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Our complete coverage of the NY23 special election
But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.Your tawdry act cannot overcome this.
| The solution to crappy government is not more government. |
the founders wanted the house to increase with the population so that the house always remained the peoples house and did not turn into a small house of lords.Well, that idea got shot in the face circa 1913. So, while your point may be valid, it's unclear how adding more Pelosis and Murthas and Morans and Rangles and Duke Cunninghams is going to improve the situation one whit.
Duprey certainly deserves plenty of blame according to my sources, [but] the more important claim is not that the NRCC delegated the decision to local Republicans like Duprey, as Newt [Gingrich] would insist, instead they deferred to an old line power broker, former NRCC Chair and former NY Representative Tom Reynolds. They insist NRCC Executive Director, Guy Harrison, or his aides, were on the ground to sheppard [Dede] Scozzafava through the allegedly open process from selection to finish, regardless of polls, or how local Republicans felt. The NRCC in the person of Reynolds thought they knew better than that and them. . . .Read the whole thing. It took three ballots for Scozzafava to secure the nomination, and I'd heard rumors of favor-swapping and arm-twisting. The suggestion that NRCC staff -- the hired help, as it were -- were involved in putting the fix in for Dede will enrage people, although it shouldn't really be surprising.
Every contribution -- $2, $5, $10, $20, $50 -- to help fund my on-the-road reporting is deeply appreciated. Jimmie Bise has said I rattle the tip jar until my teeth hurt, but there's no shame in my game. It's not charity, it's fee-for service. This is Old School in the New Media. We're eliminating the middleman, you see, creating a direct nexus with the readers. You foot the bill, I hit the road.Please read the whole thing. Often in the past few days, I've thought about that Oct. 14 conference call. Lisa De Pasquale sent me a message at 3:07 p.m. that afternoon asking me to be on the 3:30 p.m. call. She didn't even tell me what it was about, but it's never a smart idea to say "no" to Lisa.What a difference two weeks can make. Toward the end of an Oct. 14 conference call organized by David Keene of the American Conservative Union, congressional candidate Doug Hoffman plaintively asked, "Does anybody know how to get Glenn Beck interested in this?"
Monday afternoon, Hoffman was interviewed on Beck's popular Fox News program, evidence of the surging momentum the Conservative Party candidate has experienced in the three-way special election campaign in update New York's 23rd District.
In the past six days, Hoffman has been endorsed by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Sen. Jim DeMint, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, former National Republican Congressional Campaign chairmen John Linder and Tom Cole…
The complete list of Hoffman endorsers is a long one, and seems to include nearly every Republican except Newt Gingrich and Dede Scozzafava, the later of whom is Hoffman's opponent, and the former her only prominent supporter. . . .
Total ballpark estimate = $1,200. Roughly $200 a day, start-to-finish. But don't think about the big numbers. Just think about $5, $10, $20, $50. If the Hoffman campaign could raise $116,000 in small donations in a single day, I ought to be able to clear $1,200 easy in the next few days, even without a Sarah Palin endorsement.
SPIEGEL: You famously coined the term "Reagan Doctrine" to describe Ronald Reagan's foreign policy. What is the "Obama Doctrine?"CK thrashes the Right equally for lacking leadership, and then asserts he's too old to back up his trash-talk with running for office himself.
Krauthammer: I would say his vision of the world appears to me to be so naïve that I am not even sure he's able to develop a doctrine. He has a view of the world as regulated by self-enforcing international norms, where the peace is kept by some kind of vague international consensus, something called the international community, which to me is a fiction, acting through obviously inadequate and worthless international agencies. I wouldn't elevate that kind of thinking to a doctrine because I have too much respect for the word doctrine.
SPIEGEL: Are you saying that diplomacy always fails?
Krauthammer: No, foolishness does. Perhaps when he gets nowhere on Iran, nowhere with North Korea, when he gets nothing from the Russians in return for what he did to the Poles and the Czechs, gets nowhere in the Middle East peace talks -- maybe at that point he'll begin to rethink whether the world really runs by international norms, consensus, and sweetness and light, or whether it rests on the foundation of American and Western power that, in the final analysis, guarantees peace.
Lord, I was born a rambling man,Other things being equal, whenever I travel, I prefer to stay at a Hampton Inn. They're ubiquitous, relatively standardized, and of a reliable quality. There will be a clean bed, a desk, good Wi-Fi, free coffee in the lobby and a decent continental breakfast in the morning.
Trying to make a living
And doing the best I can . . .
-- Allman Brothers Band
When I'd laid out my itinerary for this trip to cover the Doug Hoffman campaign in New York's 23rd District, I'd been quite specific: $145 gets me Wednesday night at a Hampton Inn near Syracuse, N.Y. $155 gets me Thursday night at a Hampton Inn near Plattsburgh, N.Y.And that was honestly my plan. Dick Armey was scheduled to appear Wednesday night at a FreedomWorks meet-up in Cicero, near the Syracuse airport, and so I checked online and found that the nearest Hampton Inn was $145 a night.
Well, they had a full vehicle, so I couldn't ride along, but they were staying at the Parkview downtown. Although I figured it would be too rich for my budget, I had to ask, "How much are y'all paying for a room there?"
Why so cheap? Location, location, location. The lavish, massive, modern Renaissance Hotel is half a block down the street, and if you were a businessman booking a big conference, the newer facility has all the advantages over the quaint Parkview. Market forces thus required the Parkview to offer a lower rate in order to maintain a sufficient level of occupancy to assure profitability.State Route 3 runs through New York's 23rd Congressional District from Hannibal on the west end near Lake Ontario to Plattsburgh on the shore of Lake Champlain that forms the state's eastern border with the Vermont.
From Hannibal, it takes about an hour and a half to drive to Watertown (population 27,310, which makes it one of the district's largest towns). Drive another 115 miles east from Watertown, and State Route 3 crosses a bridge and becomes known locally as River Street. There's a pizza shop on the right as you cross the intersection with Main Street. Just past Church Street on the left, in the former location of a Nice 'n' Easy convenience store, is the main headquarters of the Doug Hoffman for Congress campaign.
Friday afternoon, two campaign staffers and a handful of volunteers were manning Hoffman HQ, stuffing envelopes, answering phones and handing out yard signs to supporters who occasionally dropped in. Unless you were already aware of the news surrounding the Conservative Party candidate in this three-way special election, you'd never suspect that this building in Saranac Lake, N.Y. (population 4,908) was Ground Zero for one of the biggest political stories of the year. . . .
Read the whole thing. It's your contributions to the Shoe Leather Fund that allow me to do this kind of stuff as a freelancer. Editors are happy to get original on-the-scene reporting, but trying to talk them into footing the bill for travel is a hassle. Thanks to you guys, this hassle can be overcome.
What can the efforts of one reporter/blogger mean in a campaign like this? Thanks in large part to bloggers like Erick Erickson and Robert Stacy McCain, the race has garnered national attention. In the modern media era, even the most obscure election can set the motion for a conservative comeback . . .That's from CPAC Director Lisa De Pasquale's Townhall.com column. I'm planning to go back to NY23 Thursday or Friday, so please contribute to the Shoe Leather Fund.
Conservative bloggers are now going after Gingrich for lashing out at his critics, with the Other McCain writing, "I was disgusted just now to see Newt Gingrich's appearance on Greta Van Susteren's Fox News show tonight." "Newt Gingrich disappointed national conservatives again tonight," Gateway Pundit added.Here's the video of Newt (who taught my mother at West Georgia College circa 1973): Guess now Armbruster will be chastised by the White House, which claims that Fox News isn't really news . . .
Our complete coverage of the NY23 special election
Not only is the NRCC pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into the media campaign of Dede Scozzafava, they're also organizing and coordinating teams of GOTV volunteers in the district. And they're picking up the tab.Read the whole thing. Your GOP contributions supporting an ACORN-backed Big Labor RINO?
Our team just finished meeting with a NRCC volunteer named "James" who works out of the Watertown office for the Scozzafava campaign. James informed us that he was sent to Watertown, NY from Washington D.C. as a volunteer for the NRCC. We asked about expenses, and he said the NRCC was paying for everything. . . .
"This is a 10 month campaign compressed into 4 weeks. Our schedule changes numerous times every day. The Conservative Party is behind us 110% and Gov. Huckabee all but endorsed us last week on FOX TV. In the last week of the campaign we are focusing on winning over as many voters as possible. So we will be on the road doing just that."Meanwhile, we have an update from conservative bloggers in NY23: "Ali and Eric's Excellent Adventure."
If the post-World War II period was dedicated to fighting Communism, aren't we now even more fully engaged in fighting socialism, Euro or not, here in the United States?Socialism is merely the symptom and sales pitch. The Jacksonian Party lays out the disease: aristocracy. This is built on three pillars:
A California high school student who police said was gang raped in a two-and-a-half-hour assault outside a homecoming dance remained hospitalized in stable condition Monday . . .Another argument for home-schooling, just in case there is any semi-intelligent parent (i.e., with the minimal IQ necessary to read a blog) who is still sending their children into the organized barbarism of America's dysfunctional government education system.
Nineteen-year-old Manuel Ortega, described as a former student at the school, was arrested soon after he fled the scene and will face charges of rape, robbery and kidnapping, police said.
A 15-year-old was later arrested and charged with one count of felony sexual assault. A third teenager was being interviewed, according to Lt. Mark Gagan of the police department in Richmond, California.
"Based on witness statements and suspect statements, and also physical evidence, we know that she was raped by at least four suspects committing multiple sex acts," Gagan said.
Investigators said as many as 15 people, all males, stood around watching the assault, but did not call police or help the victim, a 15-year-old student at Richmond High School in suburban San Francisco. . . .
Scozzafava is the hand-picked candidate of former state GOP chairman Joseph Mondello.Mondello had the magical ability to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory. Sort of an anti-Midas: Everything he touched turned to crap. Back in August, just before he was forced out of the chairmanship, the Democrats issued a sarcastic statement:
Democrats say they like Mondello' ability to lose state races, including the recent loss of an open congressional seat in the Albany area. Mondello backed Republican Jim Tedisco' failed candidacy.Everybody can recognize Mondello as that Peter Principle type of guy, the flawed mediocrity with a glory-hog tendency to take credit for other people's success, so that he keeps getting promoted until, at last, he's in charge of the whole shebang and then -- disaster!
"The recent chorus of Republican officials calling for Joe Mondello to step down as State GOP chair is disappointing and a step backwards for New York," said Shams Tarek, DSCC spokesman.
"With the New York GOP' recent loss of both the State Senate and the overwhelmingly Republican 20th Congressional District to Democrats, we couldn’t be more pleased with Chair Mondello's work."
"For the benefit of a population completely fed up with years of GOP cynicism and dysfunction in both Washington and Albany, Chair Mondello should remain in place and continue to remove Republicans from office in New York."
Few party activists are aware that Joe Mondello made the surprising decision to personally chair the meeting in which Jim Tedisco was selected to run for the vacant seat previously held by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. The move was unprecedented, as nowhere in the state election law or the state committee bylaws was the involvement of the state party mandated. . . .People keep claiming the GOP loses elections by being "too conservative," but that misses the point. The basic problem is this old-boy network way of running campaigns -- the favor-swapping, back-scratching, let's-give-my-college-roommate-a-consulting-contract modus operandi -- that leads to tactical incompetence in the Republican electoral apparatus.
Observers inside and outside the 20th Congressional district have reached a rare consensus about the ghastly display that was witnessed in the election. The Wall Street Journal summed it up neatly: "Republicans lost because they fielded a poor candidate who ran a lousy campaign."
The conservatives who oppose Ms. Scozzafava have attacked her as they would a Democrat. They have tried linking her to Acorn because of her relationship with the Acorn-affiliated Working Families Party, and they have called her the candidate of big labor because of her endorsement from the New York State United Teachers Union.You can read the whole thing, but the most interesting part to me was this:
The attacks have at times rattled the Scozzafava campaign. Last week, the campaign called the police after a reporter from The Weekly Standard, the conservative magazine, continued to press Ms. Scozzafava to answer questions after she declined to comment. Afterward, Ms. Scozzafava was mocked relentlessly in the conservative blogosphere. . . .
"The No. 1 victory will be to defeat Dede," said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, which works to elect candidates who oppose abortion.Very interesting that the New York Times guy got the inside tour of this pro-life HQ in Watertown, but none of my Hoffman campaign sources even mentioned it to me. (Note to self: Chew sources a new one.)
Ms. Dannenfelser, along with members of the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes efforts to legalize same-sex marriage, are helping to coordinate efforts on the ground in support of Mr. Hoffman.
At the Days Inn on Sunday, Ms. Dannenfelser, 43, of Arlington, Va., and three other organizers from the Washington area who have temporarily relocated to Watertown joined a conference call with conservatives from across the country. A small picture of Jesus and the Virgin Mary rested on top of the television, while the Pittsburgh Steelers game played with the volume muted. . . .
McHugh had been easily reelected in the district by wide margins, and Scozzafava's backers say a conservative like Hoffman does not fit the district.There's not much evidence from this story that the L.A. Times reporter, who filed under a D.C. dateline, has spent any significant time in the 23rd District.
"Her positions on a lot of issues are reflective of the electorate here," said Matt Burns, a Scozzafava spokesman. "If the idea is that every Republican that runs for office needs [to be] someone who fits in Georgia, then it's going to be very, very difficult for Republicans to gain a majority in the House of Representatives."
Hoffman's kind of a special case. There's basically no downside. That's not true in 2010. I remember a blog commenter somewhere a while back worrying that Beck would turn out to be a Pied Piper leading people to Third Party self-destruction. In Hoffman’s case that's not really an issue, but a Perot-type candidacy might put the Dems back in bigtime.And he's writing this irrelevant crap about third parties and 2010 while linking Allahpundit:
What is the endgame? There's a sense I get from watching Beck that he thinks there's a supermajority out there willing to return to Founders-style libertarianism if only he and other conservatives hammer the message hard and long enough. I don't think there is.Well, f*ck what you think, Allah. We're talking about one congressional election that's now only a week away, and all your forward-looking "Big Picture" theorizing is just a distraction from the fight.
