Steele celebrates GOP wins, plays defense on N.Y. race

An ebullient Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele on Wednesday modestly credited conservative and Republican activists and volunteers a day after breakthrough gubernatorial wins in Virginia and New Jersey - races into which Mr. Steele’s RNC pumped a combined total of $13 million.

But in what many conservative activists saw as the day’s key race, Mr. Steele acknowledged that he made no effort to persuade state Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, the liberal Republican candidate who dropped out of the race last week for an open House seat in upstate New York, to endorse Doug Hoffman, the Conservative Party nominee backed by such top Republicans as former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson.

Mr. Hoffman ended up losing narrowly to Democrat Bill Owens, in a district long dominated by the GOP, after Mrs. Scozzafava endorsed the Democrat.

In a jammed Wednesday morning press conference in the lobby of national GOP headquarters a block south of the Capitol, a broadly smiling Mr. Steele singled out Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, chairman of the Republican Governors Association, and other Republican governors for providing the model for the victories in Virginia and New Jersey.

Mr. Steele also pointed out a little-noticed victory in Pennsylvania, where the Republican candidate won a 10-year term on the state Supreme Court and gave Republicans a 4-to-3 edge on the panel. The state’s high court plays a critical role in the state’s redistricting, and Republicans will thus be in the driver’s seat to draw district lines “for the next 10 to 12 years.”

But the good news was tempered by the events in the New York House race.

After Mrs. Scozzafava dropped out, the Obama White House and House Democrats rushed to cultivate her, sending at least one emissary personally to get her to endorse Mr. Owens.

Mr. Steele said Wednesday that he did not make a similar effort to reach out to Mrs. Scozzafava to endorse Mr. Hoffman, even though Mr. Hoffman was quickly embraced by the national Republican Party when Mrs. Scozzafava dropped out.

Analysts say that the Scozzafava endorsement most likely made the difference in Mr. Hoffman’s narrow loss.

In response to a reporter’s question, Mr. Steele said he didn’t try to get Mrs. Scozzafava to endorse Mr. Hoffman or at least remain neutral because, Mr. Steele said, he is confident Republicans will get the seat back in November 2010.

Asked whether, in retrospect, he thinks he should have made a pitch to her, Mr. Steele said flatly, “No. It’s her choice.”

Acknowledging that the White House apparently wooed her successfully, Mr. Steele said, “God bless the White House. We’ll get the seat back next year.”

At a regular Wednesday gathering of conservative leaders later in the day, Mr. Steele was greeted with repeated rounds of applause and appreciative laughter as he strode around the room, microphone in hand, joking at Democrats’ expense, recapitulating Tuesday’s elections results and forecasting a Republican tide next year in the 2010 midterm elections.

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio, also at the conservative gathering, said he also had not reached out to Mrs. Scozzafava after her decision to quit the race. He said any offer from Republicans in Washington was unlikely to match what the Obama White House was able to dangle before her.

A source at the National Republican Congressional Committee told The Washington Times that telephone calls placed by various Republicans - he didn’t say who - at the NRCC went unreturned by Mrs. Scozzafava.

Mr. Steele rejected arguments by liberal pundits that the efforts of national conservatives such as Mrs. Palin created a backlash in the New York district against outsiders trying to sway a local election.

He said the original problem was that state party officials simply chose Mrs. Scozzafava as the special election candidate for the open seat, instead of letting Republican voters make their choice in a formal primary election.

When anti-tax “tea party” conservative activists and high-profile figures on the right made Mrs. Scozzafava’s liberalism an issue, voters in the district held their own informal primary, denying her the donations her campaign needed to be competitive.

“She was leading among the voters at one point,” Mr. Steele said. “But I think what we saw in the last few weeks was a primary process that should have taken place in the first instance.”