{"id":1279,"date":"2009-11-08T09:13:00","date_gmt":"2009-11-08T13:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2009\/11\/08\/frank-rich-does-an-ny-23-post-mortem\/"},"modified":"2009-11-08T09:13:00","modified_gmt":"2009-11-08T13:13:00","slug":"frank-rich-does-an-ny-23-post-mortem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2009\/11\/08\/frank-rich-does-an-ny-23-post-mortem\/","title":{"rendered":"Frank Rich does an NY-23 post-mortem"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s Frank Rich’s take on what he views as the bursting of the Hoffman phenomenon bubble — and his from-afar view of the North Country<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

This race was a damaging setback for the hard right. Hoffman had the energetic support of Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Fox as well as big bucks from their political auxiliaries.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, Hoffman was running not only in a district that Rove himself described<\/a> as \u201cvery Republican\u201d but one that fits the demographics of the incredibly shrinking G.O.P.<\/p>\n

The 23rd is far whiter than America as a whole<\/a> \u2014 93 percent versus 74 \u2014 with tiny sprinklings of blacks, Hispanics and Asians.<\/p>\n

It has few immigrants. It\u2019s rural. Its income and education levels are below the norm.<\/p>\n

Only if the district were situated in Dixie \u2014 or Utah \u2014 could it be a more perfect fit for the narrow American demographic where the McCain-Palin ticket had its sole romps last year.<\/p>\n

If the tea party right can\u2019t win there, imagine how it might fare in the nation where most Americans live. Some G.O.P. leaders have started to notice…
<\/a><\/p>\n

In the aftermath of this clear-cut demonstration of how Republicans can win, the revolutionaries are still pledging to purge the party\u2019s moderates by rallying behind more Hoffmans in G.O.P. primaries from Florida to California.<\/p>\n

And they may get some scalps. But Tuesday\u2019s loss revealed that they\u2019re better at luring freak-show gawkers into Fox\u2019s tent than voters into the G.O.P.\u2019s. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s Frank Rich’s take on what he views as the bursting of the Hoffman phenomenon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[874],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1279"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1279\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}