NY23: Next stop, Saranac Lake

By the time you read this, Ali Akbar and I will be running east on State Route 3, en route to the hometown headquarters of the Doug Hoffman campaign.

Since Sunday night, the National Desk has been located at the luxurious -- but surprisngly affordable -- Best Western Carriage House Inn on Washington Street near downtown Watertown, N.Y. We've kept our exact location a secret because, frankly, we were too busy to cope with the hordes of adoring blog groupies who would have descended on our room had they discovered our whereabouts.

For your road-time reading, we recommend (via Memeorandum) Dan Riehl's pushback against the latest Politico "GOP divided" spin job. Also:

• Larry Thornberry's takedown on Charlie Crist, whose Florida GOP primary defeat at the hands of Marco Rubio is beginning to look like a certainty.
• Dave Weigel's report on the "New Conservative Superstar" featuring the Quote of the Day: "For Biden to say that Rush Limbaugh picked Doug Hoffman is ridiculous. We all know it was Glenn Beck."
• And leave it to 73Wire's Eric Odom to ask the Exit Question: "Was the whole Scozzafava campaign a lie?"

Speaking of lies, the timing of this post is, necessarily, something of a diversion tactic. Maybe we left two hours ago, or maybe we won't leave until 2 p.m. If the New York State Police knew exactly what time we left Watertown, they'd be able to deploy radar-equipped high-performance pursuit vehicles to intercept us. We've eluded their dragnet this long only because of being secretive about about our plans.

Cell-phone reception between here and Saranac Lake is atrocious, but Ali has Sprint premium 3G service on his Blackberry World Edition, so everyone can follow our progress via Ali's Twitter feed.

Wish us . . . wow, I started to say "luck," but this isn't about luck, it's about skill. And prayer.

HOFFMANIA: CATCH IT!


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