Yes. WE can.

There’s bad news, and then there’s good news.

OWENS TAKES ELECTION

23RD CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT: Hoffman admits defeat shortly after midnight DEMOCRAT'S SUPPORTERS GLEEFUL: Conservative candidate's backers stunned to see him concede

By NANCY MADSEN

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2009

For the first time since the mid-19th century, a Democrat will represent Northern New York in the U.S. House of Representatives.

William L. Owens, the Democratic and Working Families candidate for the 23rd Congressional District special election, won a tight race Tuesday night.

Mr. Owens garnered 61,666 votes, or 49 percent, with 90 percent of the precincts reporting at 1 a.m. Conservative candidate Douglas L. Hoffman came in with 57,073 votes, or 45 percent. Republican candidate Dierdre K. Scozzafava, who dropped out Saturday, had 6,976 votes, or 6 percent.

The local Republicans put a wringing wet liberal up for their candidate and she quit in ignominy and then endorsed the official party of the Left, and then the candidate of the Conservative Party of New York for crying out loud was the third party candidate and he earned 45% of the vote.

Get that? The establishment party of the Right quit; scattered and unloved because they put a deep-down Leftie up for their supporters to crown, but all the GOP supporters bar a few utterly faithful ones voted for someone who stood up and said what he believed in and he connected with the electorate and he gathered in a coltish 45. The CPNY isn’t even the third party in the USA, nor the fourth.

The Republican Party has been one of the natural parties of government in the USA since anti-slavery became the big issue of the day.

The Democrats grew out of the American Revolution itself. And it won with a four percent majority. Four percent. Whatever their platforms, those two parties are twin colossi; eclipsing all other parties by orders of magnitude.

The Conservative Party of New York? The Freedom Party of Basingstoke? The Tory Party (Provisional) of Kensington and Chelsea? The Tooting Popular Front? Finchley Crusaders?

We have nationwide freedom-loving parties of the Right in this country, and there is talk of more on the way. I’ve been a bit of a wet blanket over here at James’ place, (partly because of the strange cul-de-sac that my suburban odyssey has brought me to perhaps), and the bickering isn’t always good-natured, but still and all, if the American freedom movement can mount a damn close-run thing at the height of their Gramscian Left’s glory, there’s hope too for the two-and-a-half freedom-loving and patriotic parties of the Right to hurt the equally hollowed-out ‘Conservative’ Party here in the UK.

It’s already begun to dig deep locally in England, and there’s no reason, even with our comparable first past the post system, not to hope for both revenge on the caponservatives in the short term, and for actual representation in the medium to long term.

"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."

Now, where did I put my combinations?