Smaller Government vs Smaller Party

Patrick Tuohey at Big Government has some complaints about the Tea Party support for third party candidate Doug Hoffman in the NY 23rd election.

Chris Wilson of Wilson Research Strategies–and a fellow brigand from that 1992 Buchanan campaign–published a similar concern:

I don’t necessarily disagree with how the Tea Party members are expressing their anger and backing a candidate they believe in; however, their work will split the Republican vote and give NY CD23 to the Democrats.

The reason I believe the Republican and Conservative party candidates will fail is because they draw support from the same vote base. If you split the conservative and moderate Republicans in just about any race in the nation, the base erodes and the candidate will lose.

I understand the urge to clean one’s own house, but as I learned from Morton Blackwell, “don’t make the good the enemy of the perfect.” The issue in New York’s 23rd may very well be resolved due to pressure from national conservatives, but a campaign of eating our own is not something we should relish.

The difficulty is that the Democrat running in the race is more Republican than the Republican. And to tell the truth, the Democrat is not very Republican.

Thus the support for third party candidate Hoffman.

Of course I left a comment at the post:

Well yes. We should suffer while evils are sufferable. When they are not we may need to increase suffering to decrease evil.

I think there was a famous document that once made that point. And a civil war leading to a revolution fought on that principle.

I'm told there is a certain Country that celebrates that civil war every July 4th.

H/T Instapundit