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NY23: Hoffman's 'Miracle' Campaign - UPDATE

By Robert Stacy McCain on 10.22.09 @ 11:24AM

WATERTOWN, N.Y.

Doug Hoffman today got the official endorsement of former House Majority Leader Dick Armey and likened his congressional campaign to the U.S. hockey team's upset victory in the 1980 Winter Olympics.

"Let's go back to Lake Placid," said Hoffman, who worked as a financial officer for the Olympiad near his hometown of Saranac Lake. "We're going to create a miracle on Nov. 3. . . . That miracle starts today."

After weeks of a low-profile campaign in the upstate 23rd District special election, suddenly national media attention is focused on the race. Liberal Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava appears to be in meltdown mode and Hoffman is now riding a "tsunami" of momentum, one campaign source confided this morning.

"This is a race between the conservative and the Democrat," Armey, now chairman of Freedomworks, said in his speech endorsing Hoffman. A standing-room-only crowd of supporters repeatedly interrupted with chants of "Go, Doug, Go."

While Scozzafava has the endorsement of Armey's former congressional colleague Newt Gingrich and the support of the national GOP, grassroots volunteers from the Tea Party movement have bouyed the campaign of Hoffman, running on the Conservative Party line.

"The Republican candidate can't win," Armey declared, saying that Gingrich "made the wrong choice" in backing Scozzafava, a New York state assemblywoman whose record puts her to the left of most Democrats here in this largely rural district, where Republican Rep. John McHugh routinely won re-election with 2-to-1 margins.

Hoffman will appear this afternoon on the popular Glenn Beck television program and, according to sources with the campaign, has seen his fundraising take off in recent days. He reportedly raised $30,000 online Tuesday, was effectively endorsed by the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday and today received the endorsement of Ohio's Ken Blackwell, a nationally recognized conservative leader.

Clearly the secret of Hoffman's surge has been his strong support from grassroots activists, many of whom have never been involved in a political campaign before.

"I've always said that hard work beats Daddy's money," Armey told supporters here at Hoffman's storefront local office, on Court Street between a trophy shop and a pub. "We're going to have to outwork the other guys."

UPDATE (12:15): According to a Hoffman campaign source, Beck's producers have canceled the scheduled appearance by the candidate on the 5 PM Fox News Channel program. However, Beck is expected to discuss the NY-23 election during the show.

View all comments (14) | Leave a comment

don| 10.22.09 @ 12:38PM

You might want to correct the sentence stating that Newt is backing Doug Hoffman - he is actually backing DEDE

Robert Stacy McCain| 10.22.09 @ 1:03PM

Thanks for the correction, Don. During my 21 years in the newspaper business, there were copy editors to catch my typos. In the blogosphere, we have commenters doing the same job!

datechguy| 10.22.09 @ 1:24PM

As a rule roots don't get washed away if thing turn bad.

From what you have seen so far have we been seeing any kind of astroturf to support Dede?

And second question, is the democratic candidate focusing his attacks on Hoffman at all? That would be the surest sign he is surging.

AJsDaddie| 10.22.09 @ 1:24PM

Why did Beck cancel?

SoCon| 10.22.09 @ 3:03PM

Did the RNC get to Beck? I thought he had more cojones than that.

Tim| 10.22.09 @ 3:33PM

Newt hasn't managed a good call since 1995.

Bob Belvedere| 10.22.09 @ 7:12PM

Quoted from and linked to at:
23 SKIDOO II

KansasGirl| 10.22.09 @ 9:21PM

The tide is turning. Go Conservatives!

Paul| 10.31.09 @ 8:48PM

There had never been fascists in America I thought, or, at least, mobs were not affecting national politics. Now this republican mob is rising almost like from the darkest pages of history, after the 1929 Krach aftermath in Europe.

They have similar characteristics: whoever does not follow their ideology is dispised and must be destroyed (politically for now). They hate everything and everyone: the government, the unions, the mexicans, the blacks, the young, the very bad liberals, the gays, the pro-abortion, Obama the New Brutal Dictator (I am so scared)... Science also is bad since it does not follow their Book literally. They need to have people ignorant to be vulnerable and powerless.

They are very similar to the muslim fundamentalists or the Talibans that they also hate: they want to move us back to the Dark Ages, where only one system of dogmatic thought and law was permitted - that's what they call "freedom"! But this is an ideology of slavery, fascism, of intolerance for all things and people who don't fit into their little frames of life.

I will fight against this mob with all my power.
This is not America, this is Hate.

Eleanor| 11.8.09 @ 4:58PM

I totally agree with you. Gore Vidal gave an interview where eh said people's notions of conservatives as benign is way off the mark -- they are Fascists. They really are.

Gore Vidal interview
http://women.timesonline.co.uk.....854221.ece

IPS news service tracking rise of Neocons in American since 9/11:
http://www.ipsnews.net/new_foc...../index.asp

The rest of the world is scared of these people; no wonder they gave Obama the Nobel

Eleanor| 11.8.09 @ 4:49PM

Reading this almost a week after Hoffman lost just adds to the patheticness of the "surge" you write about. The far right is not going to take over the country, much to your dismay. Open your hearts and move to the center if you want to get back in power. The Repubs lost so badly b/c you are the party of stupid white men and rich people. Duh. The only reason you won the governorships of NY and VA is b/c your people were up against weak candidates.

pamela| 4.23.10 @ 2:04AM

I totally agree with you. Gore Vidal gave an interview where eh said people's notions of conservatives as benign is way off the mark -- they are Fascists. They really are. Download lil wayne mp3

pricila| 4.24.10 @ 9:10AM

100 times out of 100 you will be waved in, and for good measure you might actually ask a few people happening by if they "have seen this man" (flash picture). online fax