I believe this news is a perfect example of my “sliding scale” of political parties I discussed in my previous post. A lot will try and claim that Scozzafava made this decision out of malice against people like Palin, but I believe it isn’t that simple.

Scozzafava was more to the right on fiscal issues, while being more to the left on social issues. For example, Scozzafava supported the Bush tax cuts, yet supported gay marriage and reproductive rights. By having two other candidates from opposite sides of the political spectrum, she was able to chose which candidate best represented her views. In this case that pushed her to the left with Bill Owens.

Now this doesn’t make the race a certainty for Owens – its still anyone’s game. What it does do is give him a little boost, but this close to Election Day makes it really hard to capitalize off of it.

And even if you don’t agree with my political theory here, one thing is for certain – this is like cocaine to political junkies. We generally don’t see this kind of action in normal elections, but these special elections always open us up to bigger side shows.