You may recall that the NY-20 special election was disastrous for Republican: a well-known Republican candidate, Jim Tedisco, lost to a Democrat no one had ever heard of in a district with a large Republican registration advantage. The primary reason was Tedisco’s opposition to the stimulus bill, which was forced on Tedisco by Eric Cantor et al.
It looks like Republicans are trying something different in NY-23. They’re running the mother of all RINOs:
Republicans have picked Assemblywoman DeDe Scozzafava as their candidate to replace John McHugh in Congress.
[….]She is considered to be fairly liberal—she voted to legalize same-sex marriage…
Now, pretty much all New York State Republicans, except Peter King, are RINOs. But voting for same-sex marriage is not something many would do. Upstate New Yorkers are pretty far to the left when it comes to things like unions and government services, but they also tend to be old and Catholic, which means they may not like same-sex marriage.
In fact, it was not clear initially whether Scozzafava would run as a Democrat or as a Republican.
I take this as an admission that the “Back In the Saddle Again” hard-right all the time approach has been a disaster for Republicans.
Update. Red State already hates Scozzafava (via Irene Liu):
If Scozzafava is the GOP candidate, I will support and encourage all of you to support the Democrat, who will vote will us more often than Scozzafava ever would.
(bold theirs)