The teabaggers think they won Tuesday’s votes. They got Bob “women have no business working” McDonnell into the Virginia state house, although that vote would certainly have been closer and perhaps even have had a different outcome if the Democrats had fielded a better candidate than Creigh Deeds.

They got Chris Christie into the New Jersey statehouse, although if Jon Corzine had been a better governor that certainly wouldn’t have happened. Look for Christie to be a one-termer like Corzine.

But the one they really like to point to is the guy who lost: Doug Hoffman, defeated by Democrat Bill Owens in an upstate New York Congressional district that had been in Republican hands since 1872. Here’s Rush Limbaugh:

You know what, I was reading Erick Erickson today at RedState.com, and he was the real first behind Hoffman guy. I mean, he was really pushing it on his blog, and he wrote today — I’ll paraphrase it — he wrote, “Look, the message out of this is we took out a horrible Republican.  We kept a horrible Republican from possibly winning and totally redefining the party in a way that would make it a permanent minority party.”  So in Erick’s view, yeah, it would have been great if Hoffman won, but the real victory was making sure that a Republican-in-name-only did not win.

And here’s what Erickson himself said:

First, the GOP now must recognize it will either lose without conservatives or will win with conservatives. In 2008, many conservatives sat home instead of voting for John McCain. Now, in NY-23, conservatives rallied and destroyed the Republican candidate the establishment chose.

I have said all along that the goal of activists must be to defeat Scozzafava. Doug Hoffman winning would just be gravy. A Hoffman win is not in the cards, but we did exactly what we set out to do — crush the establishment backed GOP candidate.

And make no mistake, despite the Beltway spin, we know for certain based on statements from the local Republican parties, that they chose Scozzafava based on advice from the Washington crowd.

So we have demonstrated to the GOP that it must not take conservatives for granted. The GOP spent $900,000.00 on a Republican who dropped out and endorsed the Democrat. Were we to combine Scozzafava and Hoffman’s votes, Hoffman would have won.

Secondly, and just as importantly, there has all of a sudden been a huge movement among some activists to go the third party route. We see in NY-23 that this is not possible as third parties are not viable.

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.

For all intents and purposes, NY-23 is a trial run for Florida. And in Florida, the conservative candidate is operating inside the GOP. If John Cornyn and the NRSC do not want to see Florida go the way of NY-23, they better stand down.

Yeah, they really showed that GOP establishment, losing NY23 to a Democrat and all. And the message was not lost on that establishment. Sen. John Cornyn, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, did stand down. The NRSC, even though it recruited several candidates to run in 2010, won’t endorse anyone in the primaries.

And that little threat about Florida? It’s all about Gov. Charlie Crist, running for Senate. See, Charlie backed Barack Obama’s stimulus plan, and as we all know, backing anything a Democrat does is strictly prohibited in the new GOP, which views bipartisanship as a Democratically led Congress doing exactly what the Republicans want and nothing more.

The teabaggers want Marco Rubio, the lunatic rightwinger backed by by looniest of lunatics, South Carolina Sen. Jim Deminted.

I’d say the teabaggers did win Tuesday. But their big victory is severely limited — to the Republican Party. Republicans are now signalling that they’re willing to swing further to the right than they already are and take their lead from the teabaggers and the 912ers and birthers and all the other crazies who make up the far right.

The plan, of course, is to make sure Obama fails, so that next year the electorate will blame the Democrats for everything bad that happens and vote them back into power, this time with a solid wingnut majority.

Not gonna happen.

Sarah Palin and Dick Armey, the leaders of the new right, swooped in and backed Hoffman. He lost, something Erickson and Limbaugh think is no big deal. Really? Losing a seat you’ve had for 138 years, with your “big guns” leading the charge, is no big deal? Just where do they think moderate Republicans — and independents — are gonna go?

NY23 voters, about as conservative as they come, rejected the right wing crazy. Even the ousted Republican candidate, Dede Scozzafava, endorsed Bill Owens, while Republicans who had backed her scrambled to throw their support to Hoffman or hide behind the nearest rock hoping nobody noticed.

There’s a chance, of course, that their master plan will work. American voters, having put GWBush into the White House twice, aren’t known for casting informed ballots. And that’s where we progressives come in.

Independents and other moderates had a clear clue a year ago. The teabaggers, of course, claim that John McCain wasn’t conservative enough and that’s why he lost. Not true. McCain was a bad candidate, it’s true, but he lost because of Sarah Palin and her neolithic ideas about all manner of things, not to mention her complete disdain for actually understanding the issues of the day and being able to discuss them without calling Democrats socialists.

Expect the fearmongering to continue from the right, my friends. They are desperate to regain control and keep this country in the dark ages from which it is so valiantly trying to climb. These conservatives are fearful people, willing to lie and use outrageous hyperbole to frighten the good people of America into voting for them.

We don’t have the ear of my colleagues. Not yet. But we can get there. We must keep pushing into their faces the truth that conservative now equals crazy. The Republicans have abandoned true conservatism thoroughly. That is the No.  1 lesson of NY23.

Those true conservatives now face a dilemma. Do they continue to go with a Republican party that is actively working to force them out, or do they take solace with a Democratic party that will listen to them, and even adopt some of their ideas?

Olympia Snowe? Susan Collins? Your state just voted to take away civil rights from an entire population, thanks to the lies the crazies told. Do you really want that legacy attached to your names? The Republican party is now Tom Coburn, James Inhofe, Mike Pence, Jim Deminted, Michelle Bachmann, Virginia Foxx and Bob McDonnell. Care to join a group that hates women, denies climate change, believes Obama was born in Kenya and thinks health care reform is worse than terrorism? Really?

Look at Arlen Specter, who bolted the GOP when faced with a teabagger candidate, and now he’s moving as far left as he dares with a more progressive Democratic challenger in his primary. Which way do you think the general election will go in Pennsylvania?

Our time is here, my friends. Make the best of it, and we’ll see true change.