In going over the recent elections one thing is clear-that while the people in NJ, Virginia, and NY 23 wanted a course correction, they did not go for an extreme conservatism that is propagated by the tea party groups. While the Republican candidates may have had conservative pasts, both of them knew better than to run far-right campaigns comprised of anti-government libertarian conservative messages or socially conservative stands.

As this article accurately describes, both victors ran not to the right, but towards the political center. Social issues were largely ignored and economics and government centrism, what I have continuously pushed for the party to go towards, took center stage in voters minds. Although both candidates come from parties that are rooted and based in the extremes, the growing number of independents disenchanted with the said parties are becoming an important factor in winning elections.

Again, many moderates fill the ranks of the independents, being chased from the parties over the years (although recent Gallup polling shows that moderates have once again filled the ranks of the democratic party). Many of these independent moderates were actually former members of the northeastern Republican party, and it is a demographic that the Democrats have picked up over the years with many moderates forming an integral party of the democratic party. Fortunately there are enough moderate independents who have chosen to remain independent and who make up majorities in these regions. While some may be fickle voters who lack principles, it is my belief that there are many who in fact do have principles and ideas that simply don’t fit within the confines of the extremes and it is also my belief that these principles rely heavily on economics and governance, exactly what the two republicans who won in New Jersey and Virginia ran on. By ignoring the tea party message and keeping from negative campaigning against Obama and by running on the governing incompetence of the democrats as well as lack of job growth, they ran successfully towards the center.

To capture the center one cannot run as part of the conservative republican wing of the party inhabited by those who exhibit near fetishes of the free-market and disgust for government and governance itself. To win elections candidates must be put forth that have ideas, be they center-left or center-right, that appeal to the idea of ensuring stable markets and economic growth and as a result the continued sustainability of the job market.

The conservative party candidate in the form of Doug Hoffman as well as those celebrity Republicans who abandoned any sense of party loyalty in order to back this person, and their subsequent loss in the general election show how extreme conservatism simply is not the answer that Americans are looking for. The bottom line is that they are looking for someone to effectively run government efficiently and effectively and if the democrats start to once again become the party of incompetency, then we must take the position away from them and show how a responsible republican can run the show.