Doug Hoffman is running for Congress on the nonentity ticket. A millionaire accountant who's not even eligible to vote in the district he seeks to serve, Doug has never previously held nor sought elected office. He has no public record of, well, anything. He seems to own cars -- that comes up a lot in his campaign literature -- and I guess that says something. He was in the Army Reserves in the seventies, just like Dan Quayle, but it's unclear if he ever served in an area east of Lake George. He has a full raft of Christian prejudices, but if he's a practicing member of any church, it hasn't come out.
It's not just that he doesn't have a record. He doesn't have dental records.
And, according to 300 people polled by the Club for Growth (the same people who just gave him 300 grand) he's pulling into the lead.
What Doug Hoffman really has is an accountant's willingness to repeat what he's told. Glenn Beck is mad as hell about ACORN? So is Doug Hoffman. The Concerned Women for America don't like abortion? Neither does Doug Hoffman. The Family Research Council hates gay people? So does Doug. Did you bring the check?
No one cares about their accountant's life story. They just need him to get the numbers to work.
Still, it must be hard to get a crowd fired up. Even the name, "Doug." It's like someone started writing "Douglas" and lost interest.
A candidate needs a backstory, if only to prove he wasn't born in Kenya. And here's Doug's, in his own words:
In 1980, I helped Lake Placid with our Olympics when the US beat the Russians in hockey - the same year Reagan was elected. It's time to send Washington a new message now.
Also, did I mention I own a car?
Vote for me, I had an indeterminate job in winter sports the year the Hostages came home? Is this some kind of gag?
Now, this would just be kind of tragic, if the speaker didn't have a fair chance of being elected to the U.S. Congress, a job once held by Lincoln. Which is the name of a car.
I guess Doug Hoffman had some role in the Miracle on Ice, although, if memory serves, the assist went to Pavelich. Hoffman was the Olympics' accountant. (The Games ended up $6 million in debt and had to be bailed out by Jimmy Carter.) The connection between Hoffman's math skills and the Reagan Revolution is a bit of a stretch.
Aristotle called this particular stretch Spurious Enthymeme #7:
Another line consists in representing as causes things which are not causes, on the ground that they happened along with or before the event in question. They assume that, because B happens after A, it happens because of A. Politicians are especially fond of taking this line.
And you can trust Aristotle, because he was from Greece, and so are elections, like the one Ronald Reagan won.
If I can editorialize for a second, are you kidding?
Here's something less amusing -- but more revealing -- about Doug Hoffman's website: It contains an Internet era update of a dirty trick Nixon's men used to call "rat fucking."
Dems love Dede
According to the Draft Dede as a Democrat blog, "we will have her on all of our key issues from card check, to health care, to taxes, social issues and who knows what else."
And then it has the web address of a blog called PlanetAlbany, linking to a blog called Draft Dede as a Democrat. Pretty damning stuff, right? Dede Scozzafava - Hoffman's Republican opponent - is actually a Democrat! And the proof is right there in this blog that links to this other blog, by some Democrats so proud of Dede Scozzafava that they prefer to remain completely anonymous.
That's how crafty they are.
Dede Scozzafava is their secret puppet and their plan is so fiendishly clever they can't wait to blog about it.
Or maybe Draft Dede at a Democrat isn't real. Take a look, and judge for yourself.
Classic rat fucking involves things like printing fake campaign literature for the other candidate where he promises, if elected, to commit unspeakable crimes and making infuriating late night phone calls from non-existent groups, The Child Pornographers' League, for instance, endorsing your opponent. The fake blog is a new wrinkle.
Why are half the articles on Draft Dede about how clever it would be to trick people into voting for her and the other half about what a disaster she is?
Why would a Democrat write something like:
It took years for one of ours to finally infiltrate the National Republican Party apparatus and wreak civil war within the GOP. Call it the Socialist Watergate of 2009, but with Scozzafava as the Republican nominee in NY-23 we will finally have the keys to the National Republican Party -- and with it -- almost certain access to all its ugly organs of operation...
When Dede wins, she will carry our water and also give us greater insight into the broader internal workings of the right-wing nuts running the corrupt partisans, otherwise known as the Republican House Caucus (talk about a self-inflicted wound)...Dede Scozzafava, a wolf in sheep's clothing. This could be one of the greatest "Alinksy" coups of all time.
... and I'm telling you all this, Mr. Bond, because you won't be alive to see it.
Why would anyone write anything like that?
Except to rat fuck someone.
In The Man Who Was Thursday, a secret organization of anarchists disguises itself as a secret organization of anarchists, but I'm pretty sure Chesterton was kidding. I think Draft Dede only exists in some creepy liar's head and the Hoffman campaign either knows, or should know.
Because winning isn't worth it, if you cheat. Didn't Doug Hoffman learn anything when he was playing hockey in the Olympics?
ROFL
Personally, I think political campaigns should be limited to six months, at most. All funding should be publicly financed - NO private donations or personal funds - at set amounts per office in question (example: $10 million per presidential candidate, to cover primary and general election). Let the first test of a candidate be how s/he uses the funds.
Oh, how charming. That's assuming people like this have any sense of self-worth. Their only goal is to win, cheating is merely a tactic.
Maybe initially the rest of the congregation shared that raft with him. Unfortunately, by the time rescuers arrived all they found was him, and a chronic case of indigestion.
It's not just that he doesn't have a record. He doesn't have dental records.
The Machiavellian Candidate?
“he's pulling into the lead”
In another one of his cars?
Even the name, "Doug."
Can you dug it?
What Doug Hoffman really has is an accountant's willingness to repeat what he's told. Glenn Beck is mad as hell about ACORN
Well as an accountant you may agree, that the first 50% of that second sentence does add up.
“Is this some kind of gag?”
Yes Doug, and donning it may furnish a measurable improvement.
”They assume that, because B happens after A, it happens because of A. Politicians are especially fond of taking this line.”
Some scientist too.
Incidentally, the Romans had an identical phrase for when a politician makes the kind of associative stretch Hoffman is trying.... "post hoc ergo propter hoc".... after it, therefore because of it. Call that one out when someone says something truly crazy, like pointing out that swine flu came up from mexico just a little while after obama's visit.
Correction Regan defeating the USSR in the cold war ran up our debt.
He knew the USSR could not keep up with our military building but would try and break their own economy in the process.
Reaganomics caused unprecedented growth which was sorely needed after Carters utter epic fail at president.
Reagan "How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? someone who understands Marx and Lenin.".
Come to think of it, maybe that rat-f**king site WAS launched by Dems to Draft Dede.
Keep it up, Pubs. You're doing great.
The only good thing that can come from this Hoffman nonsense is if the Repubs' resulting shift to the right is more pronounced than the Dems'.
Yes, personal records are important. Unless, of course, they're Obama's.
I'd laugh if I thought they wouldn't vote.
Always fun to hear about how much liberals "hate" from the party that hates gays, women, minorities, immigrants, and anyone who thinks differently than they do.
The biggest amount of hate and ridicule I've ever received were from Liberals because I maintained conservative CHRISTIAN values.
I've always been welcome, respected, and EQUAL in republican forums, as a board member of Chamber of Commerce, and other PACs.