This is fun — Scozzafava is telling her supporters to vote for the Democrat, Owens, instead of the wingnut, Hoffman. The Watertown Daily Times has endorsed Owens and says Hoffman would be bad for the district:
Mr. Hoffman is running as an ideologue. If he carries out his pledges on earmarks, taxation, labor law reform and other inflexible positions, Northern New York will suffer. This rural district depends on the federal government for an investment in Fort Drum and its soldiers, environmental protection of our international waterway and the Adirondack Park, and the livelihood of all our dairy farmers across the district, among other support. Our representative cannot be locked into rigid promises and policies that would jeopardize these critical sectors of our economy.
Frank Rich spoke to this also:
Last week it turned out that Hoffman’s prime attribute to the radical right — as a take-no-prisoners fiscal conservative — was bogus. In fact he’s on the finance committee of a hospital that happily helped itself to a $479,000 federal earmark. Then again, without the federal government largess that the tea party crowd so deplores, New York’s 23rd would be a Siberia of joblessness. The biggest local employer is the pork-dependent military base, Fort Drum.
Little Lulu says Rich is “spooked” and has the “heebie-jeebies” about “mainstream conservatives asserting themselves in the NY-23 congressional race.” “Mainstream conservatives” is, of course, a euphemism for “nuttier than a peanut farm.” But you can tell how “spooked” Rich is:
No matter what the results in that race on Tuesday, the Republicans are the sure losers. This could be a gift that keeps on giving to the Democrats through 2010, and perhaps beyond.
Yeah, Rich is quaking in his boots.
I don’t know who’s going to win that election, but I predict that if Hoffman wins the emboldened tea partiers will embark on the bloodiest purge since Robespierre and the Reign of Terror. If Owens wins, after a period of self-indulgent whining the tea partiers will identify some scapegoats and then will embark on the bloodiest purge since Robespierre and the Reign of Terror.
Don’t forget the popcorn.
I’ve got the big Costco container of popcorn all ready.
I can’t tell which I’d prefer, for Hoffman to be resoundingly defeated, as a sign that there is sanity in the common electorate, or for him to win handily, encouraging the further split in the GOP. I guess there would be some amusement in seeing the wingnuts pretending that winning one odd district in the middle of nowhere somehow is Representative and Meaningful, but it would probably get old real fast.
Whatever. Knowing what to root for here is almost as hard as picking a team in this year’s World Series!
lmost as hard as picking a team in this year’s World Series!
You mean … you’re not rooting for the Yankees?
In the interest of sanity, over entertainment, I’d prefer Owens win this.
The key takeaway though is that the Republican party has already lost the district.
Let them eat fake!
Of course, our Dem candidate up theres is a Dem in name only. Scozzafava was the most “liberal” of the 3 candiddates. And that’s why she had to go.
It might actually help the cause if the Dem loses. As I said, he ain’t much of a Dem. But it might encourage Republicans to run unwinnable candidates in other districts.
Tea-baggers are great, if you’re one of them. But, if you disagree with any one item, you’re a pariah, who needs to get kicked out. The Dem might stilll win. The more i watched the stupid Sunday shows, the more I thought Owen could win.
But the FOX News message all over tha place – let ’em run on fake!
Raise the Gadsden flag my boys…. it’s onward to victory!
I’m hoping Glenn Beck gets the tea bagger’s victory.. he’s earned his place of prominence in the GOP hierarchy .
I really hate the DINO/RINO crap – leave that kind of ideological purity test to the GOP. I just moved away after having lived in what’s now NY-24 for about 20 years and it really is moderate-conservative upstate. If they’re going to vote for a moderate conservative I’d rather they elect one who caucuses with the Democrats and gives the progressive Dems leverage, and in the meantime provide an actual big tent with actual ideological diversity. Let’s not join the GOP in forcing moderates out entirely.
And thanks so much for the “middle of nowhere” barb. Much appreciated, truly.
Anyway, I moved from moderate conservative upstate NY to batshit conservative interior Alaska and there’s something similar going on with the race for mayor of the Fairbanks North Star Borough. A competent, experienced moderate conservative Democrat is running against an incompetent right-wing lunatic and may not win because he’s not a hard-liner. Luke Hopkins is a Democrat and has been endorsed by some prominent Alaska Republicans because Tammie Wilson is just that crazy.
NY-23=schadenfreude and chocolate all at once. Mmm, GOP imploding.
I don’t know, since most people really don’t pay a great deal of attention to this stuff, and since Hoffman won’t have an R next to his name, I could easily see Owens some how winning this. I think we’re (the Dems) are better off with a Hoffman victory, however. The more emboldened the teabaggers are, the better. They’re running on the premise that the reason that the Reps having been losing market share is because they have not been conservative enough. Sure, go with that. They should march through the streets being led by Herr Beck, in full Klan regalia and jackbooted under garments.
Some thoughts from the great, multi-coloured (leaves on the trees are falling) North:
I can understand “wanting” the nutcases to win so that people can see just how crazy they are, however 20th century history presents us with some pretty scary precedents. Didn’t most Germans think Hitler and his crew were batshit crazy and could never take power?
I know we’re in a different time and place but the interesting thing is that the extreme right is drawing the same parallels–though of course they see things from the opposite point of view. An extreme-right libertarian, home schooler, Fox News fan left a comment on my blog a few weeks ago (I deeply regret not having copied it before erasing it from my comments section) about how the US now resembles Weimar Germany. She thinks that her ilk are the ones suffering under the Obama jackboot and she won’t go down without a fight. I find this very frightening.
I’m not so sure that the right will sink itself with its own insane rhetoric. There are lots of (let’s face it) ignorant people out there who think Fox News is actually a factual news channel. The time for chuckling at these knuckle-heads is over, at least as far as I’m concerned.
Conservatives are invariably phony – take my ultra-conservative brother-in-law (please!). He is always spewing this Rush Limbaughesque horseshit about the “heavy hand of government” and how individuals need to “take personal responsibility” and the need for “rugged individualism”. Then, the wanker gets laid off and he immediately applies for unemployment and food stamps. I couldn’t help myself from asking him, “what happened to rugged individualism and that heavy hand of government?”. I could see him getting furious inside and he blurted out something about, “Well, I paid in all that money, I deserve something back”. To which I replied, “Exactly – you now understand why those FICA and FUTA taxes are so important. I thought he was gonna stroke out. These people just don’t have any sense of shame or appreciation for hypocrisy.
“I’m not so sure that the right will sink itself with its own insane rhetoric. There are lots of (let’s face it) ignorant people out there who think Fox News is actually a factual news channel. The time for chuckling at these knuckle-heads is over, at least as far as I’m concerned.”
A Canadian Reader –
First, I almost always agree with your comments. This time I disagree partially, though I agree teabaggers ought not to be taken lightly. I absolutley believe in dragging the teabagger movement from the sidelines onto the field – under the bright lights.
The teabaggers want to wrap themselves in the flag – every political movement does – but they want to claim the mystique of a return to the original values of the founding fathers. They love to fly the flag of the snake with the slogan ‘Don’t Tread on Me.” which dates back to the American Revolutionary War. But the ideas of the movement are straight out of Atlas Shrugged – a pure Randian defense of capitalism without controls. Low taxes for the rich – a weak federal government (small government) – tort ‘reform’ to protect the haves from the have-nots – ALWAYS without regard for culpability, contempt for the environment. These clowns had as much in common with the founding fathers as my Russian wife.
I haven’t been quoting Jefferson for my health. Theres a lot to support the argument that the founding fathers (a diverse group) were liberals. If you could bring Jefferson into the present day, he’d be a radical progressive, particularly on the inequality of wealth and the corporate exploitation of the people.
So the questions can be asked a Congessman teabagger who loves the spotlight:
“You advocate smaller governement. Where would you cut? How much? The military? Medicare? Social Security? Unemployment? Make him declare – or make him look like a posturing fool on ‘Meet the Nation’.
“What liberties are you talking about that have been curtailed by the current administration? ” What’s he going to say – suspension of habeus corpus? The only civil liberty they are upset about is the threat of higher taxes, they they will try to sell it as ‘property rights’.
“How do you feel about the ‘birthers’?” This could be especiallly fun if he’s affiliated publicly with the birthers or contributed to the boirther group.
There’s a faction of the birthers that thinks there should be no separation between church & state. Where is he on that issue?
Teabagers feel real safe hanging with teabaggers – passing lines from ‘Atlas Shrugged’ back and forth like they are reciting scripture. Once you get elected, it’s a different game and you need to have answers and arguments that will fly in the real world – with voters and other legislators – and they do NOT have them.
That’s why I want a teabagger in Congress – preferably an extrovert – and I never met an shy teabagger. And give him hell.
Interesting comment, Doug. Thanks.
Judge Land and now judge Carter, smack down the crazies (case dismissed), poor little Birthers.
Not even “Fake News†Bill O’Reilly believes the crazies, how funny.
http://belowthebeltway.com/2009/10/29/bill-oreilly-slams-orly-taitz/
To all the birthers in La, La Land, it is on you to prove to all of us that your assertion is true (TOUGH WHEN YOU KEEP LOSING CASES), if there are people who were there and support your position then show us the video (everyone has a price), either put up or frankly shut-up.
In my opinion the Republican Party has been taken over the most extreme religious right (people who love to push their beliefs on others while trying to take away the rights of those they just hate) and that is who they need to extract from their party if they real want to win. Good Luck, because as they said in WACO, “We Ain’t Coming Outâ€.
I heard that she now wants to investigate the “Republican 2009 Summer of Love†list: Assemblyman, Michael D. Duvall (CA), Senator John Ensign (NV), Senator Paul Stanley (TN), Governor Mark Stanford (SC), Board of Ed Chair, and Kristin Maguire AKA Bridget Keeney (SC).
I wonder if she is a mail order bride, just like her law degree? She is perfect reporter material for “Fake Newsâ€, where unfounded rumors and innuendo reign supreme , unlike a our US courts of law, where you need to present documented facts, not half baked lies (prepare for more failures).
A lawyer, dentist, realtor and black belt, WOW I must say a JACK of all trades master of none.