I’ve been thinking a lot about Doug Hoffman’s decision to intervene once more in the North Country’s political life.\u00a0 By any measure, it’s a remarkable act.<\/p>\n
At this point, Hoffman has no credible political record.\u00a0 He mustered roughly 15,000 votes in this month’s Republican primary, a paltry number.<\/p>\n
In the process, he lost (albeit by a thin margin) to Matt Doheny, a man who was a complete unknown half a year ago.<\/p>\n
Along the way, Hoffman once again alienated the GOP’s county committees — the “political bosses,” he calls them — and also dismayed many tea party leaders and activists.<\/p>\n
UNYTEA head Mark Barie, in Plattsburgh, issued a press release a short time ago, arguing that Hoffman “doesn’t have an ice cube’s chance in hell of winning this election.”<\/p>\n
Indeed, despite repeated, unequivocal promises that he would prevail, Hoffman has never won an election.\u00a0 He wasn’t chosen to be a political leader by anyone except Conservative party chairman Mike Long.<\/p>\n
Yet when I asked the Conservative Party to clarify what resources they would bring to the race, they declined to answer.<\/p>\n
Very few people are donating money to Hoffman’s campaign, or volunteering for his campaign so far as we can tell.\u00a0 His campaign offices are either shuttered or dark.<\/p>\n
It’s not even entirely clear that Hoffman is living inside the district, though he purchased a house in Saranac Lake earlier this year to avoid the accusation that he’s a carpetbagger.<\/p>\n
Watertown Daily Times city editor Perry White says<\/a> the time has come “for Doug Hoffman to take a hard look around him and realize his extended 15 minutes of fame are over.”<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n All of this leaves Hoffman with only one political asset, one claim to credibility:\u00a0 The mantle he has claimed for himself as a truth-teller and a straight-shooter.<\/p>\n From the first time I saw Doug Hoffman on the campaign trail, he insisted that he would be the one to tell voters what had to be done to save the country from ruinous debt and the threat of creeping Big Government.<\/p>\n He would do so, he claimed, without regard to electability or his political fortunes.<\/p>\n The trouble is, Hoffman has never followed through.<\/p>\n I have interviewed him repeatedly, and questioned him during public debates, giving him every opportunity to answer basic questions about his policy ideas.<\/p>\n In response, Hoffman has offered nothing more than thin talking points and political platitudes.\u00a0 He has suggested that other politicians would make these decisions or lead him through these thorny issues<\/a>.<\/p>\n