbents. Back to NY's 23rd: Hoffman's campaign was also pretty creative in a lot of their rhetoric, and their messaging. Both races go to show I think that duopolist candidates really don't know how to react when they are confronted by even moderately strong third party candidates.
With respect to your point though, I think Republican moderates clearly do not feel welcome in the GOP, obviously it's up to them whether they stay with that party or not. I think we'll see a lot of conservative to moderate independents upending various races in 2010. Lincoln Chafee, Trevor Drown come to mind here.
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