The anticompetitive play to make the GOP competitive

Dede Scozzafava, Will Barclay and Janet Duprey, three Republican Assembly members who are seen as potential candidates for the 23rd Congressional District seat, are all more liberal than Democratic Sen. Darrel Aubertine on social issues. Aubertine would be the obvious Democratic candidate for Congress and is considering making the race, but his colleagues in the state Senate are trying to persuade him not to run for fear that if he does and wins, they'd lose the Senate seat and with it their majority. The Republicans, coincidentally, put out a new report today on how to make their party competitive again in New York state. I have an idea for them: Offer to cross-endorse Aubertine for the congressional seat. It's the principled thing to do as far as advancing conservative policies, and the GOP needs to reassure its conservative base; Aubertine would probably beat the Republican candidate anyway; and it puts the Senate in play, laying the groundwork there for a new Republican majority in 2010.

Comments

[Brian]

I am strongly opposed to the idea of parties "cross-endorsing" candidates from other parties. Even if it's legal, I see it as the opposite of principled. It's opportunistic. Granted, it's usually smaller parties that do this (one of the few things the NYS Greens get right is generally not doing this) rather than the major ones. I hate how the two big non-parties (Conservatives and WFP) glom on to Republican and Democratic gubenatorial candidates just to stay on the ballot so they can... endorse more Republicans and Democrats. My opinion is that if you don't have a single member of your party in a jurisdiction that can add anything to the race, then just don't run anyone at all.

[Brian]

The GOP would be better off trying to persuade Aubertine that he'd be more at home in their party.

[Bob Conner]

TypePad
I think Aubertine is exactly the kind of candidate Republicans should be running in districts like that, but he's not going to switch parties now, and if he did it would be seen as a betrayal by his fellow Democrats.