Dede Scozzafava, Doug Hoffman, and the fight for Republican ‘purity’

What conservative infighting over a New York congressional seat says about the GOP's future

As David Frum writes in The Week's Bullpen, the Republican Party is mired in a bitter internal battle over an off-cycle congressional election in upstate New York. What should be "a cakewalk" for the Republicans now looks like a defeat as the party nominee, moderate Dede Scozzafava, loses supporters to Conservative Party candidate Douglas Hoffman. But this is about more than a single House seat, it’s about the ongoing debate within the GOP about how to reinvent the party. For Republicans, what is the choice on offer?

Purity vs. pragmatism: "It demonstrates just how right-wing some Republicans have become that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is on the moderate side of this civil war," says E.J. Dionne Jr. in The New Republic. Gingrich's "old nemesis" Dick Armey and his fellow tea-party conservatives think ideological purity comes first. But "Gingrich, who backs Dede Scozzafava, always understood that he would never have become speaker without help from Republican moderates."

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