Although the 2009 NY-23 special election is over, with Democrat Bill Owens sweeping up the seat, Washington Post writer Jason Horowitz is trying to convince readers that Dede Scozzafava got the short end of the stick from the GOP.

In his article, “‘Scozzafava’ turns into epithet: It’s a Grand Old Purging as moderate’s ousted,” Horowitz casts the New York state assemblywoman and failed candidate as a sympathetic, teary-eyed church choir moderate. From the article:

Even as she now hopes to return to her normal life of local politics, laundry and choir practice for next month’s big performance of Bach’s Christmas Cantatas, the political forces that swept her up have not entirely let her go….”

At her desk, with a fuzzy elephant face down on a bookshelf behind her, she recalled the exhausting end days of her campaign. Violet semicircles hung below her teary eyes as she recounted how Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and other conservative leaders excoriated her for less-than-orthodox positions on gay rights, abortion and organized labor. Her nose reddened as she recalled her abrupt exit from the special election to replace John M. McHugh, whom President Obama had appointed as secretary of the Army earlier in the year…..

….Plus, the Democrats were so nice! They called. They sympathized. They made her feel good about tossing her support to Bill Owens, who — with her help — became the area’s first Democratic representative in more than a century.

“Oh, someone left chocolates for me!” she said, picking up a present from her aunt and uncle. Her GOP family has been less supportive. And she warns that what happened to her will happen to candidates like her…

The rest of the article describes how the Democratic party orchestrated Scozzafava’s endorsement of Owens.

Horowitz later writes that “Scozzafava, who was stripped of her Republican leadership position in the New York State Assembly on Monday, says she has no regrets and even leaves open the possibility of running for the seat again as a Republican. She sees herself as a champion of local expertise over ideological purity.”

And ideological purity was in short supply: Michelle Malkin and other conservatives argue that Scozzafava was far from moderate; the latter won the pro-choice Margaret Sanger award, supports same-sex marriage and was on the ACORN-affiliated Working Families Party ballot. “She also supported the trillion-dollar federal stimulus package-which every House Republican voted against,” writes Malkin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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