Free Republic

Yes, socially conservative Republican candidates prevailed last night in the big races—the gubernatorial contests in Virginia and New Jersey—but it was the special election for New York's 23rd Congressional District that had become a national symbol for the battle between religious conservatives and the GOP establishment. In recent days, it was the race that the big Christian right groups like the Family Research Council and Susan B. Anthony List and the movement's favored politician, Sarah Palin, had become most outspoken about. But after forcing the socially liberal Republican out of the race, the right's candidate, Doug Hoffman of the Conservative...

Heard on MSNBC which prefers to discuss NY23 than the two STATE GOVERNORSHIPS.

SARANC LAKE, N.Y. – The mood is getting darker at NY-23 Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman’s election party. Results from Jefferson County–Republican territory that John McCain carried–show Owens in the lead. And the Syracuse suburbs–Madison, Oswego, and Oneida County–are not showing the blowouts that early polling suggested. The first results from Oswego show Hoffman at 2800, Owens at 2000, and Scozzafava at 324. The final Siena poll had Hoffman leading Democrat Bill Owens by a margin of 51 percent to 28 percent in this region. I asked Hoffman’s spokesman Rob Ryan for a reaction, and he suggested that it was...

Breaking News: Fox News Projects: Democrat Owens Wins Race for New York's 23rd Congressional District

On Fox now livw

America has changed, and you have helped. Although we did not succeed in winning this election, we have succeeded in making sure political parties and special interests no longer take the people for granted. I believe we have sent a powerful message and laid the groundwork for future conservative campaigns. I congratulate Bill Owens on a hard won victory. In our tradition of free elections, our country continues. And although Bill Owens has won, I believe America is turning the page to a new dawn. The ideas of freedom, sound fiscal management and citizen government have sprung back into our...

Look, I know we all hate to see Hoffman go down tonight, but it's hardly a defeat. Conservatives made a stand and sent a defeat to RNC and the country club elitists by driving their candidate out of the race. True Conservatives like Fred Thompson and Sarah Palin scored a victory over the RINO establishment and wannabe Republican leaders like Newt Gingrich. It was the first step for Conservatives in taking back the Republican party. Let's keep making that stand to the RNC that we will no longer settle for the moderates and Democrat lite candidates they want to shove...

Their candidate lost in the end, but for many in the rapidly expanding "tea party" movement, this fall's special House race in upstate New York was a "training ground" that taught its cadre of loosely organized grass-roots activists how to challenge both major parties and has only whetted the movement's appetite for the 2010 midterm elections. Tea party foot soldiers fueled Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman's meteoric rise that drove liberal Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava out of the race, giving the anti-tax, anti-spending activists their first real victory. But the ballot-box clout of the movement remains a question mark after...

The race has now been called for Democrat Bill Owens. This is a huge win for conservatives. “Whaaaa. . . ?” you say. There are two big victories at work in New York’s 23rd Congressional District. First, the GOP now must recognize it will either lose without conservatives or will win with conservatives. In 2008, many conservatives sat home instead of voting for John McCain. Now, in NY-23, conservatives rallied and destroyed the Republican candidate the establishment chose. I have said all along that the goal of activists must be to defeat Scozzafava. Doug Hoffman winning would just be gravy....

Conservatives owe NY-23 candidate Doug Hoffman immeasurable gratitude. He overcame impossible odds (single digits just a month ago) to come within two points of defeating Democrat Bill Owens. Hoffman had zero name recognition. National Republican Party officials dumped nearly $1 million into the race on behalf of radical leftist GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava, who then turned around, endorsed Owens and siphoned off 5 percent of the vote with her name still on the ballot after she dropped out. Conservatives’ money went to pay for specious attack ads against Hoffman run by the NRCC like this. Conservatives’ money went to...

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Democrat Bill Owens has captured the special election for a New York congressional seat that became a fight over the identity of the Republican Party.

The New York Times editorial page is a perfect weather vane for the way the liberal media's hot air is blowing. In an Oct. 26 editorial called "Torching the Big Tent," they lamented: "The feeble pulse of moderation in the Republican Party is in danger of flat-lining in the Nov. 3 Congressional election in upstate New York." The feeble "moderate" the Times was backing for Congress was Dede Scozzafava -- pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, pro-union power, pro-tax hike. The Times found these positions to be proof of "refreshing tinges of centrism." The Times lectured the conservative movement to embrace this candidacy,...