Monday, October 26, 2009

NY23: Newt does Dede's dirty work

I was disgusted just now to see Newt Gingrich's appearance on Greta Van Susteren's Fox News show tonight, when he hit Doug Hoffman with a cheap shot, saying Hoffman "doesn't live in the [23rd] District. (Hey, ask some Georgians if Newt has any room to talk about carpetbagging!)

OK, this is a non-issue, and has been explained several times. Doug Hoffman's hometown, Saranac Lake, is in the 23rd District. Hoffman's current residence is about a 15-minute drive away in Lake Placid, which was also in the 23rd District -- until the (then) GOP-controlled New York legislature gerrymandered the district!

Essentially, the corrupt Republican leadership in Albany were trying to make (then) Rep. John Sweeney's 20th District "safer" for the GOP incumbent. (Sweeney, a former state party staff lawyer, had himself carpetbagged into that district.) Sweeney was tainted by his Abramoff connection, had paid campaign cash to his wife, etc., was defeated in 2006. He alcohol problems landed him a DUI (he blew an 0.18!) in 2007, and another arrest in April of this year.

Class act, this Sweeney, then, the GOP hatchet-man for whom the districts were re-drawn in 2001, putting Hoffman's home in Lake Placid a few miles south of the 23rd District line. Hoffman has been up-front about this all along, and has promised to move into the re-drawn 23rd if he wins on Nov. 3.

So it's a total non-issue, and Dede Scozzafava won't raise it herself because it's a cheap shot and everybody knows it. Instead, she and the NY-GOP send surrogates out to spread this "doesn't-live-in-the-district" stuff against Hoffman.

To see Newt Gingrich playing errand boy for Dede on national TV is just astonishing. Meanwhile, a new press release from Hoffman HQ:
Congressman John Linder (GA-07), former Chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (1996-1998), issued the following statement regarding his endorsement of Doug Hoffman: "The biggest concern I have with the Republican candidate in this race is that her long held positions on unions, taxes and spending incline me to believe that she will give Nancy Pelosi a Republican vote so that these many outrageous grabs for power and control will be called 'bipartisan.' I am confident that Doug will not do that."
Another Republican leader joins the conservative grassroots movement that's marching away from Newt.

12 comments:

  1. I guess Newt wants to be a water boy.

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  2. Karl Marx Endorses Dede Scozzafava!

    http://02e56fa.netsolhost.com/blog1/index.php/2009/10/26/song-karl-marx-dede-marx-endorses-dede-s

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  3. My opinion of Newt has never changed: he is a brilliant student and teacher of American political history, a prototype for the opposition backbench MP for Question Time, and the ideal insurgent to lead the GOP back to majority status in 1994.

    As Speaker, he would be (and was) unsuccessful, due to his lack of executive/managerial experience and his own ego and ambition. As a Presidential candidate, he would lack the essential qualification of executive experience.

    For Gingrich to endorse a pro-abortion candidate with such a long list of liberal positions, he must have abandoned all ideology in favor of the Beltway philosophy of "win at all costs - principles be damned!" The selfsame concept which led the GOP down the path of corruption and destruction, giving over the "new majority" to the Dems in 2006, along with the keys to the Big House in 2008.

    The NRCC wants Scozzafava and the NRSC wants Crist? Fine, it's their right. But it most assuredly means they do NOT want my money. Not. One. Freaking. Dime.

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  4. Newt is a genius but sometimes a genius is blind. And in this case he is. We are done with the John McCains and the other whiney asses the liberal braindeads want to pick for us. AND they did indeed pick John McCain. Right now they are terrified we will pick Sarah. If they weren't they wouldn't still be demonizing her. GO SARAH!!! (I can't help myself. My name is Robert E.Lee)

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  5. Anonymous, you're an idiot. Sarah Palin is probably one of the top 3 reasons YOU LOST (along with John McCain's age and the crash of the economy). To suggest that liberals are afraid of Sarah Palin is simply not founded in facts. Have you seen her polling numbers? No body wants to vote for someone so uneducated that they can't even name a major American newspaper!

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  6. 'Josh': Nice try TROLL. Go back to your mom's basement, pretty your metrosexual self up, and practice some more...you're not that good at it.

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  7. Bob Belvedere, you're a nasty piece of work.

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  8. Please, oh please run Sarah Palin.

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  9. I consider myself the G. Gordon Liddy of the Restoration.

    Tell me what streetcorner to stand on, Stacy.

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  10. You're all too funny. Local control. Isn't that the mantra of Republicanism? Here we have a local control issue & the national big wigs kvetch & stir up a storm 'cause this Republican couldn't get elected in their own districts. Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't their districts always demonizing NY? Even here on this comment page many have said this Republican sucks. She may well suck, but can she get elected in that district? Focus on the district, not your district or the national district.

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  11. Anon above is right - Elitists across the spectrum are afraid of true conservatives Palin and Hoffman who will take this country back if they are nominated. Go Sarah.

    -Brer

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  12. Doug Hoffman has shown us the way to true conservative hegemony. I didn't realize that one could run for Congress in any district in the nation just by promising to move if elected. If that's correct then why restrict the search for a bona fide conservative to any given district? We really need absolutely the most conservative people in charge. We can't afford to have a relatively conservative person serving if there is someone, somewhere who is even a bit more conservative. So my suggestion is that in 2010 we should just run a contest to find the 435 absolutely most conservative Americans regardless of where they live, and then run them willy-nilly for all 435 seats, with the promise that they'll move once elected. Or maybe we could just have the single most conservative person in America run for all 435 seats, promising to be sort of a circuit-riding Representative if elected.

    -By I'm More Conservative Than You

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