Friday, October 30, 2009

Scarborough: 'Déjà vu all over again' in NY-23   [Robert Costa]

For Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman from Florida, the upcoming special election in New York’s 23rd congressional district brings back memories. The current race there between liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava and Conservative party candidate Doug Hoffman is but one battle in a long war, says Scarborough.

“It’s déjà vu all over again,” says Scarborough, now host of Morning Joe weekdays on MSNBC. “It reminds of when I decided to run for Congress in 1994. The Republicans had lost in 1992 and the mainstream media blamed the defeat on conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Pat Buchanan for scaring away moderates.”

“People forget that at the time, Newt Gingrich and the National Republican Congressional Committee were seeking out moderate candidates,” recalls Scarborough. “They were looking for moderate to liberal women who they thought could win in tough districts. I was attacked by the national, state, and local parties throughout my entire primary for supposedly being too conservative to win. I ended up winning. Now, well, no one remembers my primary opponent, and I’m here.” Doug Hoffman, take note.

“Republicans will elect conservatives when given the chance,” says Scarborough. Yet it is the Republican leadership in Washington, he says, that so often bungles races like his in 1994 or the Hoffman-Scozzafava kerfuffle in 2009. “Even after I won the primary, I was told by the PAC community in Washington that I was too conservative to win the general election, that I was a radical extremist and only cared about abortion, cutting taxes, and smaller government. It was impossible to raise money since they had so poisoned the well for conservatives. They said I couldn’t win the general election in a district that no Republican had won since 1872. I ended up winning with 62 percent of the vote.”

“Almost all of the ‘moderate’ candidates that Newt and the NRCC were racing around trying to find in 1994 ended up losing,” says Scarborough. “It was the conservatives who won. The same thing is happening now in upstate New York. I’m really stunned that national Republican leaders didn’t learn from 1994, 2006, or 2008. Time and time again, the GOP has lost not because it was too conservative, but because it was not conservative enough.”

“Where have these people been the past four years?” asks Scarborough. “Why the NRCC has gotten behind [Scozzafava], who supports card check and the stimulus, is beyond me.” The GOP leadership, he says, knows that Hoffman is the best candidate but can’t seem to publicly acknowledge that fact.

“It used to infuriate me when Republican leaders from the House and Senate would come on television and defend President Bush for spending too much money, only to complain about Bush’s big spending and recklessness off-air in the green room,” says Scarborough. “They were blindly following. That’s why we got destroyed in 2006 and 2008. You would think that these people would learn their lesson. It’s clear, however, that the GOP leadership on the Hill hasn’t learned from their mistakes.”

“Even if the rest of America forgets about this race in a couple weeks, I hope that the Republicans in Washington are watching closely so that they can finally learn their lesson,” says Scarborough. “If they want to gain power in 2010, they need to be more conservative and support candidates who want to balance the budget and cut taxes. If the Washington establishment says that you can’t win like that, just look to the class of ‘94. We did it.”

^{Scarborough in the House (Kathleen R. Beall / Congressional Quarterly / Getty)}

10/30 04:06 PMShare