A New Media Electoral Coup In New York
By K. Daniel Glover | November 3, 2009
Republican Dede Scozzafava's sudden departure from the special election in New York's 23rd District demonstrates the potential of journalism by conservative activists to impact politics in the new media era.
Scozzafava quit the race Saturday, three days before the Nov. 2 election. She made the decision soon after the Sienna Research Institute released a poll showing her in a distant third behind Democrat Bill Owens and Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman.
Hoffman and Owens were in a dead heat before Scozzafava withdrew; a new Sienna poll released today puts Hoffman ahead by 5 percent.
"We defeated the Daily Kos candidate," said Eric Odom of the American Liberty Alliance, one of four blogger-activists on the ground in New York over the past several days as conservative pressure mounted on Scozzafava to withdraw. The other bloggers were Ali Akbar, Stephen Foley and Robert Stacy McCain, a former Washington Times writer.
McCain was in the district first and has been filing reports on his personal blog, as well as at AmSpecBlog and Hot Air's Green Room. Akbar, Foley and Odom did their reporting for a new site called 73wire, which bills itself as a "collaborative, people-powered news project.
The 73wire trio trekked to the 23rd District, which became vacant when Republican Rep. John McHugh became President Obama's Army secretary, just days after numerous high-profile blogs "unendorsed" Scozzafava.
Odom, one of the lead organizers of this year's "tea party" activists, said he and his colleagues raised about $4,000 within about five hours of seeking donations via the e-mail list developed during the tea parties. He said 73wire has had at least 12,000 unique visits a day since its launch.
Odom said it was frustrating that more blogger-activists weren't in the district to cover the race and fight for Hoffman last week. The election is "our chance as conservatives to hit back" against the Republican establishment that backed the left-leaning Scozzafava over Hoffman, Odom said.
But he said the bloggers who were there played a "significant role" in shifting the dynamics of the race. He noted, for instance, that bloggers exposed the close staff ties, rather than just money, between Scozzafava's campaign and the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Odom took exception to stories that lauded Scozzafava for dropping out once she realized she could not win. He said the NRCC bailed on Scozzafava on Friday and gave her no choice. "She was literally left with nothing. ... She didn't do the right thing; she did the only thing."
Odom also said the citizen journalists stayed on duty during the weekend while traditional journalists relaxed on what they assumed would be a slow weekend news day. Drudge Report didn't have the news of Scozzafava's withdrawal online until hours after the bloggers broke it, he said. "If we weren't in the district, then that may not have come out when it did."
Matt Burns, the Scozzafava campaign's spokesman, did not respond to requests for comment on how conservative bloggers shaped the race.
Odom said more blogger-activists, especially those "who know journalism a lot better than we do," need to embed in districts of interest to the tea party movement but ignored by the mainstream media. He said they could drive coverage of the races just as they did in New York.
Bloggers weren't the only factor in the race. The conservative Club For Growth spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in recent weeks to influence voters in the district, and Hoffman won the backing of big names in conservative circles, most notably Sarah Palin.
Some people also wonder whether the blog-driven activism on Hoffman's behalf was a good thing. "A majority political party requires a far more diverse coalition than the audience for your average right-wing blogger or talk show host," The Wall Street Journal editorialized today.
But bloggers on the right definitely have reason to celebrate the turn of events in New York's 23rd District. Their on-the-ground reporting and coordinated editorial blog swarm against Scozzafava helped inspire an electoral coup.
Hopefully it will convince conservative donors to start funding more new media efforts.
UPDATE: McCain credits other bloggers who had an impact in the New York race and who have fostered the maturity of the conservative blogosphere over the years. They include Erick Erickson at RedState, John Hawkins of Right Wing News, Michelle Malkin, Michael Patrick Leahy of Top Conservatives on Twitter, and Dan Riehl of Riehl World View.
McCain also confesses to being uncomfortable with the "activist" part of the blogger-activist label. As a fellow newsman, I understand his discomfort, and the basic work McCain has done in New York and elsewhere in recent months is Journalism 101. He is interviewing sources, gathering facts and reporting news. But the fact that his excellent reporting is flavored with opinions makes it something other than straight news.
That's not necessarily a bad thing in today's media environment. Liberal journalists, of which there are many, have laced the news with their opinions for decades and deceived information consumers by preaching objectivity while practicing spin. That makes their journalism a lie.
Ideally, I'd like to see my journalistic brethren consistently rise to the lofty standards we set for ourselves. But because so many of them fail so often, especially in campaign reporting, I'd rather read the solid reporting of a blogger-activist than a phony journalist any day.
K. Daniel Glover is a project manager for Accuracy In Media. He has worked as an editor, writer and new media specialist in the Washington area since 1991, spending most of that time at National Journal and Congressional Quarterly.
14 Comments | Post a Comment
We thank the 73wire folks and RS McCain for joining our fight to dump the RINO in 23. But one must remember that others were carrying on the fight before they got involved. How do you think it got to their notice anyway?
But their wider audience was certainly a help!
Thanks to everybody who pitched in.
For our postings on the NY 23 race starting with the Plattsburgh Healthcare Town Hall meeting follow this link:
http://nygoe.wordpress.com/?s=Hoffman
There are some stories that are not appearing on that list for reasons unknown.
Special thanks are due to the UNYTEA (Upstate New York Tea Party) folks, particularly Mark Barie from Plattsburgh, who clued us in on this race.
Had a neat idea: Sarah Palin goes on an African “Big-Game” Safari Vacation. Would love to see her photo holding a “big game” rifle and a dead Rhinoceros. Soon she might have the nickname “RINO Killer”
“A majority political party requires a far more diverse coalition than the audience for your average right-wing blogger or talk show host,” The Wall Street Journal editorialized today.
Well. In this “purple district” we’ll see how that works out on Tuesday. Should be interesting for everyone.
“A majority political party requires a far more diverse coalition than the audience for your average right-wing blogger or talk show host,” The Wall Street Journal editorialized today.
Unfortunately there isn’t enough educational/career diversity of in the people who decide to “represent” us. I don’t trust a candidate who majored in Political Science, especially if they add a law degree on top of that. Sad that so many members of the House are so certain that they know best how to run our lives when there is abundant evidence that they don’t.
George B, you are right; but what is even worse, these folks have NEVER had to meet a payroll, produce something, or be held accountable for the impacts of their poor decisions. Bubble babies.
The beginning of the roll back of the Left is NY23…good report on this by AIM and thanks to all the intrepid reporters on the ground!
Tonight we’ll find out if citizen journalists helped or turned out to be another Ned Lamont/Kos fiasco.
I sincerely hope Hoffman wins.
When I first heard the GOP was running Scozzafava, I looked up her record, and wondering what the hell they were doing. Then out of the blue comes Hoffman, a Tea Party goer with no political experience at all, brought the polls fairly even…The GOP should have gotten behind him immediately, and not waiting for Scozzafava (a sheep in wolves clothing) to drop out. With very little GOP support (as I said, too late) he would have won the race.
I do work for the GOP, and have for years…Believe me they got an ear full from me and others. Steele emailed me to see what my beef was, which I replied that if you are going to pick liberals for the GOP, you have lost all of us working for the Party. He said they needed someone more moderate. My response to that remark was, “You chose someone who will vote for ObamaCare, is for Cap and Trade, and is an liberal activist who has lied to you. Republican my butt!
With less than a week of GOP support, he did exceptionally well. I will admit he is not used to talking politics, and comes off looking somewhat boring and overwhelmed (so would most of us regular people), but he would have gained confidence as time went on…
To Wesley In Dallas,,Wes,I think that you would know more about it than I,,but,,with ‘Benedict”
Scozzafava “Suspending” her campaign,,is that a
Technicality that still allows voters to vote for her & split the GOP vote. Shouldn’t her votes be
disallowed???. I do not know, but it seems to me
that a ‘Suspension’,under voter laws,will still
allow her votes counted,instead of saying “I Quit”
which may be another rule that sends her vote to others or demands a new election if the 2 others
are tied?? Remember, Al Franken won by 300 votes
when a 3rd party Cand. got 150K votes, but he did not “Suspend ” his run,or back a front runner of the other party
I think that deals were made using voter laws to their advantage & not ours. What will Scozzafava
get down the road, in return for getting a Dem. elected in a Jerrymandered district?? BHO has
already pulled the Repub.Rep.by making him Sec. of
the Army. What’s next?? Get the ranking Repub.on
the Senate AFor.Comm.into another job,where thy report to BHO &can;‘t complain if BHO screws the
Military??? I think so. Why did “Rambo"Emmanuel
go after the 23rd Dist. instead of a more important district??? There is something ROTTEN in the State of (D.C.) Denmark
Major, once a candidate with-draws from an election, if you watched the numbers during polling results, Scozzafava was still on the ballot. Therefore 5% who cast votes for her, since she ran as a Republican, you would think those votes would have gone for Hoffman. I am trusting my intuition that these votes went to Owens.
This would not have happened if they had taken Scozzafava off of the Ballot. There was enough time for there to be a note in the Booths informing people that she had dropped out of the race, or in the instance of Electronic Voting areas, it would have taken less than 10 minutes to remove her from the ballot choices.
But you are correct, it does not pass the Smell Test, if you throw out the 5% she garnered in the election, they should have been tossed out, then we very well could have had the Conservative elected.
I believe it is worth an investigation into what happened to those votes once she officially backed Owens, and see if her votes went to him. What has my hackles up, is the fact that the unknown, inexperienced “Conservative” Hoffman, which I would think would actually drawn more votes for not being a career politician. A real “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”.
As for Franken, when the polls closed and ballots counted, Minnesota senator Norm Coleman was ahead by over 1,340 votes. All of a sudden the “Absentee and Provisional” votes began showing up out of nowhere, no one can not convince me that in a heavily Republican District, those absentee votes went for Franken 15 to 1.
For one thing, the Dallas Cowboy quarterback, Tony Romo was able to vote for Franken in Minnesota. Literally hundreds of votes in the absentee ballots were from dead and under age people. What made the votes even more suspect, is the pollsters did not keep the envelopes and were shredded…accidentally of course. But when you are in court with liberal judges, they were still allowed. Including those found 4 days later in the trunk of a pollsters auto.
In the 2008 National Presidential race, Tony Romo showed up as voting in Seven States, all for Obama (also Mickey and Minnie Mouse voted). Problem is, he is a resident of Dallas, TX. but also a Republican. (All of these turned out to be ACORN provisional ballots. There are now 17 states who have indited ACORN on Voter Fraud.
And if little ole me can find out where she stands politically, why did the GOP not know, or perhaps the better question may be, is the GOP going Moderate? But she is more to the far left than Blue Dog Democrats.
I think the last time a Democrat was elected in N.Y.‘s 23rd district, people were driving Model T’s…it has been no less than 100 years. The 23rd is mainly rural, which there are more Republicans, and Republican business owners, who are for Capitalism.
We are seeing a new trend of Dems stealing republicans to work in both Clinton and BHO’s Administration. Nevertheless, winning in New Jersey and Virginia, may served it’s intended purpose, letting those Dem Moderates in the House and Senate, that voting for ObamaCare and/or Cap and Trade (the Climate Bill) may make them go against their own party, as they did on the first Bill House and Senate counts showed the Bills would have failed, therefore they were never put up for a vote in the Senate.
Let us not forget we now have Chicago Politics in the White House. Those same moderates balked at passing Bills of a Trillion Dollars or more. Reid’s Bill and Pelosi’s Bills were both ranked by the CBO under 900 Billion. Since the Pelosi Bill just added 40 more pages (which are not reflected in the 1,990 page bill. The CBO is now scoring her bill between $1.2 to $1.5 Billion.
This could turn the Blue Dogs to vote against it, especially since Hussein Obama supported Corzine by making no less than three trips to campaign for him, and yet another trip to support Corzine by Bill Clinton, yet he still lost is one of the most heavily Democratic races and lost to the Republican Chris Christie.
In Virginia, Obama campaigned for Creigh Deeds and invested $6 Million. After Deeds announced he was against ObamaCare-less, Mr. Thin Skin Obama withdrew his support, and left him out to dry.
Something does stink, but it started on or before January 20th 2009 officially.
To Wesley # 11, Thank you. Is it too late for an investigation into the 23rd Cong. vote??? I
think so. Owens is in DC,already. You & I know that if it were the other way around, The DEMS. would have a HUGE investigation, for months,until they got it their way. Am I wrong???
The Minn. Vote REALLY stinks,,ACORN has it’s dirty prints all over it,,yes,I agree.
If you run for office,let me know & I’ll come down to the big “D”, & drive your Campaign
bus. OK??
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*Major,
It appears the N.Y. 23rd is not quite yet over, the election board never certified Owens…which makes me wonder how he got into the Congress in time to vote.
They are now recounting votes, and absentee votes, the final tally did not come in till late the next day, and took another day to count the votes, by then Hofffman had closed the gap to the point which triggered a recount, due to the fact that he eventually came in under 3,000 votes. There are 14,000 Absentee Ballots Left to count, which may trigger an investigation into the counting.
November 2 at 11:03 pm | #1 | Link
While, as a whole, new media lacks the ability to make a nation wide difference, when it’s focused, it can deliver.
As an early Tea Party organizer, and an even earlier conservative blogger, I have seen the effects of focus. These new political participants don’t see any race as a given, and every race as a contest. By 2012 you may see focused challenges to long entrenched liberal icons. For 2010, I believe you will see the Democrats lose control of the House.
These are not social conservatives or foreign policy conservatives. This is truly a grass roots movement of ordinary people fed up with professional politicians.