By Jerry Zremski
For Republicans from Alaska to Maine, including those in Erie County GOP headquarters, the soul-searching already has begun.
Actually, it began days before Tuesday night’s victory by Kathleen C. Hochul, the Democratic candidate in the special election for Congress in the strongly Republican 26th District.
With Jane L. Corwin, the Republican candidate, struggling under the weight of a Medicare reform plan that she, like 235 House Republicans, supported, a handful of Republicans across the country had started edging away from the proposal even before local voters went to the polls.
In Erie County, the much-lauded team handling Corwin’s campaign — organized by County Executive Chris Collins and including Nicholas A. Langworthy, chairman of the County Republican Party, and Chris Grant, Corwin’s campaign manager — found itself under fire for misreading the shape of the race and using tactics on Corwin’s behalf that one GOP figure called “juvenile” and ineffective.
Isolated in the spotlight with no other races to attract attention, the contest already has changed the political dialogue across the nation as well as locally.
For proof, witness the back-flip by Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., on the Medicare issue in recent days.
Before a Siena College poll showed Hochul gaining a lead and Medicare being the biggest issue in the race, Brown told business leaders he would vote for the proposed budget crafted by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. That plan would convert Medicare into a government-subsidized private insurance plan for those now under 55.
But in an op-ed piece May 13 in Politico, Brown switched sides and essentially put forth the same argument that Hochul and other Democrats are making about its long-term effects.
“While I applaud Ryan for getting the conversation started, I cannot support his specific plan and therefore will vote ‘no’ on his budget,” he said. “I fear that as health inflation rises, the cost of private plans will outgrow the government premium support, and the elderly will be forced to pay ever higher deductibles and co-pays.”
Brown, by no means, is the only Republican running way from the Ryan plan. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, also has said she won’t support it, and both Sens. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, might vote against it.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid plans on giving them that chance in a floor vote this week.
And in next year’s elections, Democrats — noting that 57 percent of those surveyed in a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll said they oppose Medicare cuts — plan on using the Ryan Medicare proposal to eviscerate Republicans.
“House Republicans who voted to end Medicare should be very worried about losing independent voters and seniors in 2012,” said Josh Schwerin, spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
The Chris Collins campaign team, meanwhile, might want to worry about the harsh words aimed its way over its handling of Corwin’s candidacy.
Republican insiders in the nation’s capital started grumbling weeks ago about the Corwin ad campaign concocted by media adviser Michael Hook.
“Too slow,” complained one GOP figure, perplexed that Hook had started the campaign with ads bashing Hochul rather than Jack Davis, the independent candidate whose presence on the Tea Party line threatened to steal votes from Corwin.
But another GOP strategist noted, “It’s a Republican district, so why you wouldn’t want to make it a straight [Democrat-Republican] race early on, I’ll never know.”
Corwin’s ads finally took aim at Davis in the last month of the campaign, after polls showed him with more than 20 percent of the potential vote.
By then, though, it was too late to eviscerate both Davis and Hochul without collateral damage to Corwin, who, polls showed, became less popular as her harshly negative ad campaign wore on.
Then again, a Corwin campaign stunt apparently aimed at provoking Davis’ temper didn’t help matters.
After a May 11 campaign event in a Rochester suburb, a videographer approached Davis and badgered him about why he had backed out of a debate.
Davis lunged at the camera, prompting girlish squeals from the videographer — who turned out to be Michael Mallia, Corwin’s legislative chief of staff.
The episode backfired in harsh television coverage for Corwin and a lingering resentment among some voters.
John Lukasik, 88, of North Tonawanda, said Corwin’s campaign had “set up that stunt” against Davis, which he cited as one reason for not voting for her.
“Then she wouldn’t respond to it,” said Sue Downing of Wheatfield, noting Corwin’s refusal to take responsibility for Mallia’s actions.
While GOP consultants privately blame the Corwin campaign staff for its performance, they also note that Corwin is not without fault.
“Even some Republican consultants will admit she left an aloof impression,” said David Wasserman, House of Representatives editor for the Cook Political Report.
Hochul, by contrast, smiled and glad-handed through countless stops throughout the district, taking time to answer every question reporters asked.
In other words, not just Medicare left the GOP in the embarrassing position it finds itself in this morning.
But no matter the multiple reasons, one thing is certain.
“The Democrats and the mainstream media will portray this as meaning that last year’s Republican surge is over,” said a GOP source in Buffalo.