Just reading Eric Erickson’s post on RedState trying to spin NY-23 into a great victory, I can’t help but notice his closing:

For all intents and purposes, NY-23 is a trial run for Florida. And in Florida, the conservative candidate is operating inside the GOP. If John Cornyn and the NRSC do not want to see Florida go the way of NY-23, they better stand down.

In other words they are going to teabag Charlie Crist next.

But that isn’t the only interesting thing in his post. For example:

First, the GOP now must recognize it will either lose without conservatives or will win with conservatives. In 2008, many conservatives sat home instead of voting for John McCain. Now, in NY-23, conservatives rallied and destroyed the Republican candidate the establishment chose.

So if they didn’t vote for John McCain, what about the primaries? John McCain was chosen by the Republican electorate to be their nominee.

(Source: Wikipedia)

That’s an awful lot of green, which represents states voting for McCain. How did he pull it out over the conservatives when they have such a “strong base”, or did the conservatives decide not to even vote in the primaries?

Why the conservatives are championing around NY-23 is because they did have an impact. Of course this was in an off year, and that was the only congressional race. What will they do next year with hundreds of races to worry about?

Another thing to consider is what we will never know. What would have happened if Scozzafava didn’t drop out? Perhaps she would have siphoned off enough votes from Owens that Hoffman could have ended up winning. Then perhaps people like Erick could really celebrate today.