NY23: 'Boots on the ground' for Hoffman

He's known as "Hooah Mac" at Red State, but the guys in his Army Reserve unit call him "Sarge." He's just back from an Iraq deployment and expects to redeploy in January. He hopped a flight from Minneapolis at 7 a.m. today, landed in Syracuse at 1 p.m., and by 3 p.m. was in the Watertown office of the Doug Hoffman campaign. He answered the campaign's call for "boots on the ground" against ACORN, Big Labor and the Democrats.

"This is what it's all about," Mac said, explaining why he decided to show up as a Hoffman volunteer.

Volunteers continue to walk into campaign offices all over the 23rd District. While I was at the Hoffman office in Watertown, a guy walked in with a slice of pizza and a chocolate Yoohoo. "Hey, I was just getting lunch down the street and saw your office," the guy said. Within minutes, he had been given a Hoffman yard sign and was signed up as a volunteer.

Both the pizza-and-Yoohoo guy and Hooah Mac may spend some time working the phones at a get-out-the-vote call center set up about a block away from the Hoffman office here. Among the volunteers working the phones there this afternoon was "Sapwolf," whom I'd met earlier today. The guy running the call center is named Ryan and he got kind of nervous when I introduced myself as a reporter. (It's OK. I'm not John McCormack. I understand.)

Hooah Mac talked a bit about the latest poll numbers, and he said, "In a way, Doug's already won" -- i.e., by driving Dede Scozzafava out of the race. Nevertheless, Mac decided to come to town and help push Hoffman over the finish line tomorrow.

The new message from the RNC today? "Vote Conservative." Yeah, thanks. Better late than never.

(Cross-posted at Hot Air Green Room.)