Sarah Palin's horse may have not won in New York's 23rd district special election last night, but she offered encouragement for the future Doug Hoffmans of the world in a message posted to her Facebook page last night, about half an hour after multiple networks had called the race for Democrat Bill Owens.
Palin wrote:
...The race for New York's 23rd District is not over, just postponed until 2010. The issues of this election have always centered on the economy -- on the need for fiscal restraint, smaller government, and policies that encourage jobs. In 2010, these issues will be even more crucial to the electorate. I commend Doug Hoffman and all the other under-dog candidates who have the courage to put themselves out there and run against the odds.
To the tireless grassroots patriots who worked so hard in that race and to future citizen-candidates like Doug, please remember Reagan's words of encouragement after his defeat in 1976:
"The cause goes on. Don't get cynical because look at yourselves and what you were willing to do, and recognize that there are millions and millions of Americans out there that want what you want, that want it to be that way, that want it to be a shining city on a hill."
The cause goes on.
- Sarah Palin
See her full note here, in which she poses the GOP wins in Virginia and New Jersey as "a victory for common sense and fiscal stability."
Palin's endorsement of Hoffman a week and a half ago marked a crescendo, of sorts, for the outside attention that New York's 23rd district had drawn. In her lengthy endorsement note, also posted to Facebook, she posed the race as emblematic of a broader national "crossroads" and wrote mostly about national issues and conservative ideology--government spending, borrowing, taxes, and national defense.
