Scozzafava’s feud with conservatives gets ugly

One of the most prominent conservatives in the country, Bill Kristol, is wading into the right-of-center hate-fest in NY-23.

The plot thickened yesterday when Dede Scozzafava’s Republican campaign called the cops because of the behavior of a reporter from the Weekly Standard.

The WS is Kristol’s political journal and it’s usually loyal to GOP candidates.

Here’s Kristol’s take:

[John McCormack] had attended a Scozzafava campaign event, tried to ask the candidate a few questions — and the Scozzafava campaign had called the police.

Here’s the Scozzafava campaign’s account, via Politico:

“This self-described reporter repeatedly screamed questions (in-your-face-style) while our candidate was doing what she is supposed to be doing: speaking with voters (remember, those who will decide this election?).

And then he followed the candidate to her car, continuing to carry on in a manner that would make the National Enquirer blush. I have no doubt he intended to follow her home, too. His actions were reprehensible. Those are the facts.”

Kristol isn’t buying it.

This is ludicrous. Needless to say, the police found nothing amiss. Moreover, the fact is that John didn’t interrupt a conversation between Ms. Scozzafava and voters — she wasn’t talking to voters when John approached her.

Nor did John “scream,” nor did he get “in the face” of the candidate — he was at least ten feet away from her in the parking lot, partly because a Scozzafava staffer interposed himself as John tried to ask substantive public policy questions of Ms. Scozzafava. The notion that John intended to “follow her home” is of course risible.

It just doesn’t get any worse than this for Scozzafava…Whatever she wants her message to the Republican base to be in these last two weeks of the campaign, this can’t be it.