More On Scozzoflava: Local GOP Chair Says She Can't Win; Another GOP Chair Says the Claims She Made About McCormack Aren't True
Bonus: Kos Endorses Her, Stating She'd Be Even Further to the Left of the Democrat Running

Ninja'd by Drew! I was loading this one up with other stuff. Okay, let me edit that stuff out.

Once again, I've met McCormack briefly at CPAC at stuff and I didn't get the sense he was a screamer. He seemed more like the quiet guy who keeps to himself (and then is one day revealed to have a Cub Scout Troop in cages in his basement, but how would she know that?).

Bill Kristol, McCormack's boss, has called shenanigans on this from the get-go.

Now the Scozzafava campaign accuses John of “a complete lack of decency” and of behaving in a “reprehensible” way. This is ludicrous. Needless to say, the police found nothing amiss. Moreover, the fact is that John didn’t interrupt a conversation between Ms. Scozzafava and voters -- she wasn’t talking to voters when John approached her. Nor did John “scream,” nor did he get “in the face” of the candidate -- he was at least ten feet away from her in the parking lot, partly because a Scozzafava staffer interposed himself as John tried to ask substantive public policy questions of Ms. Scozzafava. The notion that John intended to “follow her home” is of course risible.

Dede must withdraw. Hoffman is no longer playing spolier to her. She is playing spoiler to Hoffman. She cannot win this race and her presence in it does nothing except help a Democrat win.

Which, actually, based on her basic politics as a liberal Democrat -- not even a moderate Democrat, but a liberal one -- might be perfectly fine with her.

A GOP chairman from the area concerned has written her off as a viable candidate:

In an exclusive interview with the TCOT Report, George Joseph, Republican Party Chairman of Oneida County, one of the eleven counties in New York’s 23rd Congressional District, today slammed Republican Party nominee Dede Scozzafava. This damaging news comes on the heels of Scozzafava’s ill advised attempt to intimidate a reporter from The Weekly Standard by calling the cops on him after he asked persistent questions about her position on card check legislation at a meeting held last night in Lowville, New York. Lowville is located in Lewis County, immediately to the north of Oneida County.

According to Joseph

“ I wasn’t sold on Dede from the beginning. That race represents 8% of Oneida County. Throughout the nomination process, I would have thought there would have been more sensitivity, in light of what happened with Tedisco in NY 20, who was the annointed front runner. [Republican Tedisco was defeated in a special election for an open Congresssional seat earlier this year]. Just with [Dede] coming out of Albany — any legislator in Albany is so tarnished why would we nominate them ? We acted very tone deaf in how we selected this nominee.”

Joseph also took a shot at Clinton County Chairman and Assemblywoman Janet Duprey, who threw the nomination to Scozzafava despite the fact that the majority of the Clinton County committee members who attended a candidate forum voted for the ideologically conservative Paul Maroun, and not for the ideologically liberal Scozzafava.

“I would be as much offended if I was a resident or committee person of that county. This process, that started in an honorable fashion has turned into a tainted runaway election.”

Joseph conceded that because of this, Scozzafava is almost certain to lose the election.

“ Do I write off this election? Absolutely. Unless something – a revelation comes through regarding Hoffman, or there’s a change in events for the Democrats — the Democrat’s going to win.That’s how we lose elections.”

Um, what about something like the withdrawal of Scozzoflava, or the local GOP reneging on its support of her and throwing support to the only candidate who can win, Doug Hoffman?

No chance of that -- even though he concedes that Scozzoflava can't win, he can't bear the thought of allowing a Conservative Party candidate to win instead:

“ As a party chairman I have intolerance for those who start banging the drum after the fact. It smells like a spoiler and it will be a spoiler. The relationship between the Republicans and Conservatives has been breached. For Republicans, the election is lost either way. If Hoffman can win it, which is a long shot ,where does that put us? ”

Joseph adamantly refused to call for Scozzafava to withdraw from the race. “ That would just be affirming Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long’s position. What are we going to do ? Let him tell us who we should nominate? ”

Where does that put you? It puts you with plus one Republican in the House, because Hoffman would caucus with Republicans and immediately re-affirm his partisan affiliation as Republican.

But look how petty and personal this is -- these people don't care about getting good conservatives elected. They care much more about retaining their power to decide who gets elected.

It's too much to say, "We were wrong"? Apparently so. Because then the Conservative Party wins or something. Better to let the Democrat win. Can't have the Conservative Party pushing around the Republican Party.

More at this site, all over this FUBAR situation.

Michelle Malkin notes that McCormack played his tapes for the AP -- and they demonstrate that Dede's campiagn is lying.

In the audio recording of the reporter’s questioning played for The Associated Press by McCormack, the reporter didn’t raise his voice, but repeated his unanswered questions several times, including one about abortion.

Another GOP Chairman at the meeting says that whatever Dede -- or, more accurately, her flack Matt Burns -- is alleging happened just didn't happen. Although he's nice enough to allow that maybe it happened when he wasn't looking or wasn't around.

But from his own observation? Did not happen.

Cool Scary Facts About John McCormack? One of John McCormack's hands has "HATE" tattooed on the knuckles.

But, to remind himself that life is duality, he has "MORE HATE" tattooed on the other hand's knuckles.

John McCormack, skulking around,
menacingly... his press credentials are
in his lucky murder kit

Kos' Endorsement: Now, it's possible he's playing an Operation: Chaos type game here. But... even if he is, he's right.

Furthermore, the Kos endorsement badly damages Scozzoflava and opens the door for a Hoffman victory, and I figure, as stupid as he is, he's smart enough to know at least that.

So it’s official, I’m rooting for the Republican to win. As a congresswoman, she could either move even more to the left to properly represent her progressive-trending district and be a pain in the side of the GOP caucus (they have nothing like our Blue Dogs), or Democrats can field a real Democrat to challenge her in 2010.

posted by Ace at 11:41 AM

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