While conservatives such as Sarah Palin and Tim Pawlenty were cheering on Doug Hoffman in last week’s special election in New York’s 23rd Congressional District, former Speaker Newt Gingrich instead had endorsed the Republican Party’s more moderate pick, Dede Scozzafava, who eventually dropped out.
Gingrich told reporters he was honoring local party leaders, and he told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren that purging the party of “liberal Republicans” would guarantee President Obama’s re-election and Nancy Pelosi as “speaker for life.” A week later, after Democrat Bill Owens snapped the seat up from both Hoffman and Scozzafava (who remained on the ballot), Gingrich has changed his tune.
“I think they selected the wrong person,” he told Yeas & Nays. “She was unsustainable.”
The biggest problem, Gingrich said, was that the state’s Republican Party and Conservative Party didn’t coordinate.
“It was a mess, once [Scozzafava] was picked. It was almost inevitable you’d have a conservative reaction; once you had a conservative reaction it was a very high likelihood we were going to lose the seat,” he said. “She was just too far to the Left,” he added, echoing the sentiment of conservative stars like Palin who had vocally supported Hoffman’s candidacy.
In looking forward, Gingrich sees newly minted Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell as a better kind of Republican to run in and win upcoming congressional races.
“I believe Bob McDonnell is the model candidate for 2010,” he said. “He was conservative, but he appealed in the suburbs, he reached out to African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans and Asian-Americans, and he stayed on a positive message, even when he was being attacked by the [Washington] Post.”
As for the Republicans’ chances in 2010, Gingrich was confident.
“I think at the rate that the Democrats are alienating the country,” he said, “this is going to be known as the ‘Job Killing Democratic Congress.’ ”
