Whats Up NY-23?
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Best Political Video of the Season
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Three Republicans Running for US Senate
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Franklin GOP Supports Candidate Who Dresses Like a Terrorist?
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.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Hillary Clinton or Tiger Woods for SCOTUS?
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
NY-23 GOP Primary Race Starts Today
Monday, March 29, 2010
NY-23 GOP Chairs Realize It's Hoffman or Owens
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Owens Gives Away His Vote to Pelosi & Betrays the People of NY-23
Friday, March 19, 2010
Facts About ObamaCare That Will Scare You
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Is Bill Owens More Liberal Than Michael Arcuri?
Bill Owens' Silence Will be Broken Soon
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Bill Owens Wearing Flip-Flops in March???
Sunday, March 14, 2010
While Leaving NY-23 Race Will Barclay Beats Up on Political Cynicism
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Call Bill Owens & Tell Him NY-23 is the People's Seat, Not Obama & Pelosi's
The White House self-imposed Thursday, March 18th, as the date when the House should vote for the Senate version of the health care reform bill. That doesn’t mean the President or the folks in the House won’t move the goal posts again, but it is a pretty safe bet that the end of March is last battle cry for the Democrats to carry on this looney tune fantasy to socialize our medicine.
The conventional thinking goes like this: expect that the House will be taking up the Senate-passed health care reform bill any day now. This bill is not good for Northern and Central New York. If you are reading this blog then we expect that you should already know the reasons why. It costs $2.5 trillion and for what? It will not create a single job for a single person in NY-23. It will increase our debt. Seniors will lose their Medicare Advantage plans. Your money will go to pay for other people’s abortions. Washington bureaucrats will be getting between you and your doctor and their meddling will have a significant impact on the health care delivery options you are entitled to. Premiums will go up. Rural hospitals and health centers will be consolidated. Medical liability will continue to drive up costs, resulting in less access for patients and fewer incentives for better-trained medical professionals to enter the health care field.
The whole thing is a precursor to Bigger and Bigger and Bigger government. Ladies and gentlemen, this is simply not what we signed up for. Now is the time to tell Washington.
Can anyone talk to Congressman Bill Owens about this, please? Ask him why he is still undecided. Ask him how many jobs this monstrosity will create. Ask him how he expects our children and our grandchildren to pay for the costs. Ask him why he wants to take our money to pay for abortions. Ask him if he is so concerned with our debt why he wants to spend more money on a government run system that would force small businesses to comply with new bureaucratic red-tape or else face fines and new taxes. Ask him why he is so in the bag for Obama and Pelosi.
There is only one solution to this nightmare: we must start over and work out a bipartisan solution. Tell Congressman Bill Owens, who voted for the House Health Care Reform bill when he was first elected to office last year, that we need his help. Even though he lied about his true position to the people of NY-23 on the campaign trail he is now evolving on this issue. If Owens gets enough pressure from his constituents we can make a difference. In recent news reports Owens says he might flip-flop on health care. Tell Owens that just because he owes his seat to Pelosi and Obama who raised him buckets of money last year, the NY-23 seat is still the people's seat. Afterall, Owens does have to answer to us next fall.
You can call his DC office today at 202-225-4611. You can call his Watertown office at 315-782-3150. You can call his Plattsburgh office at 518-563-1406. You can call his Mayfield office at 518-661-6486. And you can call his Canastota office at 315-875-5115. Then you can e-mail his office by going to this link. And if you really want to make sure he gets the message you can e-mail his campaign aide, Gary Whidby, at gary@billowensforcongress.com. Ask Owens to go public in the news. Demand that he represent the people of NY-23 instead of Obama and Pelosi. This bill is bad, but we don't even know all the problems that are in it because even the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, doesn't even know everything that is in it.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Hoffman Shows His Cards
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Did Vaugh Plagiarize Doheny or did Doheny Plagiarize Vaugh?
Nick Vaugh's Fundraising Appeal to Republicans Posted on NewzJunky.com on March 4, 2010:
"I owe my values and success to my family. My mother and father along with my grandfather taught me firsthand the dignity of hard work, the sanctity of family, and the value of service to the community. It is with these values that I seek your assistance in representing the citizens of the 118th Assembly District and the rest of New York. It is with these values and experience I will aggressively work to create an economic environment in which businesses and families can thrive."
Matt Doheny's Letter to Local Republican Committee Members Dated January 21, 2010:
"The value of hard work in the North Country, the sanctity of family and the importance of service to the community was passed down to Matt at a young age directly from his parents. It is these values and the values that he learned from his work in the private sector that Matt will use to represent the citizens of the 23rd Congressional District."
"A proven accusation of plagiarism can have serious repercussions for a candidate's political ambitions. Just ask Joe Biden. His borrowing of a British politician's campaign speech is perhaps the most famous instance of political plagiarism... This P-word sums up a number of qualities with which no successful politician would want to be assocaited: in-authentic, shortsighted, manipulable (by speechwriters), dishonest, criminal, deceitful, and so on... And if the plagiarism charges stick, the accused is forever tainted, corrupted, and sullied with the justly deserved stigma surrounding such reprehensible behavior. Even if the speechwriter is the real culprit! ["Your speechwriter did it?--yeah, right."]"