The nation’s attention will be increasingly riveted on the suburbs of Buffalo, New York, in the next two weeks as a close race for an open seat in the House of Representatives has become a surrogate for the debate about Medicare reform and the national deficit. As I wrote earlier this week, with polls showing Democrat Kathy Hochul overtaking Republican Jane Corwin, the national GOP is sending in reinforcements to try and hold onto a district where they have a huge advantage in registration and they haven’t lost in decades.
But contrary to the spin that liberal newspapers like the New York Times put on this election last week, it’s becoming increasingly clear that a backlash against the Medicare reform proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee, isn’t the decisive factor here. What is decisive is the role being played by a longtime Democrat who usurped the nomination of the insurgent Tea Party and is creating major problems for the Republicans.
As the Washington Post reports today, Tom Davis, the Tea Party candidate in the special election doesn’t fit the usual conservative pattern of the national movement of that name. In fact he was the Democrats’ candidate for this seat in the 2004, 2006, and 2008 elections. His decision to stop being the Democrats’ perennial standard-bearer was apparently strictly a tactical move to help him gain election in a district where Democrats are in a minority. And far from being associated with the national Tea Party movement, the Tea Party line on which he is running was his own invention. His stands on the issues have little to do with what are considered Tea Party concerns; his main concern is opposing free trade.
By any reasonable definition of the term, the independently wealthy Davis is what ought to be considered a false flag candidate. Although his party label positions him as a conservative true believer seeking to overturn an establishment Republican, he is in fact nothing of the kind—even though most of those who say they will vote for him are Republicans. With Davis polling in the range of 20 percent or more, the Democrats have been presented with a great chance to win even if their candidate doesn’t break 40 percent of the vote. No matter what the outcome of the May 24 vote, then, there is no reasonable way that it should be interpreted as a referendum on the Ryan budget proposal.
