Erick Erickson at redstate.com - one of the big supporters of the Hoffman candidacy - concludes:

Third parties lack funding and ability for a host of reasons. Conservatives are going to have to work from within the GOP. The GOP had better pay attention.

Read the entire piece here: www.redstate.com/erick/2009/11/04/in-ny-23-conservatives-win/

***

David Frum weighs in with a good piece on the giant fail that was the race for the 23rd, from a conservative's point of view.

Read it here: www.frumforum.com/the-blame-roll

***

Proof positive of 'principle over party.'

And 'principle over winning.'

And 'principle over knowing how the local district works.'

Conservative Party chief Mike Long says he'd do it all over again, the 'it' being the sinking of Dede Scozzafava and annointment of Doug Hoffman.

Read Elizabeth Benjamin's column on the subject here.

***

I don't want to lose track of this one, which got short shrift on election night.

The Doug 'He's One of Us' Hoffman campaign was fueled by a million dollars from the arch conservative 'Club For Growth.'

That is a phenomenal amount of money coming from, essentially, one group, though the cost of campaigns in general is going up.

And remember, the money was spent in a Republican, generally conservative area.

***

The world is slowly returning to normal.

I know that. I watch Fox News.

Late last night, you could see it when Fox starting talking about Doug Hoffman as a less than inspiring candidate.

By this morning, the north country was being referred to as 'very rural' and 'obscure,' and one of the talking heads allowed as to how Hoffman might have lost because he was too national, not local enough, and people here don't like that.

Remember, yesterday this race was the number one political story in the nation, a contest for the future of the Republican Party, a model for tea partiers everywhere, a referendum on President Obama.

Today, we're just...us.

***

Frum Forum's (the former New Majority) Tim Mak makes some good points about the dynamics of the Owens-Hoffman race, and catches an odd comment from of the Fox News crew.

Read it here.

***

Right around midnight, I decided Bill Owens was the next Congressman for the north country.

It wasn't exactly a brave decision: Fox News had 'projected' Owens the winner a few minutes earlier, and for the better part of the hour before that the collective media had been edging toward calling the race - it moved from 'too close to call' to an 'apparent lead' by Owens to ruminating about how much Doug Hoffman would have to win of the remaining vote in order to overtake Owens.

And just after I decided the margin was too big, Hoffman went on tv and conceded.

Still, there are some caveats attached to the Owens victory.

12 election districts in Fulton County were not counted last night, because of a court order impounding the voting machines and some other issues.

An unknown number in St. Lawrence County - up to 10 election districts, we were told - were affected by machine problems.

We also heard of a few districts in Lewis County having trouble, and for some reason, four districts in Franklin County didn't report in.

On top of that, it appears we have at least 5,000 uncounted absentee ballots.

By my math, add all these issues together and Hoffman would still have to outperform his election night returns by a lot in order to overtake Owens.

But as I write early Wednesday morning, our numbers are still less complete than I would like.

***

I spent Tuesday night tracking the numbers in the 23rd, and here's what I saw:

- Hoffman lost because he failed to carry the southern part of the district by a big number. I don't have my tally sheets at home, but Owens was very competitive in Oswego County, where Hoffman could have expected a big win.

- Even though Dede Scozzafava dropped out over the weekend, she still picked up nearly 7000 votes. That would have been enough to give Hoffman a comfortable lead, and I'm sure some people will today call her a spoiler, but you can just as easily argue Hoffman was her spoiler.

- Owens ran very well in the northeast part of the district, his home turf.

***

If, as I expect, Scozzafava now switches parties, the gift of the conservative magi to the rest of us is to add two Democrats to the north country political landscape. We will have gone in a couple of years from solidly Republican to solidly Democrat.