The NY-23 race continues to heat up, and some polls suggest that Doug Hoffman is in the lead (though this particular poll might be taken with a grain of salt).  Nevertheless, Newt Gingrich is sticking to his guns, blasting what he calls the “purge” mentality and also criticizing outsiders for sticking their nose in a local New York election.  Yes, Newt Gingrich, born and raised in Pennsylvania, who later became a Congressman from Georgia, is deriding outsiders for getting involved in an upstate New York election.  Wrap your head around that one.

As for the purge remarks, Phil Klein is right on the money.

The problem is that Gingrich is making a valid point in general, but one that doesn’t apply in this specific instance. There’s no doubt that if you want to build a majority, you have to be willing to accept less conservative candidates in certain regions where a conservative has no chance of winning. As many problems as I have with Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, I concede that it’s unrealistic to believe that we could get a genuine conservative Senator elected in Maine, which Obama won by 17 points. In the case of Giuliani, you were dealing with a city that hadn’t elected a Republican who remained a Republican in over 50 years. He was conservative on economic issues, and uniquely suited to deal with the most pressing problem facing the city — rampant crime. The only option was to support him, or allow David Dinkins to have another disastrous term as mayor.

But the New York Congressional race is entirely different. Scozzafava isn’t just a social liberal — she’s an economic liberal, too. She supports card check legislation that would allow labor unions to expand their ranks through intimidation. She called the cops on a conservative journalist who was asking her questions about her position on taxes. And there’s actually a conservative in the race who has a realistic chance of winning.

This particular district is a fairly solid Republican one, despite Obama’s getting 52% of the vote in 2008.  Had Doug Hoffman been the GOP nominee, the race wouldn’t even be a contest as he’d probably outpoll Owens by a decent margin.

Another thing to keep in mind is that there was no primary.  Local Republican voters did not get the opportunity to select their candidate, so it’s time for people like Newt to get off their soapboxes about non locals interfering in the matter.

But getting back to the RINO issue, this was touched on in the comments to this American Catholic post by Donald McClarey.  Eric Brown – a self-described DINO – asks about the -INO labels:

But why should we have such rigid political orthodoxy?

I’m not saying that a party should not have agreement on a fundamental vision and philosophy, or principles, which is necessary for unity. But if there is not room for disagreement on means to the same end, there is very little room for intellectual freedom and creativity that actually allows for constructive criticism from within the party and viable and practical solutions to problems we face as a society.

If anything, we benefit from Democratic Senators like Ben Nelson who is opposed to the public option, who is opposed to the “opt out” compromise, and who most certainly will not vote for a health care reform bill with abortion in it. He is being attacked as a “fake” Democrat. I can’t see how such dissent is a bad thing — maybe because I’m pro-life?

Perhaps, I am misunderstanding one’s definition of a “RINO” or “DINO.” Is it someone who is so antithetical to the whole platform that they belong in the other party? Can someone be pro-choice and completely conservative on everything else and not be a “RINO”?

I’ll expand a bit on what I said to Eric in the comments section.  I actually don’t particularly care for the RINO label, though I have used it from time to time.  Political parties are distinct from ideological movements, so as such there is no “Republican” approach to issues in the same way that there is a conservative or liberal approach.  It is true that the Republican Party tends to be conservative in orientation, but it isn’t necessarily a conservative party.  Sure parties, as Donald writes in his post, should stand for something.  But there is room – as Klein writes – for slight variations in opinion.  Political parties are not religions, and there is no need to enforce some rigid orthodoxy.  I may not particularly care for  moderates like Collins and Snowe, but I can appreciate that they might be the best opportunity for Republican victory in states like Maine.  And while they’re both fairly left-of-center, they do ally themselves with the rest of the party on enough issues that they are not completely useless.

In the case of Scozzafava, however, she is in no meaningful sense of the term a Republican.  She is opposed to the party’s platform on BOTH economic and social issues, and has garnered the support of groups like ACORN and Planned Parenthood.  She is, it seems, to the left of the Democratic Party’s nominee.  Forget the NRA endorsement – opposition to gun rights is a complete non starter in this district.  She is one of the few people for whom the term RINO is a completely apt description.  That, plus what was mentioned above about the makeup of this district, and it’s clear that conservatives and Republicans really only have one option in this race.  Sorry Newt.  You might right in the abstract, but you’re wrong on this particular matter.