doug hoffman

Earlier today the Washington Independent’s Dave Weigel spoke with conservative pollster Rick Shaftan of Neighborhood Research. Shaftan has released a post-mortem memo and survey on the NY-23 special election in which Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, who enjoyed the backing of major national figures such as Sarah Palin and Marilyn Musgrave, lost to Democratic candidate [...]

The conservative backers of New York third-party candidate Doug Hoffman, a crowd that included Marilyn Musgrave, Sarah Palin and presidential hopeful Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, view their campaign efforts a victory, even though Hoffman Tuesday night lost the once-safely Republican district to Democrat Bill Owens. So-called tea party conservatives see the GOP loss as [...]

SARANAC LAKE, N.Y. –Slightly before midnight on Tuesday, reality reared its ugly head. Hoffman lost to Democrat Bill Owens, who became the first member of his party to represent this region of New York in Congress since the 1870s. The margin when Hoffman conceded was slightly more than 4,000 votes. Nothing went right. Owens won his base in the northeastern part of the district, and he won or held his own in the parts of the district that Scozzafava–who endorsed Owens after leaving the race–represents in the assembly. Hoffman underperformed in the Syracuse, N.Y., suburbs that neither candidate had political ties to, even though polls had him leading by a 2-1 margin there.

The heated rhetoric and no-holds-barred campaign tactics on display in the Douglas County school board race may complicate what looks to be Republican party leader Dick Wadhams‘ plan to take back the state. The Douglas County GOP supported four “real Republicans” and targeted two “liberal Republicans” for defeat. The categories seemed to be based entirely [...]

Social-conservative Marilyn Musgrave, who was ousted by fed-up moderate conservative Fourth District Colorado voters last year, is campaigning for third party New York Congressional candidate Doug Hoffman this week. She is there representing the Susan B Anthony List, the pro-life political activist organization at which she is now director of a program that targets vulnerable [...]

What does it look like when the arch-conservatives come to town? They’re swarming places like Watertown in upstate New York, where semi-qualified Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman is running for Congress and drawing national media attention along with the all-stars of the wingnut right, who are determined to rid the party of so-called RINOs– [...]

WATERTOWN, N.Y. – Rallying support for Democratic congressional candidate Bill Owens before Tuesday’s special election in NY-23, Vice President Joe Biden today told a mostly full room at the North Side Improvement League to “teach a lesson” to right-wing activists. Ideological activists, said Biden, forced Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava out of the race because they couldn’t brook “dissent with their neoconservative views.”

Marilyn Musgrave, the Republican 4th District U.S. Representative who lost to Rep. Betsy Markey last year, has joined the national right-wing effort to elect Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman to the House in New York’s special election Tuesday. Hoffman’s strong third-party bid has made it a close race, highlighting widening faultlines in the national GOP [...]