Mike Allen has dumped on Doug Hoffmann's candidacy. Again. Yesterday, as noted here, Allen said Republicans would be "crazy" and "suicidal" to support the conservative in the special congressional election in New York's 23rd CD. Today, Politico's chief political correspondent has claimed that a Hoffman victory would spell "chaos" in Republican ranks.
And check the video for Mike Barnicle making an elitist crack about the upstate NY district, and Chuck Todd trying to embarrass RNC Chairman Michael Steele . . .
MIKE ALLEN: This is the one outcome from that race that nobody expected. And that is that Republicans have been turning their back on the actual Republican; could wind up pushing this conservative in. If the conservative wins—the White House has sort of been counting on the Democrat pulling out [the win]. If the conservative wins, it's really going to embolden the tea parties, the non-Republican parts of the party. And there's going to be chaos, because nobody's going to know who's going to control the machinery. We've known for some time that if you could harness the tea parties, if you could get them on your mailing list, if you could raise money for them, that would be very powerful. But the Republican party--and this is something to ask Steele about when he comes in—is, he does not have those people, they're not on his list, he's not raising money from them.
Mike Barnicle them made an elitist crack about the 23rd CD in Northern NY [not far from the 22nd CD in which I live].
MIKE BARNICLE: Is this district in America? I mean, isn't it like half of Canada or something—it's so far up there?
I'd say it's much more in America than the liberal-elite bubble in which Barnicle resides.
When Steele appeared later in the show, NBC's Chuck Todd, rather than asking him a substantive question on the race, was content to try to embarrass the RNC Chairman.
CHUCK TODD: The congressional race in New York—where do you stand? The Republican, or the other guy?
MICHAEL STEELE: I support the Republican nominee, as the Republican committee chairman.
TODD: What's her name?
STEELE: And that's the way it should go.
TODD: Who's running? What's her name?
STEELE: Scozzafava. Dede Scozzafava. 23rd district of New York.
TODD: There you go. OK.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: You got him [presumably meaning Steele defeated Todd's attempt to embarrass him].
As to Allen's comment, I don't see this as being about the tea-partiers so much as grassroots Republicans resenting a backroom deal that foisted on them a liberal candidate from outside the GOP mainstream. But Allen prefers to cast aspersions on lifelong-Republican Doug Hoffman's candidacy.
