“I’ve been looking at the ground game, looking for activity. And it was a telling sign when they couldn’t even fill up the room with Biden. …Across the district, White House fingerprints are all over the Owens race. ”
— Mike Long, chair, NY Conservative Party
Just finished up on a conference call hosted by the American Conservative Union, whose chairman David Keene and Hoffman campaign chiefs spoke to a couple dozen of us political bloggers. Among them –Brian Pick of Q & O and The Next Right; Steve Foley – The Minority Report and 73 Wire; Robert Stacy McCain – The Other McCain and American Spectator; Ken Marrero – Blue Collar Muse; Anita Moncrief; Eric Odom; Erick Erickson – Redstate; Katie O’Malley; Mary Katherine Hamm; and Garrett Lampton of the Heritage Foundation.
Dan Tripp, Hoffman campaign manager said, “Its been a fascinating campaign the last month. We have an excellent ground game, excellent message. The five district offices have been magnets for hundreds and hundreds of volunteers who showed up to do the hard work of freedom, putting up signs, knocking on doors, 9-12 Project members, Tea Party activists. I’ve had a great staff around me. One of the turning points was Dede getting out of the race. While some thought that might hurt us, it crystallized establishment Republican support behind us. It allowed the Republican chairs around the district to come around and bring voters with them. We have converted Dede’s votes to us.
Get out the vote efforts, we have a very robust effort on ground – live calls, a model on statistic samples around district and monitoring them all day – we like what we’re seeing but we’re gonna push like were ten points behind until 9 tonight.”
Mike Long, Chairman of the NY Conservative Party, described NY-23’s congressional race as “historic”. Responding to a question by blogger Ken Marrero, Long said, “If we win this tonight, it will be the first time in history that a Congressional candidate won on the Conservative line alone without a party endorsement. …Through you we brought out the truth about the Republican candidate who is a true liberal, an agent of ACORN and the WFP (Workers Family Party). We’re on the cusp of making history here in New York.”
ROBOCALL BLOWBACK?
The inestimable Robert Stacy McCain, writing about the race for the Spectator said he’s hearing phone bank people say they’re getting blowback from all the robocalls and wondered if that made ground door-to-door more important?”
Long replied “No, it’s just one of those things you try to manage. This district has been lit up on phones in last 4 or 5 days. We’ve only done two calls – Pataki and Giuliani to Dede supporters. What’s more important to us is those live calls – neighbor talking to neighbor. You have to have all the elements to execute the game plan for election day.”
Ken Marrero wanted to know if there were any exit polling results.
“We ‘re seeing the trends without having exit poling data to talk about – there’s a heavy influence of unions and possibly ACORN activity in Plattsburgh, we’re gonna do well in Oswego and Madison — in Jefferson we might eke out a slight win in Dede’s hometown.”
Any probs with ACORN or unions?
Despite a report of some slashed tires, the district hasn’t been overrun by unions. “I would suspect they sent a lot of people down to New Jersey.”
How important was it to have blogosphere behind you and national grass roots?
The blogosphere was “incredibly important, especially with fundraising”, Long said. “My first priority was to build a backbone of offices around country to harness grassroots to do something for campaign. With the help of blogs, we opened four district offices in just about 5 days. Once those offices were in place, we started having an influx of vounteers, and were able to increase our presence and activity that filtered into the blogs and talking heads/pundits. Jeri and Fred (Thompson) jumped on board, Doug did his first interview with Cavuto, the Glenn Beck show.
“The trifecta in this race was the boots on the ground, the old media, and the conservative networks turned it around.
How much of an impact did Sarah Palin’s endorsement make?
“It’s hard to measure her impact. She did help us. But the problem is she sucks out all oxygen in the campaign because everyone’s talking about her! We were careful to manage that. She helped in the energy level we received from the blogsophere from her endorsement.”
David Keene wrapped it up with three points: from the beginning, this race was important cause it gave conservatives in NY and nationally a message to the party establishment; it revitalized the NY conservative party which can provide a rudder to NY; and now we have opportunity to send a conservative vote to the House. And this race will have produced something else — we worked together for an identifiable goal to work together. This should stand as a case study as to how the conservatives can do that – this race in NY and also the Senate race in the Republican primary in Florida.
One other point — the national impact. Politico had a story this morning that said if Hoffman wins decisively, Democratic officials privately acknowledge it would deal a blow to healthcare passage. And that will send a shockwave across the Hill.
And that’s what Hoffman is on the verge of accomplishing.
Keene added that in a conversation with Rep. Mike Pence, Pence said if Hoffman wins this, it will be like dropping a nuclear bomb on Capitol Hill.
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