Lee Zeldin is The GOP’s 2022 MVP

                            Lee Zeldin is The GOP’s 2022 MVP

by James S. Soviero

If politics is considered a “blood sport,” it’s time some of their toughest, most successful competitors were honored with something akin to Most Valuable Player Awards.  We’d like to nominate NY Congressman Lee Zeldin as the GOP’s 2022 MVP.  

In the pros, sometimes eye-popping stats and a championship make one athlete a sure winner.  Other times, folks may have to look past what a great player has done on a terrific team, and check out much how better a struggling team did because of the herculean efforts of one of their teammates.  

The latter scenario is a perfect fit for Zeldin. New York was the bluest of blue states, and he was a basically unknown, 20-point gubernatorial underdog two months before the election.  

The congressman ran a non-stop, damn near perfect campaign, laser-focused on NYS’s exploding crime.  For many months Lee literally crisscrossed the state, often via cars and busses, while delivering his message.  

Thanks to Zeldin’s tireless disciplined, pro-law enforcement, make the streets safe again campaign, New York State Republicans and the national GOP were richly rewarded.  Assembly seats in Democrat’s hands for decades went Red, while that party lost its supermajority in the NY Senate.  

Lee’s push against Kathy Hochul had Dem candidates at virtually every level trying to ditch her.  Several of those running for Congress literally dumped Kat’s endorsement from their website, but to no avail.  

It foreshadowed what was probably the biggest and most consequential news of this year’s mid-term elections.  Hard left New York State flipped four congressional seats from blue to Red.  

The math is undeniable.  Given, at this writing, the narrow margin of Republican control in the House, losing any one of those races could well have cost them their majority.  Consider one flipped seat the equivalent of two and then multiply it by four.  

Even while suffering a narrow loss, the Long Island congressman had powerful political coattails.  He created the kind of Red Wave expected across the country that NO ONE saw coming in New York. 

Lee led his struggling team from a deep blue wilderness into a more competitive electoral environment and in the process, moved our Republic in the same healthy direction.  

We need to keep this young, articulate, dedicated, principled Republican on the national radar.  For starters, they could create a precedent and recognize Lee Zeldin as the Grand Old Party’s 2022 Most Valuable Politician. 

That would make Lee Zeldin the GOP’s 2022 MVP.  If only.     

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