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- Erin Isaac’s resignation letter
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- New “fair and balanced” Tally news service coming?
- Today’s number: 35, average age for high blood pressure in military
In what looks like a victory for the same conservative forces backing Marco Rubio in Florida, Republican Party nominee Dede Scozzafava dropped out of a special election to fill a vacant House seat in New York Saturday.
Scozzafava’s withdrawal means Doug Hoffman, running as the Conservative Party candidate, will face the Democratic nominee, Bill Owens, head-to-head in the special election Tuesday in the upstate New York district.
Hoffman is backed by many of the same prominent national conservative individuals and organizations backing Rubio in his conservative insurgency against Gov. Charlie Crist in the Florida Senate GOP primary. If Hoffman wins in New York, it’s likely to energize and embolden those forces even further.
Nationwide, conservative Republicans have been watching the two races, Florida’s Senate primary and the New York House race, as top battlegrounds in the party’s moderate v. conservative internal struggle.
Scozzafava, a state Assembly member, had been endorsed by the national party, just as Crist has in the Florida Senate primary. Like Crist, she is a moderate, but significantly more liberal on some issues—she favors gay marriage and abortion rights, for example.
She was chosen over Hoffman as the GOP nominee in a decision made by party leaders in the district about five weeks ago. He then jumped to the Conservative Party ticket, and she faced a mounting crescendo of criticism from GOP conservatives. Sarah Palin, for example, recently endorsed Hoffman.
In an interview before Scozzafava dropped out, Rep. Jeff Miller of Chumuckla, one of only two prominent Florida GOP elected officials to back Rubio, said a Hoffman win “would be a clear shot across the bow” of the Republican Party.
“It would help build momentum for the Rubio campaign. It would show the conservatives are serious.”
The few reliable, independent polls in the New York race show a battle too close to call between Hoffman and Owens.
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