Our dear friends in the Main Stream Media weigh in on NY-23: “The Conservatives won but…they didn’t really win.”

Republican Dede Scozzafava’s decision Saturday to drop out of the New York special congressional election gave conservatives a big win, but may present a challenge for Republicans heading into next year’s mid-term elections.

The long-term implications from Scozzafava’s Halloween surprise will depend on what lessons Republicans take from the race, where Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman now seems poised to consolidate center-right support and win the seat previously held by Republican John McHugh, who resigned to become President Obama’s Secretary of the Army.

Should Doug Hoffman prevail and, as this article speculates, win the election, I think the lesson Republicans should take from it is, um, we should listen to those people on the Right more.

That conclusion, however, is factual and obvious, two things which the MSM currently abhors.

The game has changed and it doesn’t sit well with people who have spent most of the last year smugly asserting that conservatism in America is dead.

At issue is whether the GOP next year will be able to channel the electricity now coursing through the conservative grassroots to fuel Republican candidates or if the fervor that’s propelled Hoffman to the precipice of victory in a district he doesn’t even live in will continue to divide the party’s pragmatic and right wings.

“Over the long term, if we keep dividing up it may cost us,” said former Rep. Tom Davis, a Virginia moderate who helped build the GOP House majority as NRCC chairman. “You’ve got to stay under one tent and that’s got to mean accommodations on both sides.”

Translation: The backers of the moderate who just lost say that unless we do the things that made the moderate lose we’re going to lose.

Note the distinction “pragmatic and right wings”, implying that sticking to conservative principles and having a practical approach to elections are different things.

Remember, to non-conservatives we’re all just a bunch of gun-toting cretins who stare at Fox News all day, waiting for marching orders. They’re stunned whenever we have political success or finish a meal having not harmed ourselves with the utensils. We couldn’t possibly be doing anything with forethought, as far as they’re concerned.

The reality is that overhauling the GOP and getting it to focus on conservative principles and candidates is the pragmatic approach.

Former New York Rep. Tom Reynolds, also a previous NRCC Chairman, said that, inevitably, the party would need to run moderate contenders if it wanted to regain the majority.

“The question is, what is the future for moderates? We will have a future.”

“We can play checkmate forever and moderates can do next what conservatives did [to Scozzafava],” Davis added. “So this is something that the party is going to have to manage, keeping everybody under the same tent. These groups need each other.”

Yes, Dede showed just how much she needed the GOP when she jumped in bed with the Democrat in the race. Conservatives in NY-23 dodged a bullet and are lucky to have her giving them the finger from the sidelines rather than as their representative.

Conservatives are forever getting unsolicited advice from non-conservatives about what we need to do (or not do) to win elections. And the essence of the advice is always the same: try to get as many non-conservatives involved as possible.

No thanks, I can’t really handle any more hangovers like the one I had on November 5th last year.