Following up on UJ’s post, below, here is an AP article on the decision of the official Republican candidate to suspend her campaign for a New York congressional seat. The article makes it appear that her support was falling, and under the circumstances it probably was better for her to withdraw rather than get trounced at the polls come Tuesday.
As for all of the hand-wringing about what does this mean for the future of the Republican Party, and is the party turning into some shrinking Neanderthal collection of nuts — I think the answer has to be, “Who knows?” American voters tend to like real alternatives, so that if things go bad they can boot out the party in power and elect the other guys. Right now, the Democratic Party has staked out a position that favors governmental solutions to problems, with the attributes that inevitably come with governmental solutions: increased government spending, lots of regulations, more government employees to tell you what you can and cannot do, increased taxes, and the typical amounts of waste, fraud, and abuse. What is the point of Republican Party candidates who agree with those concepts in principle, but argue that, say, they should be elected because they will write the regulations slightly differently? Why shouldn’t a candidate standing for election stake out a true alternative position, rather than a watered-down version of the prevailing viewpoint?
It looks like the voters in NY-23 will now be offered a pretty stark choice between two candidates with different philosophies. I don’t think that is a bad thing.
