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.
