Republican state Assemblywoman Dierdre Scozzafava suspended her campaign today for New York's 23rd District's congressional seat. Since this removed the probability that the Republican vote would be split between Ms. Scozzafava and Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, a Hoffman victory is all but certain over Democrat Bill Owens in the strongly conservative district. But if you blinked, you missed the liberal media's coverage of today's development.

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You may think it's reasonable for the national media to barely comment on a House race, especially one for a special election from which the winner would only earn a short period in office before the next election in 2010. But Democrats and their co-conspirators in the liberal media had been touting the campaign in District 23 as a potential boost for Team Obama. The pre-packaged message was that if Mr. Owens could win (regardless of the fact that his only chance came from having both a Republican and a Conservative opposing him), Democrats and the administration could frame the victory as some sort of affirmation of the job President Obama is doing. Since District 23 has been in Republican control since the Civil War, a win by a Democrat would have been a wonderful propaganda tool for the left.

Of course even with Ms. Scozzafava and Mr. Hoffman splitting the Republican vote, Mr. Hoffman was a strong contender to win. But now it's a virtual certainty that Owens will lose big and that the Democrats will have nothing on Tuesday night to use as a deflection against the real referendum on the Obama presidency coming from New Jersey and Virginia.