Republicans & Identity Politics: Scozzafava Campaign Demonstrates How The Two Don’t Mix

31 Oct, 2009 by Melissa Clouthier

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Just up is a piece I wrote for Pajamas Media–before the news of today and had to update it–about identity politics in the Republican Party. Here’s part of it:

Maybe it will take another generation for the novelty of women in power to wear off so that women can be looked at for the content of their character and their achievement. Women are more than their reproductive organs.

The Republican Party should help this process along by supporting and promoting deserving candidates with solid accomplishments and sound ideology. These candidates can be of any stripe. If the candidate is black and male and fills this bill (Michael Williams), great. If the candidate is Hispanic and male and fills this bill (Marco Rubio), great. If the candidate is white and female (Liz Cheney), great. If the candidate is white and male (Doug Hoffman), great.

The Republican Party has decided that the party needs more women. A woman, any woman, will do. Enter Dede Scozzafava. She seems to have all the credentials the Republican Party is looking for: female reproductive organs. She supports abortion, big government, ACORN, and unions. In most places, hell, even in New York, that makes her a Democrat. Dan Riehl has a shocking behind-the-scenes post detailing the thought process:

The very same GOP old hands opted for insider Jim Tedisco over Betty Little in that race and Tedisco got beaten, hindsight suggested Little would have won hands down. And, interesting enough, up pops Tom Reynolds to comment, again. It’s argued that instead of any genuine insight into politics on the ground these days, they didn’t want to repeat the Tedisco mistake, judged it based upon purely out-dated male/female lines, and were going to go with a female no matter what.

Why is the Republican Party, the party that champions merit over name, going Democrat and choosing identity over ideology? Riehl’s piece also emphasizes cronyism and national control rather than local Republican and grassroots cooperation in candidate selection. And in fact, it seems that cronyism and money trump gender and racial identity, even still. A good conservative Hispanic candidate, Marco Rubio, is being dismissed in favor of the uber-liberal Charlie Crist in Florida.

And look at how bad the decision to choose identity over ideology turns out to be. DeDe Scozzafava has dropped out of the NY-23 race. Erick Erickson says of this turn of events:

Relationships between the Republican establishment in Washington and the conservative movement are in rubble. Thanks to Pete Sessions NOT Doug Hoffman, there is new inspiration for a third party movement to challenge the GOP – a movement that will only help the Democrats.

Good men in the GOP are now going to be challenged in primaries because of the ill-will the NRCC has generated in New York’s 23rd Congressional District.

At this writing, RNC Chairman Michael Steele and Newt Gingrich have endorsed Doug Hoffman in NY-23. This is a hopeful turn of events. Erick Erickson is correct. The Republican establishment grossly misunderstood and underestimated the mood of the conservative base. The American people do not need more symbolism. They do not need a woman at all costs. They need a politician who will vote against taxes, vote against bigger government programs, and vote against invasive regulation.

The last thing the Republican party needs to be doing is going hunting for candidates based on connections, color and gender. The Republican party needs to be looking for quality candidates who will vote to shrink, not expand, the government.

In the midterms, a lot of voters will pull the Republican switch because they’re disgusted with Democrats. We need to make sure the Republicans are quality men and women who represent Republican, not Democrat, values.