Health Care BS

It’s been a particularly spooky Halloween for establishment Democrats and Republicans. The very timely demise of RINO Dede Scozzafava’s ridiculous campaign sent a frisson through America’s political class, but not because anyone cares about her fortunes.

Nor is the establishment’s palpable fear inspired by Doug Hoffman. He just isn’t scary enough to generate so much angst. NY-23 frightens them because the dreaded Sarah Palin rendered Hoffman’s victory all but inevitable with a single Facebook post:

Doug Hoffman stands for the principles that all Republicans should share: smaller government, lower taxes, strong national defense, and a commitment to individual liberty … The people of the 23rd Congressional District of New York are ready to shake things up, and Doug Hoffman is coming on strong as Election Day approaches! He needs our help now.

Just as she altered the health care debate with a few keystrokes on her laptop, Palin completely changed the dynamics  of the New York race by endorsing Hoffman. This is something no other politician in either party, including Barack Obama, could have accomplished. 

So, now the wise heads inside the Beltway, in the media and in the blogosphere are desperately trying to figure out how to stop her. A tsunami of frivolous lawsuits didn’t work. Their relentless villification hasn’t done the job. They don’t know what the hell to do.

Meanwhile, Palin herself is providing the leadership that the Republicans (not to say the country) need. While the Dems send out insulting e-mails, and the establishment Pubbies scramble to get on the bandwagon, Palin is asking conservatives to unite behind a good candidate:

With Congress poised to overhaul one-sixth of our economy with so-called health care “reform” (which is really a government takeover of health care) and with plans to enact a cap-and-tax bill just as our economy struggles to recover, Doug Hoffman will be a voice for fiscal responsibility and common sense in Washington.

When Hoffman wins, it will make Palin the de facto leader of a revolution that will transform the Republican Party and eventually the entire country. That scares a lot of people on both sides of the aisle, because many of them will have no place in an honest polity.

UPDATE:

One of the things Palin wrote in her endorsement of Hoffman was that Scozzafava was indistinguishable from the Democrat candidate running for the NY-23 seat:

Unfortunately, the Republican Party today has decided to choose a candidate who more than blurs the lines, and there is no real difference between the Democrat and the Republican in this race.

This remark was sneered at by the usual suspects, but events have proven Palin right. Scozzafava, the hand-picked choice of the establishment GOP, has endorsed the Democrat.

For any conservative still needing proof that the national Republican leadership needs a major overhaul, this has to be the clincher. As Dan Riehl puts it:

Way to go NRCC. You sure can pick ‘em.

By which he, of course, means that the GOP leadership was as clueless about what to do in NY-23 as they are about health care reform and a whole range of other policy issues.

You say you want a revolution? Good idea.