Anchorage Daily News

The lone bright spot for Democrats in Tuesday's local and state elections was the victory of Bill Owens in the strange off-year race to fill a New York House seat long held by the GOP. Did Sarah Palin and the hard-right wing of the Republican Party overreach by endorsing third-party candidate Doug Hoffman in a moderately conservative district, as Marc Ambinder at CBS argues? Andrea Tantaros of Fox News says Palin "can't run around endorsing unwinnable candidates. She'll lose her political mojo and be labeled a spoiler." Not good for anyone who hopes to run for president. But Erick Erickson at Red State says the campaign was a victory for the GOP grass roots: "We did exactly what we set out to do - crush the establishment-backed GOP candidate." A Hoffman victory would have been just "gravy." Ben Smith of Politico cautions Democrats not to read too much into the Owens victory: "The resurgent conservative movement did show -- to anyone who still doubts -- that it's a ... powerful force." As for Palin herself, she says in her Facebook post today that "the race for New York's 23rd District is not over, just postponed until 2010."

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