"Tonight with the entire country watching, Upstate New Yorkers sent a message," Owens said at his victory party in Plattsburgh. "We came together tonight as Democrats, Republicans, and Independents to seek solutions--to create jobs for our workers, to bring economic development back to our communities, to fight for Fort Drum, and to give all middle class families in upstate New York a fair shake from Washington."

Owens gave "special thanks" to Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, the Republican candidate who dropped out this weekend and threw her support to him. It was by sucking up support in her counties, the early analysis shows, that he was able to beat Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman.

"We both acknowledged her and the courage that it took for her to do what she knew in her heart was right," June O'Neill, the executive committee chair of the Democratic State Committee, told me by phone around 1 a.m. "I think that it swayed certainly her supporters, and people over the last 24 hours have been outraged at the muck that people have been throwing at her."

Rob Ryan, a spokesman for Doug Hoffman, said he didn't know what effect Scozzafava's presence on the ballot--she drew more votes than Owens' margin of victory--had, and whether her  rough treatment by Hoffman's allies had hurt Hoffman.

"Maybe those people voted for Scozzafava because they couldn't bring themselves to vote for Bill Owens. I don't know," Ryan said. "It's something that the pundits are going to be looking at for some time."

 "I didn't think we were un-nice. I mean, she was the one, if you ask me, who flipped. We didn't do anything un-nice to her," he continued. "When Rush Limbaugh calls somebody something, well look: a lot of people call a lot of people things. Our campaign never did anything but talk about the issues with her. Okay? We talked about her being a liberal. We talked about her liberal voting record which is very clear. So, you know, to say we were nasty because Rush Limbaugh said something is, you know, I think sort of silly."

O'Neill attacked Limbaugh and other outside voices supporting Hoffman, saying "not here, not now, we are not for sale. Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity don't live here, but Addie Russell and Darrel Aubertine do, and the people listened to them."

In the same vein, Representative Chris Van Hollen, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, released this statement on the national implications of the race:

"Congratulations to Congressman-elect Bill Owens on his remarkable victory. Voters in New York's 23^rd District responded to Bill Owens' message and track record of creating jobs and attracting economic development to Upstate New York.

"This election represents a double-blow for National Republicans and their hopes of translating this summer's 'tea party' energy into victories at the ballot box. Not only did eight extreme right-wing groups spend more than $1 million to drive the moderate Republican - and the NRCC's chosen candidate - out of the race. Now, after losing a seat that was held by Republicans for nearly 120 years, they have to deal with an emboldened and well-funded far right-wing that refuses to tolerate moderate Republicans with differing opinions.

"I am grateful to President Obama, Vice President Biden, House Democratic Leaders, Senators Schumer and Gillibrand, Congressman Steve Israel and the entire New York Congressional Delegation for their tireless work on behalf of and support of Bill Owens.

"With his commitment to reaching across the aisle to help President Obama enact his agenda for creating jobs and getting our economy moving again, Congressman-elect Bill Owens will be a tremendous asset to our Democratic Caucus."

 

The Democratic Party's congressional candidate interrupted a supporter at the Clinton County Democratic headquarters here on Route 3 to call comments made by radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh "obscene." This afternoon, Limbaugh said Scozzafava, a Republican assemblywoman who ended her campaign this weekend and is actively working for Owens, is "guilty of widespread bestiality."

"She has screwed every RINO in the country," Limbaugh said on his radio show. "Everyone can see just how phony and dangerous they are. 2010 might be a nightmare for PETA. Two animals may become extinct: RINOs and Blue Dog Democrats."

Limbaugh has endorsed Doug Hoffman, he Conservatve Party's nominee who is now blessed by Republicans.

Below is a video of raging Owens.

"I have not been angry in the course of the campaign, the comments that Mr. Limbaugh made today made me angry," he said. "This is not the way to have a civil discourse; this is not the way we conduct politics, and I think it was wholly inappropriate. These are the people that are supporting Mr. Hoffman, this is the kind of agenda they're going to push if they are successful."

It's not that Owens is now running in high gear against Hoffman, Clinton County Democratic Chairman Marty Mannix explained to me, it's just that "the new message is that you can't tolerate this ilk of candidate."

Hoffman's spokesman Rob Ryan, when reached by phone, said of Limbaugh that "those are other people's comments--that's all I have to say."

Scozzafava said it was a "crime" that Bill Owens and Doug Hoffman, the Democratic and Conservative party nominees against her, are not going to a debate planned tonight at News10Now in Syracuse.

"I just have a concern that they really don't know the issues. They know the issues maybe in Washington-speak, but they don't understand the daily dilemmas and the issues that both communities and individuals face. And to me, I think that is a crime," Scozzazfava said.

Jon Boughtin, a spokesman for Owens, said that he Owens is in Plattsburgh this morning and "we're just not able to attend."

"We've been working to get these scheduled and are glad to have two on the books," Boughtin said, noting Owens will participate in a debate sponsored by North Country Public Radio on Oct. 28 and another sponsored by WSYR on Oct. 29^th.

Rob Ryan, a spokesman for Hoffman, committed only to the WSYR debate.

"The North Country Public Radio debate is the perfect place for Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava and Bill Owens to battle it out over who is the most liberal person in this race," Ryan said.

Jude Seymour was pretty damning in his analysis of Hoffman's debate posture. Based on my conversations with all three candidates, Scozzafava is the most loquacious. Hoffman, whose voice doesn't appear in his campaign ads, is probably the least.

He's been cast, understandably, in the spoiler role—the guy running to the right of Republican Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, who would siphon off enough votes from her that Bill Owens, the Democratic Party's nominee, would win the race to replace John McHugh. But the legs have been cut from underneath Scozzafava's candidacy in recent days: She's running low on cash as groups pound her with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of ads. She had a disastrous appearance yesterday in front of Hoffman's headquarters. She called the cops on a reporter for The Weekly Standard, then lied to reporters about it. Conservative editorial pages—The Washington Times, The Wall Street Journal—and pundits—Michelle Malkin, Glenn Beck—are now putting their marbles behind Hoffman. The Washington Examiner just called on Scozzafava to withdraw from the race.

"Here's the question," Roger Stone, the conservative Republican strategist, said. "Will he voters of the 23rd see this as a race where two liberals split the liberal vote allowing the Republican to win, or will two Republicans split the Republican and allow the Democrat to win?"

Conservatives have been saying this all along, and may wind up with a great told-you-so moment if Hoffman wins, or finishes ahead of Scozzafava. (Polls show him closing the gap.)

"There is no doubt in my mind that she will come in last," said George Marlin, a conservative blogger and banker.  "Once again, the Republicans learn that you cannot out-Democrat the Democrats. And when you try to, your base explodes."

Everyone points to the 1970 election of James Buckley to the U.S. Senate. Charles Goodell, a moderate Republican, was appointed by Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller after Robert F. Kennedy was killed by Sirhan Sirhan. In office, he began to oppose the Vietnam War, and ran Democrat Rick Ottinger and Buckley on the Conservative Party line. Buckley squeaked out the win and served until 1976.

The key for Conservatives backing Hoffman has been to paint Scozzafava as a liberal, pointing to her record as a legislator in Albany—she voted twice to legalize gay marriage—her past associations with ACORN and the Working Families Party and her votes in favor of budgets that contained tax increases. Hoffman and his surrogates have been doing this for weeks now, and without financial backing, Scozzafava has been left without the resources to shoot back.

The other trick here is to remember that Republican leaders in the district are relatively comfortable with Hoffman, given their options. While Scozzafava won the nomination, it left bad feelings in the minds of some local county chairs and committee members—and some might even support him. George Joseph, chairman of the Oneida County Republican Committee, told a conservative blogger that he's written off the election. (He thinks a Democrat will win.)

I asked Jim Ellis, chairman of the Franklin County Republican Committee, if there were Republican Party functionaries out there who have already abandoned Scozzafava.

"I have no disagreement with that proposition," he said. "They're either going to work with Hoffman or they're going to lay back and do nothing."

Ellis said he would continue to work for the Republican nominee. Jim Kelly, a conservative activist who briefly tried to seek the party's nomination, told me things were "fractured" among the Republican base.

"I've received a phone call from two county leaders and they said, 'This was a big mistake.' We knew it in our heart of hearts," Kelly said, declining, of course, to say who called.

Assemblyman Jim Tedisco, who considers himself more conservative than his colleague Scozzafava, disagreed.

"I think you've got to look at the next poll, because if it's close, I don't think you make that determination. You stick with your endorsed candidate," Tedisco told me. "I think it says a very bad message to not only this state, but other states, when our local chairmen decide on a candidate, and that's a part of our problem. When you settle on a candidate after a process, you support that candidate."

If elected, Hoffman would caucus with Republicans and would seek the Republican line for reelection, his spokesman Rob Ryan said. So there won't be much of a difference from a partisan perspective.

The problem with this easy cruise is Hoffman. He's not particularly nimble, in terms of his presentation, and it's not apparent that he has a particularly good grasp of the issues. I found this when we spoke about health care, and Jude Seymour seemed struck by some of Hoffman's non-answers before the editorial board of the Watertown Daily Times.

Scozzafava's people point this out. Matt Burns, her campaign spokesman, said Hoffman is "grossly unable to represent the people of the 23rd Congressional District when he can't even answer questions or agree to debate the issues."

The thing is that most people—myself included—have written off Hoffman as a mere spoiler. We shouldn't have assumed.

I interviewed all three candidates for the seat recently, and tried to make them be as specific as possible about some of the items Barack Obama articulated in his televised speech to Congress on health care.

Bill Owens, the Democratic Party's designee for the seat, laid out four overarching (and non-controversial) principles that he said would guide his thinking on specific provisions. It was like pulling teeth to get Doug Hoffman, the Conservative Party's designee, to respond to specific questions. Republican Scozzafava was articulate and comfortable throughout her interview, responding to questions rather than retreating toward talking points.

One thing I asked each candidate was whether they would support the public, nonprofit option that Obama said he wanted.

Owens, who told me the night he was nominated that he did not support a public option, said that it was, as a component of an insurance exchange, something he "would look very carefully at; they seem reasonable as principles."

"My view is that there are a couple of principles that have to be adhered to in coming to a resolution of the health care issue," Owens told me. "I'm not in favor of a litmus test because I think that's one of the big problems in Washington today. I think we need to be able to analyze the bills and make a rational decision about it in line with the principals in the bill.

"As long as they meet the four criteria that I laid out, those are things that I would consider," he said. "Again, I don't want to apply a litmus test, I don't want to apply a label. I want to be able to analyze the information and the bill and come to a conclusion."

(His four criteria are that any bill not add to the deficit or "place burdens on small businesses," bring down insurance costs, provide access to coverage for those without insurance, and ensure those with pre-existing conditions are insured. Owens has said this before, but it's not on his web site, which provides no information about his biography or positions.)

Doug Hoffman was close to an unequivocal no.

"If it was truly competitive I would, but I really worry whether it would be truly competitive," he said. "I'm worried that it would be designed to put the private sector out of business."

Scozzafava wouldn't say whether she would vote against a bill that contained a public option, but expressed concerns "it has the potential to crowd out private insurance companies." While she said there needs to be a "safety net," she believed it should be provided by a non-government entity.

"If we could make private insurance more competitive, then there might be a way for us to find those safety net features through those private insurance companies," Scozzafava said. "I think opening up state lines to allow people to purchase insurance from different states, I think that's one thing that can make private insurance more competitive."

She also pointed to tort reform as something that she thinks should be looked at. All of the candidates agreed on this point (Hoffman was particularly excited about it), but none said specifically what should be done or how much.

Scozzafava and Owens agreed--along with many current members of Congress on both sides of the aisle--that it should be illegal for health insurance companies to discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. I can't figure out if Hoffman agrees.

"Basically, everybody feels that people shouldn't be excluded because of pre-existing condition nor should anybody be dropped from a policy," Hoffman said. "Those are great ideals, but to legislate it into a law, it's the entire package that you would be looking at. It boils down to, how much is it going to cost, who's going to pay for it, and are the people that have the insurance now going to suffer--will they pay more or will it drive people out of the private insurance market and force people into the public option. You have to take every question into context with the entire bill, and that's what I'm trying to tell you."

"Every piece does sound very appealing. If you're dividing up a pie and you said, do you want a piece of pie?" He continued. "I'd certainly want a piece of pie. But I'd also want to know what the total bill was before I bought it."

I figured that Hoffman would immediately disagree with, as Scozzafava did, Obama's proposal to charge insurance companies a fee on their most expensive plans. I asked him about this.

"Give me detail," He replied. "He talked. He talked in generalities. President Obama's a great speaker. As you listen to him, everything sounds great. But you need the details behind it. Again, who's going to be for this? Where's the money going to come from? He tried to tell us the other night that it was going to be revenue, cost neutral. I have a hard time accepting that."

"I think it shows very clearly that the president is desperate for funding for this and that it is not revenue neutral," Hoffman continued, before his spokesman Rob Ryan jumped in. (Aides for both Scozzafava and Owens also listened in my interviews with them, but they were silent. Ryan interjected several times, at one time cutting off the candidate.)

"Jimmy, what I was going to say there is, let's say you were going to go on a trip around the world, and the travel agent said, ‘there's going to be a surcharge put on top of this.' Now, wouldn't you say, well, how much is that surcharge going to cost? Look, everything changes when you know the exact numbers. Doug's an analytical, numbers guy. In principle it may sound great, but when you find out the surcharge is 60 percent of the bill that you're paying, it doesn't sound great anymore," Ryan said.

I reminded Hoffman that, with much fanfare, he signed a pledge to not raise taxes.

"Yes I definitely did," he replied. "Well I answered the question for ya. I said it clearly demonstrates that the president is trying to find funding for this bill. So I did answer it for ya, and that's the way that I answered it. I didn't say anything more than that."

On one level, this may be academic. A special election to replace McHugh has not been called (he has not resigned his seat), but the expectation is it will fall on Election Day. It's unclear whether Congress will have agreed upon or passed a bill by then, or whenever the election is called, which would mean that the victor would not be involved in shaping or voting on the legislation.

The enrolled Republican was passed over during a selection process last month that made Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava the party's candidate to replace John McHugh in Congress. He announced he is seeking the Conservative Party's nomination, but he is also hoping Republican powers that be might reconsider.

"They cannot officially vote on who the Republican candidate is until Congressman McHugh is appointed and he resigns his Congressional seat," Hoffman said in a conference call between us and his newly hired consultant, Rob Ryan. "They still have the opportunity to reconsider their decision, and to reconsider whether they want a liberal or a common-sense conservative."

Hoffman, an accountant and business consultant who was raised by a single mother, said he wasn't holding Republicans hostage, but said he did send a letter to all 11 county chairs asking them to reconsider their decision because "there was no effective conservative Republican voice in the race."

Jim Ellis, chairman of the Franklin County Republican Committee and the regional vice chairman of the party, told me about the letter when he received it last week, but didn't quite slam the door shut on Hoffman's request. (He did say chairs were "honor-bound" to nominate Scozzafava.)

"I don't think I'd consider anything, at this point, until I see what happens when all 11 of us come together," Ellis said. "There's life in the body, but I don't know if it's going to make anybody switch anything. That's the question."

"It's possible, but I don't think it's probable," he added when I asked how feasible this was. Hoffman replied similarly.

"That's up to them," he said of the Republican chairs. "I'm prepared to win this race on the Conservative line. The voters out there are looking for an alternative. The voters are displeased with the choices that the Republicans made, and they'll be equally disappointed with a Nancy Pelosi Democrat."

Hoffman says he has spoken with all 11 Conservative party chairs about garnering that party's endorsement, and is apparently on the good side of State Chairman Mike Long.  Jon Alvarez and Jim Kelly are also seeking the party's nomination.

Democrats will meet August 10 to select a candidate.

UPDATE: Dave Catalfamo, whose firm has been newly hired by Scozzafava, called to say Hoffman's actions are "unfortunate."

"It's unfortunate that after giving his word and saying he would support Dede Scozzafava; it's unfortunate that he's going in a different direction," Catalfamo said. "We're confident at the end of the day that the county chairmen will stand by their selection. I know Jim Ellis to be a man of his word and I expect he'll keep it."

Catsimatidis supporters reacted strongly, in writing (see the comments section on that post) on email and over the phone. They pointed out, correctly, that while Catsimatidis was a member of the Republican Party, and therefore eligible to run in the primary, Bloomberg, a registered independent, was somewhat embarrassingly reduced to begging the city's Republican chairs to grant him permission to participate.

(Without the Republican line, the mayor could still run, but would likely end up having to create his own party line that would appear near the bottom of the ballot.)

But one fact never changed: Catsimatidis hadn't, and still hasn't, committed to staying in the race if the mayor runs. Few neutral observers seem to think that Catsimatidis will.

Since that post, Bloomberg's prospects for getting the Republican line seem to have improved somewhat. He locked up support from two out of the necessary majority of three chairmen whose approval he would need in order to enter the Republican primary. Two others have indicated they won’t support him, but the fifth and deciding vote will be cast by the chairperson from the mayor's home borough of Manhattan, who has said that she'll base her decision on what the local party leaders say.

I went back to the Catsimatidis people to see whether anything had changed in terms of their willingness to make an in-it-to-win statement.

Rob Ryan, the spokesman, emailed to say, “the real question is does Mike Bloomberg run if he doesn’t get the Republican line.”

“We are struggling for survival--that’s how serious it is,” he told me.

To save it, it’s going to take “strong leadership, people that have access to money. Money is necessary to rebuild the party to where it was, and good candidates. So a lot of recruiting has to go into the future. And it can be brought back.”

But Molinari isn’t too excited about John Catsimatidis, a late addition to the Republican Party and likely 2009 mayoral candidate.

“Because the man has said repeatedly that if he can’t do anything else, that he’s going to try to get the Republican endorsement," he said. "Sounds familiar to me. We don’t need candidates who just take us as a marriage of convenience. We still have pride.”

Molinari went on to say that too often candidates try using the Republican Party strictly for electioneering: “And once they get the nomination, that’s it. That’s the last time they talked about Republicanism. So, you’re not going to build a party by doing that. By allowing people from the outside to come and say, ‘Hey, you’re so lucky, I’m going to change my registration and run on your line.’ That doesn’t work that way. That doesn’t work that way at all.”

Rob Ryan, an advisor to Catsimatidis who I saw later in the day, told me, “John Catsimatidis has been a long-time supporter of such Republicans as George Pataki, Rudy Giuliani, Roy Goodman and Joe Bruno.”

Ryan, you may recall, worked for former Yonkers mayor John Spencer in a no-hope Senate bid against Clinton during the course of which he found himself explaining Spencer's contentions that Hillary had had plastic surgery and that she was of a piece with Osama Bin Laden.

Ryan told me he doesn’t see any problem having worked for a bitter Clinton opponent last year and for one of her major financial supporters this year. And he noted that Catsimatidis was a contributor to another former boss of his: George Pataki.

“If my criteria was working with people I totally agree with, I wouldn’t have too much work out there,” he said.

"He has the opportunity to become what Spitzer wanted to be: the guy who cleans up Albany," former George Pataki aide Rob Ryan told me. "And that’s what people want.”