New York’s 23rd congressional district is thousands of miles from Ronald Reagan’s California, but I think the Gipper would find the sprawling upstate area to his liking. The district is famous for its clean mountain air, and its values have helped to elect a conservative to Congress since 1992.
Next month, the district will hold a special election to replace John McHugh, a Republican who resigned to become secretary of the Army in the Obama administration. The Republican nominee, Dede Scozzafava, supports abortion rights, gay marriage, card check, and the Obama stimulus. She has also called a cop on a Weekly Standard reporter and voted for so many tax increases in Albany that her Democratic opponent, Bill Owens, is attacking her as a tax-and-spend liberal.
One could go on about all of Scozzafava’s positions. I’ll leave that to others, because this race isn’t about Dede Scozzafava, it’s about Doug Hoffman, the Conservative party candidate who is shaking up New York state politics — much as James L. Buckley did nearly 40 years ago when he toppled liberal Republican Charles Goodell and won a U.S. Senate seat.
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Hoffman says that the special election in NY-23 is not just about who the good people of Oswego and Plattsburgh choose to send to Washington. “This race is also about fighting for the heart and soul of the Republican party and the values we stand for,” he says. “I’m a Ronald Reagan commonsense conservative. I look to Bill Buckley as someone who also stood up for what he believed in, as well as Jim Buckley, who was able to win and show that it was possible for other conservatives.”
Hoffman, an accountant, has been running primarily on fiscal issues. “Across the country, people are saying they’re fed up with runaway spending,” says Hoffman. “Washington is stifling businesses and individuals with taxes. It is the ‘tea party’ people and the 9/12 people that are standing up and saying ‘we’re fed up and it’s time to do something about this.’ We need to take this country back from career politicians.”
“When we win this election, we’ll send a message around the country,” predicts Hoffman. “Career politicians will be seeing a lot more people like me in 2010.”
So if he loses in the special election come November, will Hoffman run again in 2010? “I believe so,” he says. For now, Hoffman says that Owens and Scozzafava “will be two liberals splitting the liberal vote.”
With the national spotlight shining on his upstart campaign, Hoffman is quick to say that he’s no hero. “I’m an average citizen who just knew that he needed to run,” he says. “The Founding Fathers envisioned people going to Congress leading average jobs, and representing the people who they live and work with. I’m not a career politician. I never wanted to be in politics, but I realized that if we don’t step forward then we’re going to lose this country. If you look at what has happened over the last few years, excess spending has driven this country to a point where we can’t pay the debt. I don’t want people to look back 20 years from now and my grandchildren to ask me ‘what happened to our country and why didn’t you do something about it?’”
Conservatives around the country are rallying to Hoffman’s side. He says that he’s pleased with the response, but not entirely surprised. “What you’re seeing is the resurrection of the silent majority,” says Hoffman. “Conservatives, by nature, are quiet, and keep to themselves. Now we have realized that if we keep to ourselves too much longer then we won’t have the America we had before, shaped by the core values that have sustained us since the beginning.”
Scozzafava, says Hoffman, may now be trying to scurry right in the wake of heaps of conservative criticism, but she won’t fool anyone. “If you listened to the rhetoric of the Republican candidate, you wouldn’t understand her true record,” he says. “She says one thing and does another. She’s a master at telling people what they want to hear. Listening to her, she sounds terrific, but if you do the research, as many voters in my district have, then it’s clear that she is a Republican-in-name-only.”
Hoffman admits that the road ahead won’t be easy. A Siena Research Institute poll released last week found the three candidates all with legitimate chances to win. Owens led with 33 percent, followed by Scozzafava with 29 percent and Hoffman with 23 percent. “My handicap is that I’m not a career politician,” he says. “But I have nothing to hide. My platform is consistent and what the people of my district are looking for. The other candidates can bash me all they want.”
Most aren’t bashing, though. National conservative figures including former senator Fred Thompson and former House majority leader Dick Armey have endorsed Hoffman. Conservative groups such as the free-market-minded Club for Growth have poured money into his campaign.
“If I can do this, then a lot of other people can step up and do this,” says Hoffman. “It’s caused a lot of anxiety and been a lot of hard work. Yet if you really believe in it, that’s what motivates, that’s what keeps you going. As I progress in this candidacy, more and more people are coming out to help. That’s what keeps me going. I really believe that [running as a Conservative party candidate] is what’s right for my district and our country. From that point of view, a win here is doable, and I want to win, for all of us conservatives.”
To do that, Hoffman says he’ll spend these final few weeks going door-to-door to chat with voters about cutting taxes, spending, and government waste. That kind of politics, he says, is what the GOP needs to get back to. As Reagan said, “all great change in America begins at the dinner table.”
— Robert Costa is the William F. Buckley Jr. Fellow at the National Review Institute.
