Election Day: How Scozzafava Backed The Democrats

Despite the fact that there are two high powered gubernatorial races up for grabs on Tuesday, New York's 23rd district appears to be the one to watch on election night.

Joe Scarborough and former Governor George Pataki have also made--and Tweeted about--appearances in the district. Dede Scozzafava, the Republican nominee who dropped out of the race, is backing Democrat Bill Owens.

Politico reports that high-ranking national Democrats started working on Dede Scozzafava to secure that endorsement immediately after she dropped out of the race on Saturday.

Is this some genius plan of David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel? Frank Rich seemed to think so in this weekend's the New York Times:

Barack Obama’s most devilish political move since the 2008 campaign was to appoint a Republican congressman from upstate New York as secretary of the Army. This week’s election to fill that vacant seat has set off nothing less than a riotous and bloody national G.O.P. civil war. No matter what the results in that race on Tuesday, the Republicans are the sure losers. This could be a gift that keeps on giving to the Democrats through 2010, and perhaps beyond.

The governors’ races in New Jersey and Virginia were once billed as the marquee events of Election Day 2009 — a referendum on the Obama presidency and a possible Republican “comeback.” But preposterous as it sounds, the real action migrated to New York’s 23rd, a rural Congressional district abutting Canada. That this pastoral setting could become a G.O.P. killing field, attracting an all-star cast of combatants led by Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, William Kristol and Newt Gingrich, is a premise out of a Depression-era screwball comedy. But such farces have become the norm for the conservative movement — whether the participants are dressing up in full “tea party” drag or not.

The battle for upstate New York confirms just how swiftly the right has devolved into a wacky, paranoid cult that is as eager to eat its own as it is to destroy Obama.

According to Politico, the White House and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee coordinated efforts to get Scozzafava's endorsement. Congressman Steve Israel, according to the story, had a face-to-face meeting with Scozzafava in her upstate New York district after she suspended her campaign. Scozzafava, having faced a contentious race against the wingnuts of the right who decided that the Republican party nominee was too liberal, was amenable to the request from the Democratic party. From Politico:

Scozzafava, according to one account, was receptive to the entreaties after becoming a target of intense conservative opposition over the past month. A moderate to liberal assemblywoman who was backed by the national GOP establishment, her nomination had become a rallying point for conservative grassroots activists who argued that she was far too liberal for them to support.

“She’s devastated that these outside interests are trying to hijack her moderate wing of the party," said one New York Democrat who had spoken to Scozzafava.