Dave Kimmel, who was the party chair in the Town of Plattsburgh, will publicly announce his bid against Duprey tonight. His stated reason is to make Albany accountable to the people and "fight and give businesses what they need to be successful."

But the payback element looms. Duprey backed Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, a moderate Republican who was attacked and eventually nudged out by more conservative elements of the party that rallied around Doug Hoffman, the Conservative Party's nominee. I first met Kimmel on Election Day, where he was making phone calls and coordinating volunteers in Hoffman's Plattsburgh field office.

"It's a small part of it, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a part of it," Kimmel told me by phone this weekend when I asked how much of his run was motivated by Duprey's support of Scozzafava. "We shouldn't need to baby sit our elected officials."

"She said she would represent Republican values, but when she went and backed Dede Scozzafava it means you have to second-guess a lot of the things she was doing," Kimmel said. He also is opposed to same-sex marriage, which both Scozzafava and Duprey support.

Kimmel told me he will seek the Republican and Conservative Party nominations; if he loses the Republican line, he will push on with just the Conservative backing (should he secure it.)

"I'm in this to win, and I have to be on the ballot to do that," Kimmel said.

The measure lost by a surprisingly lopsided 38-24 count, with eight Democrats joining all 30 of the chamber's Republicans in opposition. In defeat, Senator Tom Duane, the openly gay author of the marriage legislation, cried betrayal and derided those who voted no for a lack of "backbone." Those taunts, though, are the only penalty that just about all of them will face.

When it comes to gay marriage, the electorate can be broken into three basic groups: a relatively small core of committed opponents; a relatively small core of committed supporters; and a vast swath of conflicted voters who like to think of themselves as "tolerant," but who are instinctively uneasy with sudden, sweeping change.

To face blowback, then, a senator must (a) represent a district in which absolutist sentiment predominates, either among primary voters or general election voters; and (b) vote against that absolutist sentiment.

This automatically excludes every Senate Republican. By voting no, they all shielded themselves from primary challenges (at least on this issue)—no small concern, particularly in rural upstate districts, where religious conservatives can play a key role in G.O.P. primaries. We saw this on a larger scale last month, when Dede Scozzafava's gay-marriage support helped spur an insurrection that cost her a congressional seat.

Granted, not every G.O.P. senator comes from such a district. Many represent suburban towns where the electorate tends to be moderate on social issues. But these voters fall into that broad, mushy category of "tolerant but uneasy." They don't have any particular religious or moral gripe with gay people, but they aren't preoccupied with social issues—and they are easily persuaded by suggestions that full marriage equality is a step too far.

Republicans (and Democrats, for that matter) from these districts need only convince their constituents that they, too, are "tolerant." At this point in history, that leaves plenty of room for opposition to gay marriage. Arguments like "I'm all for civil unions, but marriage should be reserved for a man and a woman" or "We have more important issues to deal with right now—like the economy" will satisfy these voters.

To be sure, this also leaves room for some Republican senators to support gay marriage, since voters in these districts also won't punish a gay marriage supporter (provided he or she doesn't seem too strident or inflexible on the issue—suburban moderates don't like wing nuts). And heading into Wednesday, it appeared that at least a handful of suburban Republicans were ready to vote yes. Politically, they would have been fine doing so. But they'll also be fine now, after voting no.

Democrats, by and large, also won't pay a price. None of the 24 who voted yes will face serious primary challenges as a result. They almost all hail from districts where a no vote would have put them in jeopardy of a primary challenge—or where wishy-washy general-election voters (as noted above) won't be particularly offended by a yes vote.

Most of the eight who voted no will also be fine, although a few could face some indirect fallout.

On the safe end, for example, is Bill Stachowski from the Buffalo area, who staked out a cautious, "tolerant-but-uneasy" position that matches his constituency. "He has no problem with same-sex civil unions," Stachowski's spokesman explained a while back, "but does not want to get into the marriage-classification area." 

Similarly, Joseph Addabbo, who represents a culturally conservative corner of Queens, made a politically smart call in voting no. There are plenty of Democrats in his district, but they aren't Daily Kos types.

Where things could get interesting, though, is with Hiram Monserrate and George Onorato.

Monserrate is already in grave danger thanks to his conviction on a misdemeanor assault charge that stemmed from accusations that he slashed his girlfriend's face with a glass. There was also his defection from the Senate's Democratic caucus this summer, which briefly threw the chamber into Republican hands (sort of).

All of this was enough to cost him official party backing; The Queens Democratic organization is already rallying around Jose Peralta. By itself, Monserrate's gay marriage vote wouldn't be enough to cost him his seat in his district; but it will provide his intraparty foes (who are already well armed) with one more weapon to rile up opposition to him in a primary.

Onorato's district includes its share of cultural conservatives—but not as many as Addabbo's. At 81, he's already vulnerable to a primary challenge from a young and ambitious Democrat. His no vote will provide such a Democrat—Mike Gianaris or Eric Gioia, Azi suggests—with a good excuse for a campaign against him.

As disheartening as it was, Wednesday's vote shouldn't discourage gay marriage supporters too much. History is moving inexorably in their direction. A generation ago, the "tolerance" that drives most voters on gay issues was defined as opposition to overt discrimination. That definition has now been expanded to include civil union - something that 65 percent of all New Yorkers now support (and something that was nowhere near the agenda a generation ago).

Eventually, reflexive support for civil unions will evolve into reflexive support for full-fledged marriage among the vast, mushy middle. Sixty-one percent of 18-to-34-year-olds in New York now support gay marriage—including 48 percent of those who consider themselves Republicans.

The day will come when a state senator will be risking his or her career in opposing gay marriage. Wednesday was just a reminder that we're not there yet.

"I haven't really considered that point, because I don't think I'll ever get there. I'm really confident we'll have the Republican nomination and the Conservative nomination," Lazio told me by phone this afternoon. He's taking all the attention he can get.

I asked whether he would consider the possibility--he today announced the endorsement of Tom Long, the Queens County Conservative Party chairman and the brother Mike Long, the statewide party boss--in light of a special election in the 23^rd Congressional district, where a surging Conservative candidate forced Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava from the race.

This is the second Conservative county chairman to endorse Lazio, who has courted Mike Long and his endorsement. (No Republican has won statewide office without the Conservative Party's backing.) But he doesn't see himself as a Scozzafava.

"First of all, I have been endorsed by all of my seven prior races by both the Republican and Conservative parties, and I think on particularly economic issues, the Conservative Party has found my positions on taxes, on balanced budgets, on fiscal discipline, on job creation, to be in line with their core beliefs. So I'm very confident that this is a very different race than New York 23," Lazio said.

He also weighed in on two of the big Capitol issues of the day: the budget deficit deal, in which he again attacked Andrew Cuomo, and same-sex marriage.

Lazio said he favors civil unions and would not support the current bill. I asked him if he would veto it if he were governor.

"I'm not going to speculate on that," he said.

Lazio said the situation with the deficit was "sadly, not unexpected" and an "embarrassment." He said Andrew Cuomo--who today announced a crackdown on Internet sex offenders--is not helping. (Cuomo has never admitted that he is running for governor; he has said repeatedly his only plan "at this time" is to run for re-election as attorney general.)

"The other tragedy is you have the attorney general Andrew Cuomo out there, who continues to hide in the shadows dropping dimes on David Paterson at a time when we need leadership. He's got his folks--his agents--making calls undermining David Paterson," Lazio said. "The state is collapsing. I have no objection to him talking about sex offenders, but he's looking for the political issues that are convenient for him personally. The state needs real leadership, even if he's got to hurt somebody's feelings by coming out for something. If he's a leader, he needs to start acting like a leader."

Alas, the follow-through was lacking.

Scozzafava and Armey were invited for a segment pegged to last week's news that the national G.O.P. may adopt a sort-of litmus test for future Republican candidates, requiring them to support eight of ten agenda items to receive official party backing.

They were the perfect guests for this topic, with the Armey-assisted destruction of Scozzafava's campaign in the 23^rd District serving as a preview of the implications of such a purity test.

An extended back-and-forth between them would have vividly illustrated the purity vs. pragmatism debate that is now gripping the G.O.P. - and that Armey's side is clearly winning. It also would have been fun to watch. Too bad the format didn't allow for any direct interaction between them.

Scozzafava, for instance, told host Harry Smith that she would have scored seven out of ten on the proposed purity test.

"I had the opportunity to review the list this past week," she said. "And I would've been at seven out of ten. If people looked at my record and understood how I felt about a lot of the federal issues, I think they could see that I was for lower taxes, lower government spending."

Here, a response from Armey - followed by a rebuttal from Scozzafava - would have been useful. Does he agree that Scozzafava would have scored seven out of ten (the threshold that, at least according to Armey, a candidate would need to reach to qualify for party support)? If so, then why was he so adamant about opposing Scozzafava (and, thus, jeopardizing the G.O.P.'s chances of hanging on to the 23^rd District seat)? And if not, then which agenda items does he think she is inaccurately claiming to support?

Such an exchange might have revealed something about the substance and psychology of Armey's movement, which could claim more "moderate" Republican scalps in the months ahead. Most of the other supposed heretics being targeted by the right offer the same basic defense that Scozzafava pursued on Sunday, claiming that their views actually overlap with the right on most issues.

There is some quantitative evidence to back this up. For instance, Lindsey Graham, whom many on the right view as another Scozzafava, actually boasts a lifetime rating of 90 from the American Conservative Union. But Graham was recently censured by Republicans in his own state for being insufficiently conservative.

The right's hostility toward Graham, Scozzafava and other perceived sell-outs (like Florida's Charlie Crist) seems disproportionate when you consider their overall bodies of work. This suggests that emotion plays a strong role in the purity movement - that the willingness of any Republican to show public flexibility on an emotionally-resonant issue (like Graham working for an immigration compromise or Scozzafava supporting abortion and gay rights) is by itself enough for the right to declare that Republican a traitor to the cause.

But after Scozzafava made her seven-out-of-ten assertion, Smith asked a new question of Armey, about whether the right's efforts in the 23^rd could be considered a success. A reasonable question, no doubt, but one that left Armey painting in broad strokes. Scozzafava, he said, had always been a "bad fit" for the race and that she'd been "dropping like a brick" even before Doug Hoffman decided to run on the Conservative Party line.

"The fact of the matter was even the Democrat was running against her as a big

spender," Armey offered. "She was a bad fit for that race. Had there been an electoral primary process, she wouldn't have won the primary, she wouldn't have been the candidate, and the Republican would win that race."

It wasn't until several minutes later, after Smith bantered with the segment's other guest, former R.N.C. Chairman Ed Gillespie, that Scozzafava was able to speak up again. She'd actually been ahead by seven points in mid-October, Scozzafava asserted, when "all of a sudden" national conservatives "flooded the market, distorted my record." On what specific issues her record was distorted wasn't discussed, and the segment ended moments later.

Casual viewers were left with only a vague sense of why Armey and his allies were so vehemently opposed to Scozzafava - and why, by extension, ideological discipline has suddenly become the G.O.P. base's driving cause.

But this is a phenomenon that will play a major role in next year's elections. By inducing a dialogue between Scozzafava and Armey, "Face the Nation" could have explored how much of it is rational and how much of it is emotional. Instead, we got more principled-sounding rhetoric that doesn't really tell us much of anything.

I found Doug Hoffman gawking at the chamber's ornate ceiling, indulging what he monotonically insisted is a deep passion for architecture, chatting with his wife Carol and the Rev. Jason McGuire, the lobbyist here who opposes same-sex marriage on behalf of a group called New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms. McGuire was a paid consultant to Hoffman during his recent failed congressional bid, and today served as an impromptu tour guide.

I asked Hoffman if he was going to meet with Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava while he was here. Or Jim Tedisco or Brian Kolb, for that matter. Or if he was going to lobby for same-sex marriage; his candidacy has spooked many Republicans in the State Senate who might have thought of voting for it, as McGuire delights in telling people.

"No, this really was impromptu," Hoffman said, as effusive as ever. I asked him what message his candidacy sent to Republicans, and if he would run again.

"Well, I said all along that I was fighting for the soul of the Republican Party, and I think that I accomplished that. I think that we got the message out there that if we're going to have values and ideals, that candidates should reflect those values and ideals," Hoffman replied.

Naturally, it was the president's Brooklyn-based, "no fingerprints" political fixer Patrick Gaspard--who was last seen urging Governor David Paterson to go along quietly into New York's political night--reports Jason Horowitz in today's Washington Post.

According to a White House official with knowledge of the courtship, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel assigned the mission to his political director, Patrick Gaspard, who months earlier floated the idea in the State Assembly of Scozzafava running as a Democrat and now asked allies to console her.

And which New York official did the White House call for such a favor?

Well, who else but ascendant Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. Mr. Cuomo consoled Ms. Scozzafava with his own inspiring personal story of a failed campaign that now seems like a distant memory, and she certainly sounded inspired.

"You're probably the next governor," Scozzafava said she told Cuomo.

The White House also got Senator Chuck Schumer to make a call, and they even got Representative Steve Israel, who's taken orders from the White House before.

"She had to be convinced that her endorsement was make or break, and I believed it was," Senator Schumer told Horowitz.

Mr. Owens went on to win by a narrow three points over Conservative Doug Hoffman, while Ms. Scozzafava pulled five points on the Republican line despite having already dropped out.

"Today, I had a thorough and frank discussion with Assemblywoman Scozzafava," Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb said in a statement. "As a result, Dede has tendered, and I accepted, her resignation as our Conference's Leader Pro Tempore. Over the coming weeks, I will be assessing who will serve as our Conference's next Leader Pro Tempore to lead our Assembly floor debates."

Kolb hinted at this a week ago.

Owens announced the vote in a press release and suggested as much in Watertown yesterday. He just concluded a special election campaign against Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava and Doug Hoffman, but never got specific about how he would vote on many of the healthcare proposals that were floating through, including H.R. 3962, which could be voted on Saturday.

"During his campaign for Congress, Owens showed consistent support for legislation that would end pre-existing condition exclusions, reign in spending, protect small businesses and keep middle-class taxes low," the press release says. (They probably meant "rein in." Anyway.)

When I first talked to Owens on the night of his nomination, he told me he was against a public option for healthcare (then laid out his four criteria). A week later, Owens was endorsed by the union SEIU 1199, whose political director Kevin Finnegan told me "his position is a little more nuanced than that." Finnegan said the union picked Owens because he would work with the president.

A few weeks later, after Barack Obama gave a speech to Congress about the issue, I called Owens for his reaction, and again asked him about health care. He refused to be specific about the public option, and referred to the four principles above: "I don't want to apply a litmus test, I don't want to apply a label. I want to be able to analyze the information and the bill and come to a conclusion," he said then.

Nancy Pelosi unveiled the bill members will vote on Oct. 29; the same night as a televised debate in Syracuse. Owens hinted then he could support the House bill.

"The bills were changing so rapidly prior to that, and I suspect will continue to change," he told reporters the next day in Watertown, noting he had bill language to analyze. "I'm going to measure my view of any legislation that I will vote on based on the four criteria that I talked about for a couple of months now."

Now, after the election and after he was sworn in: "This legislation will reform the insurance industry and provide increased access to affordable healthcare without taxing healthcare benefits, cutting Medicare benefits or raising taxes on the middle class, and that is exactly the direction we need to go," Owens said. "There are still changes I would like to make, including raising the payroll exemption for small businesses, but like I said last week, there is a fundamental need for reform and we must act with a sense of urgency. This plan will reign in costs, strengthen the middle class and protect our economy from additional debt down the road."

Republicans were never able to specifically attack Owens on this issue, as they have attacked other House members. And with an internecine fight between the Republican and Conservative candidates, the issue faded to the background in the final days of the campaign.

"You have to really look hard to say that he said anything about anything. Everyone was so transfixed with Dede and Hoffman," said Jim Ellis, the Franklin County Republican chairman. "I don't think people who are voters in the North Country are in favor of card check, and they're not in favor of the public health care option, and they're not in favor of Nancy Pelosi. He's going to stand up and be a little tutu for Nancy Pelosi. We'll see it tomorrow."

Four other upstate Democrats are not clear supporters of the issue: Eric Massa says he will vote no, and Mike Arcuri, Scott Murphy and Dan Maffei have not taken public positions.

"The late labor candidate won," said Ron McDougall, the president of the Jefferson-Lewis-St. Lawrence Central Labor Council (and the husband of Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava) told me. "Certainly there was an intensified effort in the end. There were some leaders that hardly took a minute off."

"The plumbers union is never wrong," boasted Larry Bulman, the political director for the New York State Pipe and Trades association (and Saratoga County Democratic chair) after last night's victory. His union, unlike McDougall's organization, has supported Owens for weeks. "We have the harder workers. People take us for granted, but it's the unions that win these races."

Other organizations came around later. A spokesman for NYSUT, whose war room I visited on Monday evening, told me this morning that the union had 300 activists handing out leaflets and making phone calls for Owens in the final 72 hours. Denis Hughes, president of the New York AFL-CIO said "with only hours to prepare, and less than three days to implement its strategy, labor's ground forces knocked on thousands of doors and made close to 150,000 phone calls.   In less than 72 hours, organized labor mobilized hundreds of volunteers on the streets in the 23rd Congressional District."

And these supporters often overlapped with those of Scozzafava, as David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report. At the same time, he says, Hoffman's ground game didn't rise to the occasion.

"This is a geographically enormous district where the largest town is only 28,000 people and voters pride themselves on living in a land apart," Wasserman wrote. "The fierce out-of-district support that Hoffman generated from grassroots conservative groups caused a backlash among many voters who felt as if outsiders were meddlesome and dismissive or ignorant of myriad local issues, ranging from saving Fort Drum to repairing the Champlain Bridge."

"Tonight with the entire country watching, Upstate New Yorkers sent a message," Owens said at his victory party in Plattsburgh. "We came together tonight as Democrats, Republicans, and Independents to seek solutions--to create jobs for our workers, to bring economic development back to our communities, to fight for Fort Drum, and to give all middle class families in upstate New York a fair shake from Washington."

Owens gave "special thanks" to Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, the Republican candidate who dropped out this weekend and threw her support to him. It was by sucking up support in her counties, the early analysis shows, that he was able to beat Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman.

"We both acknowledged her and the courage that it took for her to do what she knew in her heart was right," June O'Neill, the executive committee chair of the Democratic State Committee, told me by phone around 1 a.m. "I think that it swayed certainly her supporters, and people over the last 24 hours have been outraged at the muck that people have been throwing at her."

Rob Ryan, a spokesman for Doug Hoffman, said he didn't know what effect Scozzafava's presence on the ballot--she drew more votes than Owens' margin of victory--had, and whether her  rough treatment by Hoffman's allies had hurt Hoffman.

"Maybe those people voted for Scozzafava because they couldn't bring themselves to vote for Bill Owens. I don't know," Ryan said. "It's something that the pundits are going to be looking at for some time."

 "I didn't think we were un-nice. I mean, she was the one, if you ask me, who flipped. We didn't do anything un-nice to her," he continued. "When Rush Limbaugh calls somebody something, well look: a lot of people call a lot of people things. Our campaign never did anything but talk about the issues with her. Okay? We talked about her being a liberal. We talked about her liberal voting record which is very clear. So, you know, to say we were nasty because Rush Limbaugh said something is, you know, I think sort of silly."

O'Neill attacked Limbaugh and other outside voices supporting Hoffman, saying "not here, not now, we are not for sale. Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity don't live here, but Addie Russell and Darrel Aubertine do, and the people listened to them."

In the same vein, Representative Chris Van Hollen, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, released this statement on the national implications of the race:

"Congratulations to Congressman-elect Bill Owens on his remarkable victory. Voters in New York's 23^rd District responded to Bill Owens' message and track record of creating jobs and attracting economic development to Upstate New York.

"This election represents a double-blow for National Republicans and their hopes of translating this summer's 'tea party' energy into victories at the ballot box. Not only did eight extreme right-wing groups spend more than $1 million to drive the moderate Republican - and the NRCC's chosen candidate - out of the race. Now, after losing a seat that was held by Republicans for nearly 120 years, they have to deal with an emboldened and well-funded far right-wing that refuses to tolerate moderate Republicans with differing opinions.

"I am grateful to President Obama, Vice President Biden, House Democratic Leaders, Senators Schumer and Gillibrand, Congressman Steve Israel and the entire New York Congressional Delegation for their tireless work on behalf of and support of Bill Owens.

"With his commitment to reaching across the aisle to help President Obama enact his agenda for creating jobs and getting our economy moving again, Congressman-elect Bill Owens will be a tremendous asset to our Democratic Caucus."