{"id":1215,"date":"2009-10-30T20:49:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-31T00:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2009\/10\/30\/hoffman-wins-week-ten\/"},"modified":"2009-10-30T20:49:00","modified_gmt":"2009-10-31T00:49:00","slug":"hoffman-wins-week-ten","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2009\/10\/30\/hoffman-wins-week-ten\/","title":{"rendered":"Hoffman Wins Week Ten"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

That gives him the weekly win…and it’s a darn good time to look strong.<\/p>\n

He showed clear momentum in the new DailyKos poll, pulling into a statistical dead heat with Democratic frontrunner Bill Owens.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Using their passion and energy, Hoffman’s campaign has attracted hundreds of thousands of dollars into the district, battering both Scozzafava and Owens.<\/p>\n

Hoffman’s dramatic rise is offset somewhat by lingering concerns about the nature of his campaign.<\/p>\n

His avoidance of most debates drew criticism in Friday’s Plattsburgh Press-Republican<\/a>. The Watertown Daily Times<\/a> has lambasted Hoffman for focusing on national — as opposed to local — issues.<\/p>\n

The New York Observer<\/a> has also noted that Hoffman’s race is fueled in large measure by forces outside the North Country. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

Unless Scozzafava truly collapses, he appears to have positioned himself perfectly to capitalize on a divided GOP.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

She admits to being heavily outspent and outgunned. Republicans of all stripes have been defecting to Hoffman, leaving her in a very lonely position.<\/p>\n

In an interview with NCPR on Friday, she accused Hoffman’s camp of using “hateful” and divisive language in their advertising.<\/p>\n

Perhaps so. Scozzafava has earned wide respect in her years as assemblywoman, as a decent and moderate politician.<\/p>\n

But it can also be argued that Scozzafava’s message was simply too muddled to compete with Hoffman’s full-throated conservative battle-cry. <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the final week of the special NY-23 race, Conservative third party candidate Doug Hoffman […]<\/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\/1215"}],"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=1215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1215\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}