Yesterday's elections seem to prove the importance of running centrist campaigns if a party wishes to actually win elections to office, and underscore the problems when extreme candidates, or at least candidates that veer far to one side of the political spectrum represent the party.
Republicans won the two governors races (in New Jersey and Virginia) where the candidates largely refrained from excessive anti-Obama rhetoric in an apparent attempt to lure independents that voted for the president (and could do so again) to vote Republican. It was a big tent strategy that worked.
In New York's District 23rd however, where a more extreme conservative ran under the Conservative Party Label, the Republican vote was split. Some moderate Republicans -- possibly turned off by the conservative positions of the candidate -- voted for the Democrat. The Democrat won a seat the party had not held in over a century.
Now it will be interesting to see whether the national party will be able to encourage candidates to adopt the more centrist, inclusive strategy, or whether the conservative movement will continue to attempt to pull the party to the right and purge it of moderates.
