With the
news today that Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty has
endorsed Conservative Party candidate Doug
Hoffman in the three-way congressional race in upstate
New York's 23rd District, now the pressure is on former Arkansas
Gov. Mike Huckabee to follow suit.
"After reviewing the candidates' positions, I'm endorsing Doug
Hoffman in New York's special election," Pawlenty said in a
statement issued to the conservative blog Red State, which
has strongly supported Hoffman.
"Doug understands the federal government needs to quit spending
so much, will vote against tax increases, and protect key values
like the right to vote in private in union elections," Pawlenty
said.
Sarah
Palin's endorsement last week may have prompted Pawlenty --
like Palin, a possible contender for the 2012 Republican
presidential nomination -- to back Hoffman's challenge to the GOP
establishment, which is supporting Dede Scozzafava, a
liberal Republican state assemblywoman, in the Nov. 3 special
election.
With both Pawlenty and Palin officially endorsing Hoffman, all
eyes are focused on Huckabee. Now a popular Fox News
personality, the folksy
Huckabee last week praised Hoffman during an appearance
on Neil Cavuto's show, but stopped short of an endorsement.
Speaking of the pro-choice Scozzafava, however,
Huckabee said he couldn't "support somebody who does not
believe that every human life has value and meaning,"
Huckabee finds himself in an awkward position in the
New York campaign to fill the House seat vacated by
Republican Rep. John McHugh, appointed by President Obama to be
Secretary of the Army. Huckabee is
due to speak Tuesday night in Syracuse at a New
York Conservative Party awards dinner but, as he told
Cavuto, he won't be giving "an endorsement speech."
Huckabee's speech was scheduled before the NY23 election
became the focus of a
national political maelstrom. Most New York media expect
Hoffman also to attend Tuesday's dinner, although the
congressional candidate has not yet publicly announced
whether he will attend.
Some Hoffman campaign officials are concerned
that, if Hoffman shows up at the Syracuse dinner,
it might be viewed as distracting from Huckabee's spotlight.
Conservative Party officials don't want to put pressure on their
Republican guest of honor. Huckabee won't endorse Scozzafava, and
he certainly wouldn't support the little-known Democratic
candidate Bill Owens. Therefore, Huckabee's status as a "friendly
neutral" in the three-way election may be the best the Hoffman
campaign can hope for.
However,
Red State's Erick Erickson is laying down an ultimatum to any
Republican who wants grassroots conservative support for a 2012
presidential bid:
At a time when the conservative brand is ascending and the
Republican brand is still in the gutter, candidates like Romney
and Huckabee have a chance to man up and stand with the base of
the GOP -- a base that is tired of TARP, No Child
Left Behind, indictments, and out of control spending.
Erickson says Romney and Huckabee have until noon Wednesday to
endorse Hoffman or . . . well, or else. Guess that
means Erickson has already scratched
Newt Gingrich off his 2012 list.
