Matt Doheny Uses Scozzafava's Insider Tactics and Buys Supporters

If you thought the backroom deals and insider political maneuvers that were exposed in the aftermath of the NY-23 GOP Special Election last summer were over, think again!

The Republican Party has just launched another major offensive against the Conservative-Republican candidate, Doug Hoffman, in retaliation for his entering the NY-23 congressional race last fall as an alternative candidate to liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava and Democrat Bill Owens. Tonight, just days after George Joseph resigned from his position as Chairman of the Oneida County Republican Party, the local Republican party quickly organized a Monday night meeting to offer its endorsement to rival candidate Matt Doheny. The county endorsement is perplexing to those who will remember that Hoffman ran up the score in Oneida County with 3,225 votes to Owens' 2,243 and Scozzafava's paltry 459. But apparently the Oneida Republicans want to give it away in exchange for something else.

And so again, it appears the fix may in with the establishment good old boys club in NY-23. The news came to us from a local Republican activist who just called and said he heard that the whole meeting was set without even giving Doug Hoffman a hearing, and that he overheard a conversation where it was discussed how Hoffman was purposely not even invited or made aware of the meeting with the county committee so he wouldn’t be able to make his case to the members.

The local activist went on to say that, "the endorsement proceedings I just witnessed over here in Oneida County were the least transparent I have ever seen on the local level. I knew that backroom deals and shady political operations like this existed, but never have I seen something quite like this happen within our own committee. The whole affair tonight wasn't even an honest attempt to be fair. What were the local Republican leaders thinking? It was like some of them were acting like Democrats trying to write a health care bill behind closed doors in the dead of night. Why were the local county officials so afraid of inviting Doug Hoffman so he could make his case? There is obviously something else behind the endorsement that people didn’t know about yet, and it has got to be exposed."

In fairness, the Oneida County Republican insiders weren’t the first Republican leaders to prematurely throw their hat in Doheny’s corner. Just this past week, right as Doheny officially announced his candidacy, he took the endorsements of three other county chairmen in the district, Ron Jackson of Essex County, Donald Lee of Clinton County, and Donald Coon of Jefferson County, who were part of the Scozzafava crowning last fall.

And the local ring-leader of the 2009 Special Election Circus, James Ellis of Franklin County who set up the process for Scozzafava's victory last summer, just so happens to be publicly supporting a registered Democrat, Steve Levy, for the New York Gubernatorial race. Ellis is always doing his best to throw Hoffman under the bus each and every chance he gets near a reporter. So it is clear there is an organized effort by the county Republican leadership to block Hoffman organizationally and in the media.

The public support of inside party leaders is a function of at least two things that we can identify at the moment: 1) a resentment of conservatism in general and Doug Hoffman in particular, a man who utterly embarrassed and exposed the shady backroom dealings of the local Republican establishment, and 2) money.

Not only have Republican leaders been looking for an alternative to Hoffman in 2010, but they have now found an alternative who is willing and able to float large checks to local candidates and party leaders in exchange for public support. Public records show that Doheny has written nearly $30,000 in checks to county chairs, local elected officials, and the state party to gain influence and early momentum in his bid to beat Hoffman for the Republican nomination.

Another source told me that, "Doheny is willing to hand out money to anyone who is willing to help him, a sort of political quid pro quo. He likes to give money to candidate he thinks will help him down the line. And by looking at his records it shows he doesn't have any principles. Why else would he give Dede Scozzafava $2,400 for her election bid?" In other words, some are making the subtle claim that Doheny is aiming to win a congressional seat the old fashioned way – he is going to buy his seat.

But there are clear disadvantages to running a campaign on the inside lane. First off, the local Republican Party has failed miserably to win the 48th State Senate seat and the 118th Assembly seat. And the Oneida County Coup tonight is really a stunning example of what voters rejected last year and what helped propel Doug Hoffman into the national conservative spotlight. For a local county party like Oneida's, that can only boast nearly 7,000 Republican voters, to quickly circle the wagons make a public endorsement on behalf of all its members for Doheny's campaign shows a remarkable ability to throw the rules out the window and forget their 2009 debacle.

For those political animals who want to look to the history books on how we ended up with Scozzafava it started the same way. One report of the cussed up nomination process last year stated that it was, “orchestrated by two powerful liberal members of the local Republican Party organization, and was aided and abetted by several politically inexperienced local county leaders who failed to grasp the tactical significance of shunning the Conservative Party and did not fully understand the details of their nominee’s record, or her potential vulnerabilities…”

Unfortunately, those who forget history are often times bound to repeat it. And this post is just barely scratching the surface on how some local Republican leaders in NY-23 are up to their old antics again this year. The real significance of the Oneida County Coup is that now voters and Republican party activists are willing to speak out against the county leaders who got us into this similar mess with Scozzafava in 2009. And I’m being told that those Republican activists are not willing to go down without making a stink about the sausage making factories that are the local Republican County Committees. These kinds of strong arm tactics and secret endorsement meetings are not the way for Republicans to win elections in 2010.