I think my first sense that something was wrong in the Hoffman Wave came around 8pm. I arrived at the Hotel Saranac to find a distinctly underwhelming crowd.<\/p>\n
There were plenty of reporters. Fox News had set up an entire studio, so that Sean Hannity could capture the moment of Doug Hoffman’s victory.<\/p>\n
But where were the crowds of grassroots supporters? Where were the hundreds (the tens?) of passionate activists?<\/p>\n
For days, polls had showed Hoffman surging. Siena’s independent survey put him up five points. Other polls showed the Conservative up by double-digit margins.<\/p>\n
I was convinced that the “passion index” favored Hoffman. And Republicans were behind him now, too, right?<\/p>\n
But then I noticed something else: No Republican leaders. Jim Ellis was there from Tupper Lake — but no sign of state Senator Betty Little. No phalanx of GOP-allies.<\/p>\n
I shrugged it off. The people who were on hand were passionate, funny, confident. These were mostly local folks from the Adirondacks.<\/p>\n
Conservative, yes. But Glenn Beck crazy? No. <\/p>\n
These were normal, down-to-earth people supporting a candidate and a cause they believe in.<\/p>\n
But as the night began, it quickly became clear that Hoffman was going to fall short. It wasn’t a drubbing, or a humiliation.<\/p>\n
Doug Hoffman rode a wave that toppled one candidate and came within 3% of toppling another.<\/p>\n
But here’s the hard truth: In politics, 3% is a lot of territory. And by mounting this insurgency, Hoffman helped to elect a Democrat in NY-23 for the first time in modern history.<\/p>\n
What went wrong? Maybe nothing.<\/p>\n
Maybe the traditionalist message (pro-life, opposing gay marriage) and the anti-government rhetoric simply don’t appeal to enough people.<\/p>\n
Or maybe the same factors that helped build the wave — the sense of culture-war urgency, that whiff of triumphalism, the hectoring of the Becks and Limbaughs — also brought it up short.<\/p>\n
It also appears that while conservatives loathe Republican Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, a sizable number of North Country voters don’t.<\/p>\n
In fact, they kind of like and respect her. Not so shocking when you consider that she’s been an elected official and GOP leader for a decade.<\/p>\n
After last night’s defeat, is there room for Doug Hoffman’s movement in the North Country? <\/p>\n
I for one hope so. We need everyone in the room, all hands on the wheel, to help with the many crises we face in New York.<\/p>\n
Raising questions about massive government spending is a good thing. (I for one would prefer to hold this local discussion without the involvement of national AM talk radio hosts.)<\/p>\n
Before 2010, I hope Doug Hoffman takes the time to make more connections, take a truer pulse of his neighbors, and learn the bread-and-butter issues that matter here to so many people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I think my first sense that something was wrong in the Hoffman Wave came around […]<\/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\/1255"}],"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=1255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}