{"id":1049,"date":"2009-09-11T13:39:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-11T17:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2009\/09\/11\/owens-wins-week-four-in-23rd-special-election\/"},"modified":"2009-09-11T13:39:00","modified_gmt":"2009-09-11T17:39:00","slug":"owens-wins-week-four-in-23rd-special-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2009\/09\/11\/owens-wins-week-four-in-23rd-special-election\/","title":{"rendered":"Owens wins Week Four in 23rd Special Election"},"content":{"rendered":"

I know, I know: snarks out there will think I’m just spreading the love, polishing my nonpartisan cred. <\/p>\n

Nope. I think this week goes cleanly to Plattsburgh Independent-Democrat Bill Owens.<\/p>\n

Here’s why:<\/p>\n

Republican Dede Scozzafava and Conservative Doug Hoffman are beating the daylights out of each other. The rhetoric from both sides is already ugly.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Scozzafava saw one more conservative group in Washington DC lining up with Hoffman.<\/p>\n

And her 30% showing in this week’s partisan poll (commissioned by Hoffman) wasn’t strong enough to grant Scozzafaa the role of heir-apparent.<\/p>\n

If Hoffman keeps it up, and there’s every indication that he plans to, his jabs could matter.<\/p>\n

Hoffman, meanwhile, stumbled on the question of whether or not he supports civil unions, as an alternative to same-sex marriage.<\/p>\n

Here’s an entertaining treatment of his campaign’s exchange with Jude Seymour at the Watertown Daily Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

I had asked [Hoffman] if he was in support of or against civil unions for same-sex couples.<\/p>\n

His exact quote: “Any two people should be able to enter into any legal contract. No one should be persecuted or prosecuted for their beliefs.”<\/p>\n

Rob Ryan, his spokesman, and I just had a very animated discussion about this. I think we agreed on the following:<\/p>\n

– I should not have assumed just because Mr. Hoffman said anyone should be able to enter into any legal contract that he was in support of civil unions. Even though, as I think about it now, how the heck do you get into a civil union? Isn’t there some legal contract involved? It’s legally recognized.<\/p>\n

– I should have asked a follow up question to clarify Mr. Hoffman’s position. I asked a direct question and he didn’t give me a direct answer. But I should have asked a follow-up question.<\/p>\n

– Mr. Hoffman’s campaign should have corrected the record regarding his position. After all, they issued a statement clarifying his position on “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” which is from that very same article. (Interestingly enough, that got screwed up<\/a> because I did<\/b> ask the clarifying question.)<\/p>\n

– Mr. Hoffman would have saved us all a lot of trouble if he had just started his answer with the word, “No.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Meanwhile, Bill Owens had a much more muscular week on his own behalf. <\/p>\n

-He held a high-profile fundraiser with Vice President Joe Biden in Syracuse, not a bad stature builder.<\/p>\n

-We learned that Owens has enlisted the same campaign team that shepherded Glens Falls Democrat Scott Murphy’s upset win in the 20th district special election.<\/p>\n

-According to the Hoffman poll, Owens is in second place, just ten points behind Scozzafava. Not bad for a fresh face, especially with a third of voters still undecided.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know, I know: snarks out there will think I’m just spreading the love, polishing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[874],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}