mayorgraham.blogspot.com

What should Diedre Scozzafava want to accomplish by Sunday's appearance on Face the Nation on CBS?

Is it just another post-election 'poor poor pitiful me' about being beat up by tea party thugs led by Dick Armey, who will be on the same show?

Well, I hope not. Ms. Scozzafava knows politics aint bean bag and there is something for all to learn from the NY23 GOP meltdown.

In retrospect, which is a lot like hindsight, Ms. Scozzafava was not the best hope for North Country Republicans and her selection by a handful of county chairs was another example of the dangers of making big decisions in the rarified air of so called executive session.

She was not a bad choice because she was a bad person... and not because she was unqualified...

Scozzafava's views were out of touch with the current mood of enough Republicans that she would have had problems even if Doug Hoffman and Mike Long had stayed on the sidelines, as was assumed would happen.

Her support of card check, the big dollar stimulus and her dalliances with the far-left Working Families Party were issues of concern in 2009 when growth of government, deficits, and the plight of small business were big issues.

Ironically, her views were sufficiently conservative on the public option and taxes but her advisors kept her biggest attributes bottled up. That would be her conversancy with government and issues.

She got the nod because it was her "turn" and the assumption was she could mop the floor with this unknown Plattsburgh attorney who was his party's third choice for the nomination.

I admit it, I made the same flawed assumptions based on what had always been in the North Country politics.

Remember, the vacancy was created by the White House in order to take the seat. They controlled the timeline and the presence of people like kingmaker Congressman Steve Israel in the district showed they were in it to win it.

The reason Darrel Aubertine bowed out is he had a record in office with many votes that could be exploited. The GOP turned around and put up as their nominee a long time legislator with a lot of votes to explain. That was dumb.

Ms. Scozzafava will tell Bob Schieffer on Sunday that moderates are being pushed aside in a Republican purge. She needs to tell us just what a moderate Republican does stand for because in this campaign it was not evident.

And if moderate means card check and the WFP... Count me as one local business person who can't affort anymore of that kind of moderate politics.

There are always those who vote based on the social issues like abortion and gay marriage, but for many... and I am one of them... those issues are not determinative... its spending and the onerous taxation especially on small business of which I am a member.

That issue was not articulated by the Republican nominee... I might suggest that those seeking action on deficits, spending and taxes who don't find that in the GOP candidate will look elsewhere. It's not about party anymore and the automatic support John McHugh got didn't transfer to the next similarly positioned candidate.

In any event, many will be looking closely at her remarks on the national stage tomorrow. With the election a month in the past , she has had the time to craft a good response to the question, "What happened and why?"