Will Doug Hoffman’s sore loser strategy make him a 2010 winner in New York’s 23rd Congressional district?

On November 12, Doug Hoffman, the failed Conservative Party insurgent whose vote-splitting candidacy handed New York’s long Republican 23rd district to Democratic Rep. Bill Owens, signaled his desire to run for office again in November 2010:

Less than a week after he lost the nationally-watched special election for Congress in New York’s 23rd District by a margin of 49% to 47% of the vote, Doug Hoffman said he is “seriously considering” another race in 2010.

“And the difference next time is that there will be a primary in which the nomination will be made by Republican voters,” said Hoffman, who ran on the Conservative Party ticket after a conclave of the ten Republican county chairmen (one for each county in the district) gave the nomination to liberal State Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava.

via Doug Hoffman ‘Seriously Considering’ 2010 Race – HUMAN EVENTS.

Hoffman can certainly now be called a sore loser. But he’s trying to make being a sore loser into a winning strategy for November 2010. And his plan appears to have two pieces to it.

His first sore loser strategy is built around slamming the local Republican Party stalwarts in New York’s North Country. This seems like the risky part of his plan. While the National Republican Congressional Committee may decide they like Hoffman’s prospects of unseating Owens in ‘10, will the local GOP leaders who elevated Dede Scozzafava in the first place respond by raising a candidate of their own to disrupt Hoffman’s cakewalk to the district’s nomination? A costly primary in a single district that doesn’t really fit into the Republicans’ broader national plan could leave Hoffman with a major cash deficit as he heads into the 2010 general election in the NY-23 against a well-funded Democrat who is unlikely to have any challengers up front.

On the other hand, if Hoffman succeeds in pulling off the second part of his sore loser strategy, he may never need to worry about campaign cash ever again.

Shortly after Hoffman teased on 2010, he decided to ‘unconcede’ and challenge Rep. Owens’s Election Night victory. Beyond the correction of vote count errors that were eventually settled by a count of absentee ballots, Hoffman turned up the temperature by alleging voter fraud in the NY-23rd’s special election.

What voter fraud went down is unclear. Hoffman blamed it on “the ACORN faithful,” who he said had “tamper[ed] with democracy.” He made this assertion in a plea for donations to effectively launch lawsuits to begin a lengthy recount in the NY-23, or ’stop another stolen election’ as he put it. Of course, this is nonsense. There was no ACORN involvement of any kind in the NY-23 according to reporting by the Post-Standard of Syracuse:

Jonathan Rosen, an ACORN spokesman in New York City, denied Hoffman’s accusations. “ACORN has no members, leaders or staff in New York-23 and had no involvement in the recent congressional election there,” Rosen said.

The allegations that ACORN stole the election led Tom Bevan, co-editor of conservative-leaning RealClearPolitics.com, to warn Hoffman on the tack:

This strikes me as a fairly transparent ploy on Hoffman’s part to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the results. If he’s got proof fraud occurred, then by all means bring it forward. But to cry fraud without proof is irresponsible, not least because will undermine future cases where fraud may actually have occurred.

Hoffman’s people are saying they will only reveal their proof in the course of a lawsuit to come.

But if the signals they’re telegraphing on the campaign’s website are any sign, they will be based on bizarre allegations published in a poorly edited and badly designed local website called the ‘Gouverneur Times’ by one Nathan Barker. He writes that a ‘virus’ in computerized voting machines used in some polling stations in the NY-23 tainted the results. In fact, because of the poor web editing job of Hoffman’s online people, it almost appears like the article is being presented by the campaign as their evidence that the vote was stolen – you have to click on the link at the bottom of the story to see that it’s from the Gouverneur Times.

The Gouverneur Times also casts out some bizarre conspiracy theories without offering any evidence to prove them:

Of further note, the models of ImageCast machines used in the districts have a slot through which the paper ballot is deposited into a secure holding tank underneath the machine after the ballot is scanned by the machine.  The problem is that the slot is readily accessible to the voter (or poll worker) to stuff manually.  10 voted ballots could be deposited in the slot for every one voter… and if the electronic count was compromised, the “paper backup” would be useless.

The ImageCast machines have one more significant and scary flaw: USB ports.  USB ports allow various devices to be attached to a computer in order to input information, connect a device, add wireless network capability and so on.  Wireless network devices and USB storage devices can (and are) made small enough to fit into a regular wristwatch or bracelet.

It’s a great bit of ‘if at first you don’t succeed’ kind of writing – Barker puts the ‘virus’ stuff at the top because it’s the only thing where there could even possibly be a problem. And as the lengthy, poorly edited essay-posing-as-news carries on, he gets into mysterious poll workers stuffing phony ballots into machines and scary election-stealing USB drives that no one actually claims to have seen. But, you know, it’s possible.

Especially because 52% of Republican voters are now conspiracy theorists who a year after November 2008 think that President Obama stole the presidential election. If ‘Democrats steal elections’ is the new wildcat prospect meme for conservatives, Hoffman and co. appear to believe that with the NY-23, they’ve struck a gusher. By keeping up his campaign’s allegations that Hoffman’s seat in Congress was stolen, the sore loser can keep his campaign in the conservative limelight, repeatedly get himself invited back to the set of Glenn Beck to talk about how he’s fighting against voter fraud, and use that as the electromagnet to attract national conservative money into his campaign coffers for ‘10.

And it just might work. We’re likely to find out tomorrow, which the Washington Times reports is the deadline for Hoffman to call for a recount.

***

A note about Hoffman’s source for the ‘virus claim.’ I’ve been trying to learn more about the background of the Gouverneur Times. Beyond being proffered by Hoffman as evidence of a hacked election, their article has been cited far and wide, and it looks like they’ve had close to half a million visitors to the site this month alone purely because of their coverage of Hoffman’s campaign.

The site’s only been live since late 2008, and with Barker the only editorial staff member listed, they appear to rely heavily on the Associated Press articles and Creators’ Syndicate columns to fill their ugly pages with content.

It was apparently launched as a ‘citizen journalism’ website, as explained by publisher Scott A. Reddick in a forum post dated February 17, 2009:

The nearly unfettered bias presented to us in this years Presidential election process on part of the national Mainstream Media has been appalling.

And if that’s not enough for you, check out the awesome assortment of grammatical errors in this love letter to Hoffman from Reddick (complete with a sepia-toned photo of the two longingly shaking hands) about why Owens may be serving illegitimately:

So now the issue is weather or not Owens is legally holding office in congress; precedent has been leveled on this matter before in other races. Taking office before the official count is in constitutes a usurpation of power over voter’s wishes on the part of Congress. Someone wanted a ‘yes’ vote for the Health Care bill.

Traffic monitoring services like Compete show the site didn’t seem to have much momentum until the period of the special election, and Reddick must be nothing other than a businessman, pinning himself to Hoffman now and into the future. Watch for the website to get more privileged pseudo-information about Hoffman’s suit for a recount. But it’d be nice if respectable news outlets put an asterisk next to everything they publish, given the editorial standards that are evidently driving the outlet.