NY-23, Flat Tires, Teabaggers and Redefining Victory

It's over for the Teabaggers in NY-23. Despite a deer-in-the-lights interview with Glenn Beck and glowing endorsements from Hannity, Palin, Pawlenty and Rush, Republican candidate and Tea Party favorite Doug Hoffman (who did not reside in NY-23 but was willing to move in district if he won) lost a Republican seat held by that party for 120 years.

So, who's to blame? Hoffman, naturally, blames ACORN and Dems of "stealing the election"! The campaign also accused Dems of slashing a volunteer's tires. However, the Wall Street Journal followed up with the Plattsburgh police and was told that the volunteer actually damaged his tire on a broken bottle. Campaign manager Dan Tripp had no comment.

Okay, so it was a broken bottle but it was probably thrown on the ground by a liberal. So what does a Teabagger have to say about ACORN?

Digby writes:

John Fund and Rush Limbaugh have been darkly predicting an outbreak of voter fraud by the ACORN conspiracy that is threatening to take over the world. Indeed, the rank and file is worried that ACORN has even infiltrated the campaign of the teabagging darling Doug Hoffman.

Dave Weigel reports from NY 23:

Outside, two dozen Hoffman supporters lined the sidewalks with signs that attacked Owens as a “Pelosi puppet” and an agent of ACORN.

“I was at a Tea Party, but this is too slow a process for me,” said John Dewitt, a contractor from Adams, N.Y. “I’m more on the violence side. I’m more of the Civil War, revolutionary kind of guy. I’m of the old school–you kick them in the ass and be done with it.”

The Hoffman backers outside of the Biden event all said they’d attended Tea Parties. Some were affiliated with Glenn Beck’s 9/12 Project. All worried that ACORN was going to show up in the district, or even at the Biden event–a paranoia that led to some minor awkwardness when an African-American Hoffman worker walked by.

“This guy’s with ACORN,” said Dewitt.
“Definitely, not from around here,” said businessman Erik Dunk.

Those ACORNs are a bunch of shiftless welfare queens who are disenfranchising Real Americans.

That or they're working for your candidate's staff. Or you're a racist.

Now we have my favorite excuse - moving the goal posts and redefining the "victory". Local St. Louis Tea Party co-organizer Dana Loesch claims to be neither Democrat or Republican, just a conservative. However, her aim is to co-opt the GOP. She writes today:

"I’ve been going whole hog since February with my co-extremist, Bill Hennessy , since February. We didn’t do this to create some peashooter third party. We did it to help take over the GOP, to move this brick house back to its foundation. I am vehemently opposed to this movement being cop-opted into a third party and marginalized in the same manner that third parties are usually marginalized.

The GOP is a conservative party and that’s what this fight is to me, just as much as it’s about opposing the big government schemes oozing out of Washington.

We won in NY23. This blog served it’s purpose. Dede Scozzafava was dumped. She was dumped by the demographic to which she fronted, and when no one brought her Victorian freak show, she removed the mask and revealed herself, lest any doubters remained. We won when we forced the GOP to concede support. We won when we showed them that good political sense and sharp strategy is an instinct, not exclusive to the beltway elite. We won because we wrenched the reigns from their hands.

We the tea party have been leading since February. In order to survive, the GOP must finally cash the promise its collective mouth has been writing about “we the people” and all that jazz: it must relent and let the people lead. Asking politely is a formality: NY23 has shown that we have the power to take it when we want."

Get it? Hoffman, the Tea Party favorite lost the election, but THEY WON! "How?" you ask?

Well, they got rid of the NY Republican backed candidate Dede Scozzafava who left the race just days before the election. See, Dede was "a liberal" and "an ACORN-backed candidate, supported by the Working Families Party", not a true conservative Republican.

Even with "thousands of Tea Partiers from states as far away as California will have had an impact on what might otherwise have been an unnoticed special election. Local Tea Party Organizers across the country are overwhelmed by their people’s desire to help. Hoffman’s offices are overwhelmed with volunteers who are just showing up."

So what are the Teabaggers going to say when NY-23's new Rep is sworn into office and has a (D) behind his name? Maybe Al Franken's lawyers will have a new client.