When the Soros-backed online group MoveOn.org wants to strike
contribution-inducing fear in the hearts of its liberal
e-mail list, they know whose name to use:
Warning: A bizarre House race in upstate New York could end up
giving a big national boost to Sarah Palin and the far
right, and endangering health care reform in the
House.
Here's how: In a three-way race, Doug Hoffman, a
right-wing third party candidate, has gotten Sarah Palin's
endorsement and become a cause célèbre for the
far-right fringe. . . .
The right-wing teabagger activists who spent the summer
disrupting town halls are showering Hoffman with donations and
volunteers. And, unfortunately, it's working. . . .
If Hoffman wins, teabaggers and hate groups will have
their own representative in Congress. The far right
will be emboldened. And a victory for an anti-reform teabagger
just before the big health care votes will send exactly the
wrong message to Democrats who are nervous about their own
re-election. . . .
It would dramatically strengthen the Sarah Palin wing
of the Republican party. . . .
Et cetera, et cetera, and the e-mail directs recipients
to this donations page. Former Clinton aide Paul Begala has
also sent out a
fundraising e-mail for the Democratic Congressional
Campaign Committee, warning about the "tea party crowd," invoking
Palin's name, and depicting the Hoffman campaign as evidence
that the "inmates have taken over the asylum."
Panicky liberals -- the kind of free publicity money can't
buy! Of course, the Hoffman candidacy has also stirred fear in
the hearts of
some Republican worry-warts, but that's to be expected. The
hand-wringers always have to have something to wring
their hands about.
