Last week, I reported that teabagging candidate Doug Hoffman still had a chance of winning the NY-23 congressional seat away from Democrat Whatever His Name Is and thus averting the tragedy of surrendering that seat to a Democrat for the first time since it was legal in the country to own human beings.
Well, he's still got a chance, but it's not looking quite as chancerific as it was last week. Say la vee. (La vee.)
This leads us to wonder if Republicans — despite growing dissatisfaction with congressional Democrats — the the GOP could still be getting ready to Scozzafava away all of its moderate (reasonable) candidates for 2010 and still end up losing ground.
According to this poll from CNN, that seems to be a possibility…
The poll indicates that a slight majority, 51 percent, of Republicans would prefer to see the GOP in their area nominate candidates who agree with them on all the major the issues even if they have a poor chance of beating the Democratic candidate. Forty-three percent of Republicans say they would rather have candidates with whom they don't agree on all the important issues but who can beat the Democrats.
Democrats polled seemed to place a slightly higher priority on electoral victory: 58 percent say that they would like their party to nominate candidates who can beat Republicans, even if they don't agree with those candidates on all the issues. Fewer than 4 in 10 Democrats say they would rather see their party nominate candidates who agree with them on all major issues, but have a poor chance of beating the Republican candidate.
Translation: Republicans are obstinate and unrealistic, while Democrats are cowardly and accepting of mediocrity.
So, this poll gives us no new information.