So A Democrat Walks Into NY23 And Wins An Election….

One of the more oft-observed problems with political reporting is your lesser analyst's impulse to over-interpret a couple of data points. Yes, you know what I'm talking about. AP, do your Drudge-bait thang, complete with a "GOP Sweep" headline!

WASHINGTON – Independents who swept Barack Obama to a historic 2008 victory broke big for Republicans on Tuesday as the GOP wrested political control from Democrats in Virginia and New Jersey, a troubling sign for the president and his party heading into an important midterm election year.

It goes on:

Conservative Republican Bob McDonnell's victory in the Virginia governor's race over Democrat R. Creigh Deeds and moderate Republican Chris Christie's ouster of unpopular New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine was a double-barreled triumph for a party looking to rebuild after being booted from power in national elections in 2006 and 2008….

And Democrat Bill Owens captured a GOP-held vacant 23rd Congressional District seat in New York in a race that highlighted fissures in the Republican Party and illustrated hurdles the GOP could face in capitalizing on any voter discontent with Obama and Democrats next fall.

Wait: Virginia elected a conservative? And a moderate in New Jersey was able to unseat an unpopular incumbent? And a gay marriage thing that's never happened before also didn't happen last night? Well, it's a good thing you have me—Mr. or Ms. Political Analyst!—around to detail all the many troubling implications these developments carry for the guy on the national stage who received 69 million votes last year!

What's fascinating, though, is that fourth graph: because there actually was an election last night where our national political opiates got mainline-slammed into the bloodstream of local politics, with all the can't-help-yourself sloppiness and unintended consequences that metaphor implies. And by any stretch, it's hard to see how that turned out well for the GOP.

In upstate New York's 23rd congressional district—a seat Democrats hadn't carried for well over 100 years—Sarah Palin swooped in on her Rogue Express to snub pro-choice, pro-stimulus Republican Dede Scozzafava, and encourage the district's conservatives to vote for the Conservative party candidate, Doug Hoffman. Then, the Republican dropped out and wound up endorsing Bill Owens, the Democrat.

Take it away Dave Weigel, reporting on the ground from conservative battle-stations:

Slightly before midnight on Tuesday, reality reared its ugly head. Hoffman lost to Democrat Bill Owens, who became the first member of his party to represent this region of New York in Congress since the 1870s. The margin when Hoffman conceded was slightly more than 4,000 votes. Nothing went right. Owens won his base in the northeastern part of the district, and he won or held his own in the parts of the district that Scozzafava—who endorsed Owens after leaving the race—represents in the assembly. Hoffman underperformed in the Syracuse, N.Y., suburbs that neither candidate had political ties to, even though polls had him leading by a 2-1 margin there.

Weigel also notes how the conservatives' rhetoric shifted from predicting an out-and-out victory to gloating about a Pyrrhic one on election night.

This morning, the only mention of the NY23 race I could find on the FoxNews.com front page was this "Fox Nation" analysis by Andrea Tantaros. Yesterday, she tweeted: "NY-23: weak Dem + weaker faux GOPer + conservative with a strong message + Obama skepticism = recipe for victory." Today, she writes a piece headlined "Four Things We Learned From the NY 23 Race."

Does the lesson include not allowing the Club for Growth and an out-of-state, national election-losing, non-office-holder to jointly decide which candidate is the best fit for the people there? No.

Instead, her lessons are: 1) the national GOP is absolutely fine, and not bleeding influence; 2) Sarah Palin knows how to get the press to cover things; 3) no, the GOP does not have a counter-productive civil war on its hands, why do you ask? … and, 4) the press likes a good story.

Over at Red State last night, Erick Erickson had a different take: which was that conservatives won the race by losing, and also by exploiting all the conflicts Tantaros denies. This is how his piece starts:

The race has now been called for Democrat Bill Owens.


This is a huge win for conservatives.


"Whaaaa. . . ?" you say.


There are two big victories at work in New York's 23rd Congressional District.

The victory is, apparently, that this kind of thing is going to continue until the GOP just straight-up nominates, on its own, far-right candidates who will be unappealing to moderates. This is at loggerheads with Tantaros's point that there's no civil war.

Then Erickson contradicts the "Fox Nation" report again, writing: "And make no mistake, despite the Beltway spin, we know for certain based on statements from the local Republican parties, that they chose Scozzafava based on advice from the Washington crowd."

Okay, so it is a war. And they're… winning it. Or else there isn't, and everything's fine, besides. This message may not have been entirely perfected yet.

Seth Colter Walls is a culture reporter at Newsweek. Previously, he wrote about U.S. and Middle East politics for a variety of outlets.