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Ousted Republican Speaks About New York 23 Race

11/06/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
Dierdre Scozzafava was run out of the race to replace Secretary of the Army John McHugh when he vacated his seat in New York‘s Congressional delegation. Scozzafava was characterized as being a loony leftist and an Republican in name only. Largely, the characterizations were based on a great deal of misinformation. Some of them were not. When it comes to social issues such as abortion and marriage equality, Ms Scozzafava would be considered liberal. She is both pro-choice and pro-marriage equality. In some ways, because of her stances on these issues, Ms Scozzafava was attacked by people who want to purge the Republican Party of any and all deviation from the absolutes of people like Sarah Palin, Dick Army, and others in the Tea Party Faction.

The reasoning behind Ms Scozzafava’s support of abortion and marriage equality are important to look at. Recently, Michael Smerconish interviewed Ms Scozzafava for his radio show. A transcript of the interview was posted at The Daily Beast. For the record, Mr. Smerconish is a Republican.

On the subject of abortion:

Smerconish: [What about social issues?]
Scozzafava: Well, taking pro-choice, I think it’s up to each individual.
Smerconish: Because you regard it as a matter of individual liberty?
Scozzafava: Absolutely.

Mr. Smerconish then asked about the Terry Schaivo case:

Smerconish: OK, and I take it from that that like me you thought that the federal government had no business getting involved in the Schiavo case?
Scozzafava: Correct.
Smerconish: Yeah, because that is a fundamentally conservative opinion, which is let people determine their own fate.
Scozzafava: That’s right. And the second issue, on marriage equality, I still believe again that each person has certain unalienable rights, that it’s a civil-rights issue. I think it’s important to have the separation of church and state, that church should not have to adopt anything they don’t believe in. So I also have very much over my career pushed for freedom of religion as well. But they aren’t talking about those cases that I was involved in. This comes down to a couple of issues, and then they twisted and spun a lot of other things around it.

Scozzafava points out that on all other issues, she is a direct line Conservative. From Cap and Trade to federal regulation, Ms Scozzafava is very Conservative. It is largely upon the issues of civil rights and the government’s intrusion into people’s lives that she disagrees. In many ways, Ms Scozzafava is far truer to her beliefs than most people who say “I don’t want the government involved in regulating businesses, but I want them meddling in people’s lives.”

In large part, Ms Scozzafava was ousted from the race because she is a pragmatist and a social progressive. She exists in one of those odd places along side small government Liberals where labels do not really work properly. Part of the problem is that many of these labels have been so twisted into knots that they do not really have meaning anymore, but the drive to purge the Republican Party of their more pragmatic, socially accepting voices is something that could, in the long run, result in the Republican Party being stuck in the political desert for some time to come.

After being ousted from the race, Ms Scozzafava endorsed her Democratic rival. In part, it might be explained by this quote: “I think the Republican Party needs to know if they don’t have room for us and they don’t want us working with them, we’re going to find a way to work against them.” In the end, Bill Owens won.