On paper, the race in New York's 20th Congressional District Special Election should have been a going away victory for Republican Jim Tedisco, a 20 year veteran of New York politics and the current minority leader in the state assembly.  Republicans outnumber Democrats by 70,000 in registered voters giving any GOP candidate an instant advantage.  But last night, the political world found that Democrat Scott Murphy had surpised all by his razor thin victory in this rural, conservative New York district.

With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Murphy leads Tedisco by only 59 votes, 77,344 to 77,285.

Thousands of absentee ballots will essentially decide the race — but not until after April 13.

Each candidate emerged late Tuesday evening to give what amounted to dueling victory speeches at their campaign celebrations, seemingly caught off guard by the razor-thin margin.

Source: Albany Times Union

Whether Murphy is able to hold his victory following the recount and counting of absentee ballots is trivial.  He has already proved that the current GOP message is not resonating with voters, even Republicans!  This race was defined by new RNC head Michael Steele as the "beginning of the resurregence" of the new Republican Party.  It failed miserably.

The GOP is at its lowest point in over seventy years.  It is hard to answer what is a Republican because the party appears to have NO ideas accept tax cuts will solve all problems.  This lack of definition has allowed a feud to develop between the conservative wing of the party dominated by talk radio host Rush Limbaugh and the political wing of the party headed by Steele to engulf Republicans over their direction and message.

Republicans and conservatives need to stop and study their history.  Following past electoral debacles, the party has fused its ideas to construct a pragmatic platform that became a plausible alternative to the Democrats.  The opportunity exists at this time for the party to develop ideas that Americans could buy into without holding true to the conservative philosophy of personal responsibility and limited government.

Until the Republican Party can define to the American electorate a 21st Century philosophy based on their core ideals, situations like the 20th NY Special Election will continue to fan the flames of the internal fire that is raging within the party today!