Free Republic

I've been watching the numbers change at Intrade for the last few days. IIRC, Corzine was at 66 last Friday. Today he's at 45, which I guess translates to more likely to lose than win. Hoffman's numbers took a dive after the Dede endorsement of Owens, but are now back in the healthy range. Last price 66. Bob McDonnell has been in the high 90s throughout.

Fearful that the party had almost no chance of winning the Nov. 3 New York special election after Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava abruptly announced Saturday that she was dropping out, high-ranking national Democrats immediately began working to secure her endorsement of Democrat Bill Owens, POLITICO has learned. On Sunday afternoon, their vigorous efforts paid off as Scozzafava bucked her own party and issued a statement supporting Owens over Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman, a coup for Democrats who recognized that their best remaining chance of winning the Republican-leaning seat on Tuesday was to swing disaffected Scozzafava supporters their way. By...

Despite bowing to White house pressure to endorse her former Democratic opponent, a Siena poll is showing that most of Dede Scozzafava's have shifted toward Conservative Candidate Doug Hoffman. The latest numbers show a six point leap for the conservative candidate, while the Democratic party's Owens has remained the same. ”Hoffman continues to demonstrate momentum, picking up six points since Scozzafava pulled out,” said Siena pollster Steven Greenberg. “It appears, however, that the majority of Scozzafava’s supporters have gone to neither Hoffman nor Owens, but rather into the undecided column, which has doubled since Scozzafava ended her candidacy.”

During an appearance Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” program with host John King, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) demonstrated that he just doesn’t understand what happened in New York’s 23rd Congressional District over the weekend.

The conservative coup in upstate New York did much more than lay bare the power of conservative activists: It exposed how little control GOP officials hold over this surging and formidable political movement. In the wake of conservatives’ role in forcing liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava out of Tuesday’s special election in New York’s 23rd District, GOP officials are trying to make it seem as if they are helping to stoke the passion — and can harness it to upend President Barack Obama and Democrats. They didn’t — and they can’t. Many of the activists who helped knock out Scozzafava told...

When you're an MSMer, you're an MSMer all the way--even when faced with facts that might make you like, well, ridiculous . . . Mike Allen, appearing on Morning Joe, has declared the NY-23rd race a "real toss-up" despite a new poll from a respected organization showing Doug Hoffman with a 17-point lead. The claim by Allen, Politico's chief political correspondent's, was so absurd that, on the spot, host Joe Scarborough offered 3:1 odds to Allen and anyone else wanting to place a few kopeks on Dem Bill Owens. View video here.

Good news, but with lots of caveats. Here are some interesting facts from our unweighted numbers so far:-In a three way contest Doug Hoffman leads Bill Owens by 19 points. In a two way contest Hoffman leads Owens by 15 points. So the Dede Scozzafava withdrawal and endorsement will probably tighten the race some but not nearly enough.-58% of Republicans think that Scozzafava’s a liberal and that was obviously before her endorsement today.-The Rush Limbaugh effect- Hoffman has a 79 point lead with Rush listeners while Owens has a 6 point lead with people who don’t listen to the show....

Totally true, and precisely Gingrich’s point in endorsing Hoffman so quickly after Team Dede threw in the towel this morning. But there are a lot of Scozzafava supporters who’ll read this tomorrow and wonder why Palin wasn’t worried about unity when she dropped the hammer on their preferred candidate — who, by the way, was her party’s nominee — last week. Which is a long way of saying that while the message is correct, Sarahcuda may not be the optimal messenger here. Remember, according to today’s Siena poll, Scozzafava voters approve of Obama to the tune of 64 percent. They...

Republican Dede Scozzafava announced Saturday that she is suspending her campaign in the Nov. 3 House special election in New York, a dramatic development that increases the GOP's chances of winning the contentious and closely-watched race. "In recent days, polls have indicated that my chances of winning this election are not as strong as we would like them to be. The reality that I've come to accept is that in today's political arena, you must be able to back up your message with money—and as I've been outspent on both sides, I've been unable to effectively address many of the...

Scozzafava has proven Sarah’s endorsement of Hoffman was the right thing to do!!Scozzafava, down in the polls, had a decision to make. And what was her decision??? When the pressure was on and it was evident she would lose, what kind of person did she prove to be???!! She proved to be what the Republican leadership failed to see! She proved she was a lib first! She proved she was a Democrat first!! After losing the support of the people she chose to give what little support she had left to the opposition, the Democrat party!!Libertas

Palin-Shackleton Part II The Reagan Orphans in New York’s 23rd district were told by the Good Ole Boys Party that the only way they were going to avoid handing their Congressional Seat to a liberal was to ….um…vote for a liberal. Sarah Palin, whose “lack of sophistication” prevented her from understanding this conventional (again, no pun intended!) wisdom, decided that the best way for conservatives win an election would be to actually vote for a conservative. Uncharted waters!

Check this out:Watertown, NY paper: Scozzafava urging supporters to vote for the Democrat During the day Saturday, she [Scozzafava] began to quietly and thoughtfully encourage her supporters to vote for Democrat William L. Owens. - Watertown Daily Times

It’s the second time this year that Sarah Palin going rogue has paid off. Her “death panels” squeal set Pres. Obama and the Democrats back on their heals, and when she came out to endorse Mr. Hoffman it seemed laughable to many. It doesn’t matter that Dick Armey was out there too, as he’s yesterday’s news. Mrs. Palin is not. Among the stories of Dede Scozzafava’s bombshell election bailout comes one reporting that Newt Gingrich has tucked his tail in to endorse Mr. Hoffman, after first siding with Scozzafava, as did John Boehner and Michael Steele. Nobody cares; they’re too...

Sarah Palin, the only person with the clout to be able to address the entire nation via a Facebook entry, has done so again. Palin wants our nation to unite.

Sarah Palin and Fred Thompson had the guts to do what Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and the entire Republican Party would not do. One month ago, Thompson became the first prominent national Republican to endorse Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman in the New York District 23 Congressional race. Palin made an even bigger impact by endorsing Hoffman a week and a half ago. In doing so, Palin lived up to her penchant for going against the mainstream and taking on powerbrokers inside her own party.

As conservative activists scored a political scalp, mainstream Republicans wasted no time in grasping at the coat tails of Conservative Doug Hoffman. The much-watched off-year special election in upstate New York's 23rd Congressional District that had Republicans scrambling to pick the right side turned into a stampede rightward Saturday, as stragglers rushed to endorse Hoffman after Republican Dede Scozzafava suspended a campaign that she appeared to have little chance of winning. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who’d previously warned that backing Hoffman in the NY-23 House race amounted to a “purge” of the GOP, told POLITICO Saturday morning that he...

"Today, I again seek to act for the good of our community," "It is increasingly clear that pressure is mounting on many of my supporters to shift their support. Consequently, I hereby release those individuals who have endorsed and supported my campaign to transfer their support as they see fit to do so. I am and have always been a proud Republican. It is my hope that with my actions today, my party will emerge stronger and our district and our nation can take an important step towards restoring the enduring strength and economic prosperity that has defined us for...

Under pressure from conservative forces within her own party, Dede Scozzafava, the regular Republican nominee in the interim House race for New York's 23d District, suddenly withdrew from the race today. Though endorsed by the Republican National Committee and big GOP establishment names like ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Scozzafava had fallen to third place in polls of the upstate longtime Republican district next to the Canadian border. Her retreat came in the face of a vigorous campaign by Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, who was backed by Sarah Palin, Dick Armey and Fred Thompson, among others. Her surprise move sets...

In a Wall Street Journal column last week, Rebublican columnist Peggy Noonan reveals to us that we’re a nation adrift. Millions of productive Americans, she says, are despondent about the direction of the nation. In melancholic, heartfelt tones she explains that many Americans feel alienated by both political parties, and yearn for an as-yet-to-be-found leader to offer hope for their despair. She laments: … [P]eople are becoming and have become disheartened … this condition is reaching critical mass, and … it afflicts most broadly and deeply those members of the American leadership class who are not in Washington, most especially...

I want to personally thank Republican Dede Scozzafava for acting so selflessly today in the NY District 23 race. Now it's time to cross the finish line with Doug Hoffman so that he can get to work for District 23 and the rest of America. With Congress poised to overhaul one-sixth of our economy with so-called health care “reform” (which is really a government takeover of health care) and with plans to enact a cap-and-tax bill just as our economy struggles to recover, Doug Hoffman will be a voice for fiscal responsibility and common sense in Washington. We need candidates...