GOP Faces Possible NY 23 Repeat
GOPers stung by a divisive intra-party battle last fall face the prospect of a split party, once again, in the race for an upstate NY House seat that should favor the minority.
Last Nov., Rep. Bill Owens (D) won Army Sec. John McHugh's seat with just 48.3% of the vote. Still, it was enough to win after Assemb. Dede Scozzafava (R) and accountant Doug Hoffman, running on the Conservative Party line, split the GOP vote.
After Hoffman attacked Scozzafava's moderate -- GOPers backing Hoffman labeled her liberal -- record, Scozzafava dropped out of the contest and backed Owens. Hoffman finished with 46% of the vote, while Scozzafava took 5.6%.
This time was supposed to be different. Unlike in Nov., when local party officials picked Scozzafava and inadvertently ignited activist backlash, this year's primary would pit 2 well-funded candidates against each other. A single winner was supposed to face Owens in the fall.
But, for the second straight time, third parties could have a serious impact on the race. Hoffman, running again, has the Conservative Party line a second time. And businessman Matt Doheny (R), who unsuccessfully sought the GOP nomination last year, has secured the Independence Party line -- which Scozzafava won last time around.
That means the winner of the state's GOP primary, to be held Sept. 14, may not get a clean shot at Owens. Hoffman has said he will stay in the race even if he doesn't win the GOP nomination, while a Doheny spokesperson refused to speculate on what the future would hold for his campaign.
"Right now, we're just focusing on winning the Republican primary," said Doheny aide Alison Power. But, she added: "There are a lot of long-time, active Independence Party members in the district."
"We're very happy about" the endorsement, Power said.
"Doug is running no matter what," said Rob Ryan, Hoffman's top strategist. He slammed local GOP leaders as party insiders out of touch with the needs and interests of the party electorate. "This is the same cast of characters that brought everybody Dede Scozzafava last year, and they tried to bring Steve Levy in the governor's race," Ryan said.
The 23rd District leans to the right; no Dem had won the seat, which stretches from the VT border through the Finger Lakes region to the outscurts of Syracuse, in more than a century (Of note, Pres. Obama won it last time around, taking 52% of the vote).
Local party officials are quietly backing Doheny, still bitter that Hoffman cost them their chances at the seat. And national party officials, once bitten, are now shy about getting involved in the race.
"We have 2 strong candidats, so it's up to the voters to decide," said Tory Mazzola, an NRCC spokesperson. "In our opinion, Doug Hoffman has proven he can run a successful campaign, and that's part of the reason we're hands-off."
Local party officials are not "quietly backing Doheny", they're doing it in broad daylight and making no bones about it. They don't care that the majority of the GOP membership in the 23rd bucked their handpicked candidate last year and voted for the conservative, Hoffman. They didn't learn they're lesson, so I guess us conservative, average-joe Republicans will have to show them again that they don't get to decide who the nominee is...WE THE PEOPLE do.
There is no such word as "outscurts". The word is "outskirts". Spell check is a simple procedure and there is no excuse for reporters to publish articles with misspelled words.