Dems Ready to Face Real Conservatives?

The Philadelphia Inquirer on Monday prematurely ran a Macy's advertisement congratulating the Philadelphia Phillies for winning the World Series. The New York Yankees, who still lead the series, may have something to say about that. Maybe there's something going around, but the Democrats and their amen corner in the blogosphere are similarly acting as if the game is in the bag before a single vote in Tuesday's elections even gets counted.

Even if they lose a few seats, some liberals are carrying on as if this would suit their Master Plan just fine. The thinking is that the more that right wing elements become the face of the Republican Party, the less that Democrats have to worry about in the long run.

Hubris? Yup. And at this point, any thumbsucking post would be remiss not to mention the familiar warning about being careful about getting what you wish for. So it is that surveys from Public Policy Polling as well as the Siena Research Institute put conservative Bill Hoffman ahead of the Democrat Bill Owens in the highly-watched New York Congressional 23rd District special election.

Win or lose, though, it seems that Democrats are overjoyed at the prospect of facing Hoffman as the Republican Party's nominee. The GOP's erstwhile candidate, Dede Scozzafava, faded after a pantheon of Republican heavyweights - including Sarah Palin, Dick Armey, Michele Bachmann, and Dick Armey, among others - threw their weight behind Hoffman. Fox News' Glenn Beck also got into the act. (Here's a clip of Hoffman praising Beck as his "mentor.")

With her support taking a hit after activists trashed her for not being a "true conservative," Scozzafava suspended her campaign over the weekend. But even before her pullout from the race, the prospect of a mainstream New York politician getting pilloried by some in her own party as a radical offered proof to some that the Republican Party was about to head off a cliff. Writing in Sunday's New York Times Frank Rich said he hopes the trend picks up. His calculation is that the more rightists winning Republican primaries, the greater the Democrats’ political chances in 2010:

...it’s even better for Democrats if Hoffman wins. Punch-drunk with this triumph, the right will redouble its support of primary challengers to 2010 G.O.P. candidates they regard as impure. That’s bad news for even a Republican as conservative as Kay Bailey Hutchison, whose primary opponent in the Texas governor’s race, the incumbent Rick Perry, floated the possibility of secession at a teabagger rally in April and hastily endorsed Hoffman on Thursday.

There's no doubt that conservatives feel this could be their moment. With Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck leading the charge, Hoffman has become the cause célèbre for the party's base. The hard right activist, Richard Viguerie, went so far as to put the Republican establishment on notice and declare that ascension the "tea Party activists" now represent the face of "the New GOP." Like Rich, he's reading much into the moment.

No disrespect to the inhabitants of Watertown, but that rural outpost is only important to so many right now because the contestants have become proxies for bigger forces. So it was that Vice President Joe Biden paid a visit on Monday to stump for Owens and urge voters to teach a lesson to conservative "absolutists" in the special House election.

After getting assailed for months by activists associated with Beck's 9/12 Project, Biden and the rest of the Democratic leadership would like nothing better than to flip things around and promote the image of hysterical radical right wing Republicans, raging at minorities, government and hidden left-wing conspiracies. For the liberals, that's the equivalent of a hanging slider. What we don't know is whether they're good enough to handle that kind of heat.