I've lived in NY23; it's a moderate district heavily dependent on government subsidies and earmarks for Fort Drum/10th Mountain Division, environmental subsidies for the massive Adirondack Park, and support for Dairy Farmers.  Hoffman's policies would crush that economy which isn't great to begin with.  Scozzafava was far more in touch with the district which is why she got the support of 11 different GOP county commissioners.  Extremism to the left or right isn't going to cut it in Northern NY; there's very little difference between moderate Republicans and Democrats there.  Neighbors there prefer to pick people they know, not someone Rush Limbaugh tells them to vote for.

In this case Matt, you don't know the district and the voters there. Scozzafava would have won had Hoffman not entered the race.  Follow your own advice in the last sentence of your post.

Upstate NY used to be largely Republican; but moderately so, not conservative.  NY23 went for Obama, 52-48.  Since 2006, New York has lost six GOP seats in its Congressional delegation. 

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-Dan, thanks for your advice, insight and concern about how best the Republican Party can flourish.

I guess no better point could be made than by Mr. Big OC LIB lecturing us dummy Conservative Republicans how foolish were to support a candidate who advocated fiscal conservatism. He forgot to mention Scozzafava’s mature and moderate wisdom in her support of Obama’s stimulus spending spree as another reason why we should have blindly stood by her.

Yes there are LIBERAL politicians who are geographically destined to have to run as a registered Republican if they want to gain office.  

Conservatives are not robots who will automatically push the R button each and every time.

This mocking of Hoffman, and his supporters could be a cut and paste of quotes and comments from 1976 about another failed right-wing nutball who was tearing the Republican Party apart and out of step with the American public. He’s failure to get the nomination cost us Republicans the Presidency!  If only he had been smart enough not to pusure such an extreame agenda.  

Conservatives were written off by clever pendants like Chmielewski. If only we had listened to them and come to terms with winning the middle ground with a moderate agenda. 

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"Conservatives are not robots who will automatically push the R button each and every time."

I see no evidence of this to the contrary; but let's turn instead to the region's largest newspaper, the conservative Watertown Daily Times, who endorsed Owens after first endorsing Scozzafava.  Hoffman's policies, if enacted, would be devastating to the economy of that part of the country. 

Here's a great story that documents Scozzafava's record which is far more conservative than moderate.  http://themoderatevoice.com/50319/dede-scozzafava-the-real-record/

And Jim, by all means, keep beating the drum for a long dead politician who last served 21 years ago.  Reagan spent money like crazy, he raised taxes several times after first cutting them, he was loved by social consveratives even after passing the most aggressive abortion rights legislation and by the family values crowd even though he was largely estranged from most of his kids and never went to church.  If Reagan were running today, he'd be thrown under the bus by the conservati.

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