Hoffman is a candidate for Congress in New York's 23rd Congressional district.
He owns a six-branch accounting franchise across the district, which is huge, because the district is huge, spanning five different media markets. It has more land mass than any other district east of the Mississippi. It stretches from Lake Champlain to Lake Ontario; from the Canadian border down to south of Syracuse. It hasn't sent a Democrat to Congress since the Civil War.
The Club for Growth has just launched a $300,000 advertising campaign on his behalf. Erick Erickson's RedState is raising money for Hoffmann. Dick Armey, the former house majority leader, is campaigning for him. Former presidential candidate Fred Thompson is a supporter, and his wife, Jeri Thompson, availed herself of a Fox News appearance to sing Hoffman's praises. Blogger Michelle Malkin has urged her readers to "spread the word" about Hoffman. This morning, Hoffman appeared on Glenn Beck's radio program.
So what? So -- he's running against a fairly liberal Republican, Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, and a Democrat, lawyer and military veteran Bill Owens, in a congressional district vacated by a beloved, long-serving Republican who left for a key defense position in the Obama administration. In theory, a Conservative Party candidate could win if the Republican and Democrat eat into each other's bases. Polls put Hoffman in third place now, but the trend is favorable.
Hoffman plays on several levels. He's avowedly conservative down the line: no to gay marriage, no to abortion, no to tax hikes, yes to strong defense, no on the stimulus bill, no to cap and trade. But importantly, for these times, he's populist: he gives a big, loud "no" to bank bailouts.
So -- he's running as Howard Dean ran when Democrats were the out-party and when activists believed that Democratic congressional leaders capitulated all too quickly to the Republican Party. Dean, you'll recall, famously began an early campaign speech by insisting he represented the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. Hoffman doesn't have the luxury of running as a Republican, but his appeal is similar in kind: he's running against Republicans who are Democratic-lite. Scozzafava has been endorsed by the inside-the-beltway crowd, which is one reason why conservatives upset with the National Republican Congressional Committee's choices are flocking to Hoffman.
In that way, he fulfills a fantasy of those activists who believe that the real problem with Republicans is that they sacrifice principals for expediency. If only Republicans would act like true conservatives and proclaim their conservatism loudly and proudly -- they'd win. And -- and -- this is a district in New York State, not the South. Even Republicans who believe that the party's core deficiency is insufficient ideological rectitude know that the GOP has a message problem. "He is reflective of what is going on in the nation," his senior communications director, Rob Ryan, said. "He's a private citizen who had enough. That's reflective of all the people we see marching down in Washington, at the Tea Parties and events like that across the country."
To Hoffman, the race is a referendum on the future of the Republican Party and the first ten months of the Obama administration. If he loses, which is more likely than not, forget the latter. But he's already had an impact on the former.
Just regarding Armey, if any Scozzafava supporters want to fight back, make sure that as many people as possible see this Dick Armey video. And, if Armey had wanted to block UHC, he could have encouraged his charges to ask these questions at townhalls. Instead of doing that, he just encouraged them to go, despite knowing that almost all of them would just throw a tantrum. Not only does he support what most of the GOP base does not want, but he can't figure out how to solve problems.
So he wants a big military with no taxes to pay for it (just deficits), sounds typically 'conservsative.'
Brian
As Congressman Bill Owens is sworn in, Hoffman will be yet another example of what's WRONG with conservatives and Republicans.
Fine by me, let them have their splendid little internal civil war.
It just gives Democrats the time needed to fix all the problems conservatives caused earlier this decade...and the problems are many, and the time needed not short.
This guy seems to epitomize what is wrong with movement conservatives. They're are running a party line conservative in New York. New York! I don't care that if it's the most GOP friendly district in the state, it's New-frickin-York. Even if he were to squeak through, his appeal starts and ends in his district.
Being against gay marriage, against abortion and against the stimulus and bank bailouts sounds "conservative" to me. I wonder, however, what his positions on the "true conservative test" issues are--the loss of our freedoms thanks to Clinton and Bush's EOs, the MCA and NDAA and the NSPD 51 all signed by GW Bush, the NAU (now a proven fact as stated by Jerome Corsi in his Oct. 24th column at WND), a treasonous move by Bush who was convinced by CFR bigwigs to destroy our sovereignty and of course, illegal immigration and most important, Amnesty?
I'll give Hoffman this much--he may be a quasi-conservative. Maybe such a person is attractive to the "anything but a Libtard" mob but I'm highly suspicious of ANY so-called "conservative" from liberal New York. As Palin hid her views on illegal immigration till the week before the Election, Hoffman seems to be hiding his views on that and other issues that are essential to conservatives. That concerns me. If he's so afraid of releasing his positions on hot button issues, then perhaps New York conservatives should think twice about voting for him.