From Scozzafava To Owens

The local paper, The Watertown Daily Times, switches its allegiance. The trouble with the Hoffman candidacy, a man who doesn't even live in the district and had no responses to local questions when grilled by the WDT, is that it cannot be described as grass-roots. Hoffman did not come up from the ground of this district; he was flown in as a candidate to represent the party of Palin in a national, ideological struggle. The WDT editorial:

Mr. Hoffman is running as an ideologue. If he carries out his pledges on earmarks, taxation, labor law reform and other inflexible positions, Northern New York will suffer.

This rural district depends on the federal government for an investment in Fort Drum and its soldiers, environmental protection of our international waterway and the Adirondack Park, and the livelihood of all our dairy farmers across the district, among other support. Our representative cannot be locked into rigid promises and policies that would jeopardize these critical sectors of our economy.

For a member of Congress, there may be a time to promote reform in Washington, but there is also a time to work within a system that best serves the people you represent.

It is frightening that Mr. Hoffman is so beholden to right-wing ideologues who dismiss Northern New Yorkers as parochial when people here simply want to know how Mr. Hoffman will protect their interests in Washington.

Yes: they want their pork and their federal money. I wonder how the voters will actually feel next Tuesday. They do have the last word, you know.