Hoffman Wins Week Ten
In the final week of the special NY-23 race, Conservative third party candidate Doug Hoffman surged into a strong second place, displacing Republican Dede Scozzafava.
That gives him the weekly win…and it’s a darn good time to look strong.
He showed clear momentum in the new DailyKos poll, pulling into a statistical dead heat with Democratic frontrunner Bill Owens.
It is a remarkable accomplishment for a man who was new to politics in the summer. He has harnessed (and, arguably, been harnessed by) a national conservative movement.
Using their passion and energy, Hoffman’s campaign has attracted hundreds of thousands of dollars into the district, battering both Scozzafava and Owens.
Hoffman’s dramatic rise is offset somewhat by lingering concerns about the nature of his campaign.
His avoidance of most debates drew criticism in Friday’s Plattsburgh Press-Republican. The Watertown Daily Times has lambasted Hoffman for focusing on national — as opposed to local — issues.
The New York Observer has also noted that Hoffman’s race is fueled in large measure by forces outside the North Country.
All reasonable concerns. But they don’t eclipse the resonance of Hoffman’s message, or the challenges he’s overcome to achieve near-frontrunner status.
Democrat Bill Owens, meanwhile, looks well-placed heading into the weekend, with Vice President Joe Biden planning to stump for him in Watertown on Monday, plenty of money, and a thin lead.
Owens acquitted himself well in this week’s debates, not wowing anyone, but also not committing the kinds of gaffes that can disqualify a newcomer.
Unless Scozzafava truly collapses, he appears to have positioned himself perfectly to capitalize on a divided GOP.
And finally, Dede Scozzafava. She may have had the strongest performances in this week’s debates in Plattsburgh and Syracuse, but it is very likely too little, too late.
She admits to being heavily outspent and outgunned. Republicans of all stripes have been defecting to Hoffman, leaving her in a very lonely position.
In an interview with NCPR on Friday, she accused Hoffman’s camp of using “hateful” and divisive language in their advertising.
Perhaps so. Scozzafava has earned wide respect in her years as assemblywoman, as a decent and moderate politician.
But it can also be argued that Scozzafava’s message was simply too muddled to compete with Hoffman’s full-throated conservative battle-cry.
Scozzafava tells us she expects to surprise a lot of people with an upset on Tuesday. She’ll need a major momentum-changer in the final days to pull that off, but in politics four days can be an eternity.
