Don’t know if you’ve been following the exciting turn of events in up-state New York.  The GOP nominated candidate in a special election for the House, triggered by Obama’s appointment of the incumbent, Representative John M. McHugh as Secretary of the Army, was viciously attacked by the right-wing of the Tea-Bagger party, and withdrew from the race — subsequently endorsing her Democratic opponent over the Tea-Bagger favorite.

The main players are: Dierdre Sozzafava, long time Republican, current Assemblywoman; [her campaign site has only this.]

Bill Owens, Democrat, Air Force Veteran and Managing Partner of local law firm;

Douglas Hoffman Conservative Party, [more] who praises Glenn Beck as his mentor.

Frank Rich thinks it’s all good:

The G.O.P. Stalinists Invade Upstate New York

BARACK OBAMA’S most devilish political move since the 2008 campaign was to appoint a Republican congressman from upstate New York as secretary of the Army. This week’s election to fill that vacant seat has set off nothing less than a riotous and bloody national G.O.P. civil war. No matter what the results in that race on Tuesday, the Republicans are the sure losers. This could be a gift that keeps on giving to the Democrats through 2010, and perhaps beyond.

Others aren’t so sure.

“Moderate Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava’s departure from upstate New York’s special congressional election is, senior Democrats predict, bad news for the Democratic Party.

While the state’s 23rd district is decidedly conservative, having last sent a Democrat to Congress in the 1800s, there had been hopes that a three-person contest would catapult Dem Bill Owens to the House of Representatives. Now, conventional wisdom holds that Scozzafava voters will likely head towards the conservative party’s Doug Hoffman or simply stay at home.

In the White House, at the very least, officials are bracing themselves for a loss, calling Scozzafava’s departure bad news for Owens. The one hope, they say, is if Scozzafava — who has more philosophical similarities with the Democratic Party than Hoffman’s brand of Republicanism — was to formally endorse her former rival.

Sam Stein at HuffPo

Scozzafava has now endorsed the Democrat and the White House has reponded by sending Joe Biden up to campaign for him.

And in one of those “only in America” events, Republican Sozzafava’s husband is the president of the area Labor Council, which in the past has endorsed Scozzafava.  No more.

“This has been a difficult day for my family. But the needs and concerns of the men and women of the 23rd Congressional District remain paramount,” Mr. McDougall said in a statement. “As such, I wholeheartedly and without reservation endorse the candidacy of Bill Owens.”

Watertown Daily Times

Limbaugh, who led the charge to dump Scozzafava and elevate Hoffman,  continues to pile on with his usual “entertaining” smears, saying that Scozzafava’s endorsement of Democrat Bill Owens, proved her guilty of “bestiality.” Ha ha.

Beyond the question of who wins and who loses is the greater one of the effectiveness of right wing scurrility to attract and retain supporters and those who want to represent them.  If Rich is right, sanity will prevail and those of conservative character will begin drifting away from the extremists, to reclaim the old Republican standards, or to build something new.  Perhaps he’ll be proven correct.  The sense of imminent revolutionary change in many quarters at the end of the Vietnam War soon succumbed to the inertia of the somewhat changed status-quo.  All that was left of revolution was in advertising slogans.  What didn’t exist then, however, were the non-stop media outlets recycling the most inflammatory statements, and provoking public argument for the sake of adrenalin fueled ratings.  The record of radio demagoguery, from Germany to Rwanda and the Congo is not one of persuading people to moderate and walking-in-your-shoes kinds of emotion.  And we’ve got world class bigots at the microphones these days.

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