Doug Hoffman, Michelle Malkin and Dick Armey (doughoffmanforcongress.com, michellemalkin.com, house.gov)

Asked what he’d do if he got to Congress, Doug Hoffman hesitates. He has a few ideas, such as revisiting the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, putting the breaks on cap-and-trade legislation. But the idea of winning the Nov. 3 election and becoming the only non-Republican, non-Democrat in the House is a bit much. The national media would descend on him, right away. And that still takes Hoffman by surprise.

Image by: Matt Mahurin

“I’m not in this to get the splash and the notoriety,” said Hoffman, “I’m only in this, as an average American, standing up and saying it’s time we take our country back. But, certainly, if it does encourage other people to get up and do that, then so be it.”

In July, Hoffman bid to become the Republican Party’s nominee for a special election in New York’s 23rd Congressional District. The nominee would be chosen by party leaders in the district’s 11 counties; few people were surprised when they chose Deirdre “Dede” Scozzafava, a five-term assemblywoman who’d voted with Democrats on abortion and labor issues, factors that could help the party hold a historically conservative district that had voted for the Obama-Biden ticket last year. Hoffman, a 59-year-old accountant making his first run for office, forged ahead and grabbed the nomination of the venerable Conservative Party.

Since then, Hoffman’s campaign has become this election cycle’s great conservative crusade. On Sept. 5, the candidate was endorsed by 9-12 Candidates, an offshoot of Glenn Beck’s 9-12 Project, and a reflection of the support he was getting on conservative blogs. On Sept. 28, both Fred Thompson and the Club for Growth put their weight behind Hoffman, with the Club putting $250,000 into TV ads attacking Scozzafava and Democratic candidate Bill Owens. Those endorsements, coupled with reports that Scozzafava was struggling, brought the American Conservative Union and the anti-abortion rights group Susan B. Anthony List into the fray to back Hoffman. On Monday afternoon, FreedomWorks chairman Dick Armey announced that he’d campaign for Hoffman, putting the Tea Party movement’s seal of approval on the upstart campaign.

Two weeks out from the election, the battle in upstate New York is being portrayed in the press as a “civil war” between Republican factions. That might understate how much support for Hoffman, and how little for Scozzafava, there is in the conservative movement. As far as the roiling Republican base is concerned, support for Hoffman has become a test of whether a conservative leader can be trusted. Conservative media, from magazines to blogs, are using the low-stakes special election to test their ability to drive news cycles and raise money.

“This is not a tea party hangover,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of the Susan B. Anthony list. “It is every piece of the conservative base–the Club for Growth, social conservatives, right to work, pro-lifers, everyone–coming together.’

The timeline of Hoffman’s surge could become a guide for other conservative rebellions. On Sept. 14, The Weekly Standard ran a glowing profile of Hoffman by conservative journalist Kenneth Tomlinson (“he joined the Army reserves, got married, started a family, and went to work for Price Waterhouse”), that made the case for a “Buckley scenario” in NY-23. Tomlinson’s reference was the 1970 campaign in which the Conservative Party’s Jim Buckley, brother of the late National Review Editor-in-Chief William F. Buckley, blew past a liberal Republican and Democrat to win a Senate seat from New York with 38 percent of the vote.

Tomlinson’s scenario was less eccentric than it may have looked. Rob Ryan, Hoffman’s campaign manager, cut his teeth on Buckley’s unsuccessful 1976 re-election bid; he came on board after a conversation with John McLaughlin, a Republican pollster who was one of the first to rule Scozzafava out as a credible candidate.

The campaign set about working conservative blogs, conservative media and Tea Party groups who were plugged into both to drive home the message that Scozzafava was a liberal, backed by unions, who would say anything to anyone. The Republicans who’ve endorsed her, said Ryan, have “fallen for a scam.”

“I’ve long said that she’s the Bernie Madoff of New York Republican politics,” said Ryan.

“If you’re talking face-to-face to Assemblywoman Scozzafava,” said Hoffman, “she’ll tell you what you want to hear and it sounds great. And then she’ll talk to another group of people and tell them what they want to hear.”

Conservative media outlets pushed Scozzafava harder than the candidate could have expected. A reporter for Human Events got her campaign to say that Scozzafava opposed “card check,” labor reform that would make it easier for workers to start unions, while she’d said the opposite of that in a union questionnaire. The Weekly Standard asked the campaign whether Scozzafava would promise not to switch to the Democratic Party if she got to Congress; her noncommittal answer sparked the rumor that she might actually consider bolting the GOP. Conservative muckraker Michael Patrick Leahy conducted interviews for his TCOT Report web site that pieced together a “breach of trust” in the process that selected Scozzafava.

Stories like these motivated the conservative “netroots” to jump into the race for Hoffman. The key mover was Patrick Ruffini, a veteran of the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign who had programmed fundraising drives that netted hundreds of thousands of dollars for Republican candidates in previous special elections. But on Oct. 17, Ruffini endorsed Hoffman, arguing that “the RNC and NRCC are doubling down on a flawed candidate with little chance of generating any significant momentum in the last 16 days.” Coming from a consultant who drove crucial funds to Jim Tedisco, the failed Republican candidate in the June NY-20 special election, this was an indictment of the GOP.

“What’s noteworthy about the comparison between NY-20 and NY-23 is that Jim Tedisco was not a textbook conservative either,” Ruffini told TWI. “In fact, his reluctance to oppose the stimulus early on was a factor in his defeat. Yet the conservative grassroots went all out for Tedisco because he agreed with us on most issues and was a good fit for a district we had a real chance of picking up. Scozzafava, on the other hand, appears to agree with us on nothing.”

None of the conservative activists that TWI spoke to were particularly worried about being seen as “spoilers” if Owens wins NY-23 for the Democrats. David Keating, the executive director of the Club for Growth, said that Scozzafava had no chance of winning anyway, and that nothing could be spoiled. The Susan B. Anthony List’s Dannenfelser suggested that a Scozzafava victory might be the worst possible outcome.

“We’ve seen this with Olympia Snowe,” said Dannenfelser. “We don’t need another Olympia Snowe. We will be dealing with her for the rest of our days.”

As the campaign draws to a close, Republicans who’ve endorsed Scozzafava have been scorched by Hoffman supporters. Conservative blogger and columnist Michelle Malkin, who used her syndicated column last week to label Scozzafava “An ACORN-Friendly, Big Labor-Backing, Tax-and-Spend Radical in GOP Clothing,” blasted the RNC and Newt Gingrich for endorsing the candidate. “If you have given to the NRCC, RNC, or Newt Gingrich under the impression that they are using the money to support conservatism,” wrote Malkin, “you might want to ask for your money back.” Later, Malkin posted an RNC mail survey defaced by a Hoffman supporter, and let Hoffman write a guest post on her site.

If the conservative base pulls off the NY-23 upset, it would get a congressman who backs every one of their key priorities. In an interview with TWI, conducted while he drove to speak at the opening of his fourth campaign office–one fewer than Owens, three more than Scozzafava–Hoffman sounded conservative notes on taxes, climate change legislation, the stimulus, abortion rights, and gay marriage.

“The jury’s out on what’s really going on and whether we have global warming or not,” said Hoffman, explaining why he’d oppose cap-and-trade legislation, “but we all want to protect our environment.” Unlike Scozzafava, he opposed and opposes the economic stimulus package and further bailouts, and said he’d use whatever clout he had in Congress to stop funds that hadn’t been appropriated yet, making an exception for “infrastructure” spending.

- Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas), also on Fox, had fulsome praise for Palin, saying that she showed “backbone” by quitting her job, and that the fact that she “drove the left crazy” emphasized what a strong candidate she was.

- Mike Huckabee, who might be/have been a 2012 contender against Palin, said that “what she’s showing is what a lot of us loved about her: Her spunk.” He said that her supporters wouldn’t punish her decision: “They’re going to feel like she was, in essence, hounded from the opportunity to serve.”

- Patrick Ruffini, a Republican media strategist, tweeted: “Is the media / political environment now so bad that it is driving our candidates insane?”

- Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review tweeted: “If she does want to reinvent herself a little, this could be a great sabbatical time.”

As conservatives, we shouldn’t shy away from calling out officials in both parties who have supported this unprecedented growth in government power as “socialists.” But… are you kidding us? The Democrats are called the Democrats — and the Republicans are called the Republicans. A meaningless resolution from the RNC will not change this basic fact.

Let’s show RNC members that the real grassroots of the Republican Party thinks our party has better things to do to regain our majority than engage in meaningless symbolism. The only ones who will be rebranded by such an ill-advised move are Republicans — as flailing and out of touch.

Let’s beat Democrats on substance and on issues, not by rewriting history.

This is a little harsh — the resolution only asks the Democrats, politely, to change their name — but it’s one token of the blogosphere’s boredom with this issue.

Candidates for the RNC chairmanship held a debate on Monday. (David Weigel)

Chip Saltsman has put the “magic negro” story behind him. The news that the ex-Mike Huckabee campaign manager and candidate for chairman of the Republican National Committee had sent RNC members a CD of parody songs that included “Barack the Magic Negro” lit up the political press during the slow Christmas week.

But the aftermath of those first frenzied days was not so hard on Saltsman. According to the Politico’s Andy Barr, RNC members were angry at the media for exploiting the story, and some of them considered supporting him because of it. “I would say that’s about right,” Saltsman told The Washington Independent, confirming the Politico’s take.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

Monday’s debate between Saltsman and the five other candidates for RNC chair — including Mike Duncan, the incumbent chairman crushed under the Obama wave — provided yet more evidence that the obsessions of the “MSM” will have nothing to say about who leads the opposition party. Ken Blackwell, the black RNC chairman contender from Ohio, trumpeted his support of Saltsman during the “magic negro” flap on a leaflet handed out to reporters and spectators. You couldn’t find a better example of the Republican Party’s internal wisdom about what its political problems are right now, or what it needs to do to correct them. According to all but one candidate for the job, the GOP’s fortunes will reverse just as soon as it gets better at messaging and networking with activists. Fix that and they’ve fixed the party.

The debate — the first televised RNC slugfest ever, organizer and moderator Grover Norquist crowed — provided plenty of flashbacks to the debates of the 2007-2008 Republican presidential primaries. George W. Bush was only mentioned when Norquist brought him up. Chances to critique the party were judo-flipped into chances to attack the Democrats, who, in power, were sure to cause a voter backlash.

“The Obama administration has promised tremendous increasing in spending,” said Michigan GOP chair Saul Anuzis, “which they’re either going to pay for with higher taxes or higher deficits. That’s going to create tremendous opportunities for us as a party and as a movement.”

Mike Duncan, the incumbent who won the job two years ago, made everyone understand why he’d initially had to share the role with Florida Sen. Mel Martinez (R) — he spoke as if a sudden burst of charisma could poison him. “We’ve got to get our candidates using the technology,” Duncan said, explaining how the RNC already had the tools and the philosophy it needed to win. “We did that in Georgia for Saxby Chambliss,” he said. “We sent 79 million ad impressions to 600,000 Republicans.” According to Duncan, the GOP only lost in 2008 because of the Bush-damaged brand and tricks by wily Democratic technocrats. “We won the election on Election Day, 2008,” he explained in a glossy handbook (“Leadership You Can Trust”) handed out in the audience. “Early voting, however, resulted in our defeat.”

Blackwell, leaning back in his chair and speaking slowly, was as grim and confident. “When Ken Blackwell speaks,” commented American Spectator managing editor J.P. Freire, “I feel like I’m in trouble for something.” Blackwell framed the GOP’s problems as those of an ossified organization unable to reap the benefits of its good ideas.

“We have to reinvigorate the base and push our resources back to state and county parties,” Blackwell said. “It is only when you decentralize power that you get serious accountability at the local level.” He suggested a “40 under 40 strategy” that would make sure four out of 10 local GOP officials were still looking down the road at middle age.

Saul Anuzis — by one measure the frontrunner for chairmanship, with 12 public commitments from RNC members — used the word “network” as often as Blackwell invoked the name of Ronald Reagan. “It’s nice to talk about technology,” said Anuzis, “but we need to make this part of everything we do.” When Norquist got around to asking the candidates whether they used Twitter, the gleam in Anuzis’s eyes could be seen from the Mall — he has more than 4,000 Facebook friends and nearly 3,000 followers on Twitter, where he types whatever’s on his mind and preaches the gospel of high-tech outreach. At a post-debate reception, Anuzis kept tweeting: “Ken Blackwell seemed to be very proud he had more Facebook friends than me…send more my way :)”.

Saltsman picked up the high-tech banner and flew it high. “The magic of the Obama campaign,” he argued, “was that they had open box solutions that their supporters could use to work better in the communities, with their voters.” Katon Dawson pledged to run more candidates and to talk to more members of minority groups, such as the Hispanics who abandoned the party in 2008. “We are more consistent with that community,” said Dawson, “with their family values and the school choice. But did they listen to us in the last election cycle?”

When Republican consultant Patrick Ruffini asked what issues could galvanize the Republican base, the candidates were back in their comfort zones. Republicans, said Duncan, could oppose the “billion-dollar gamble” that President-elect Obama thinks will stimulate the economy. And Duncan was “willing to put resources in immediately to strike down any attempt to bring back the fairness doctrine in this country.” Saltsman expected the Obama administration to “give us a gift of an overreaching, overpowering government that will limit our freedoms” and, in turn, make more voters into Republicans.

The lone RNC candidate who used the forum to critique the party, not just its messaging, was Michael Steele, the former lieutenant governor of Maryland and current chair of GOPAC. He entered the race nine days after Sen. John McCain’s defeat, announcing on the friendly turf of Hannity and Colmes. Conservative activists were thrilled. But Steele is running behind the pack in public commitments from RNC members, although Steele campaign aide Kevin Igoe chalked that up to “a different strategy” of not trumpeting every new endorsement.

“I represent a threat to the system,” Steele explained after the debate. “I want to change it bottom up to top down.”

But Steele’s criticisms of the party have not helped him among conservative activists and RNC members who don’t thrill at being told what they’ve done wrong. “He looks like he knows he’s losing,” whispered one conservative blogger who’d been reading Steele’s body language.

It’s a strange situation for Steele, whom activists consider one of the most charismatic figures in the party, regularly requested to stump for Republicans in close races. The problem is that “change” he’s talking about. While his five rivals for the RNC post discussed the party’s failures in terms of messaging, of technological gaps, and of poor outreach, Steele would launch into existential questions about what the party stood for, who it talked to, and who it had alienated.

“We can Twitter, we can YouTube all you want to,” Steele said, answering a question about reaching out to young voters, “but we need to put young people in the game and let them play. Not just sticking them on committees and rolling them out to see ‘Gee, look who we got,’ like we do with black folks and a whole lot of other folks.”

The not-so-secret truth that’s hurt Steele, and reportedly helped Saltsman, is that Republicans don’t want (or believe they need) a candidate who’ll bring change as dramatic as their 2006 and 2008 election losses. Why do that if the Democrats will overreach and anger voters anyway? After the debate, Steele could be heard grousing about “this ideological stuff” that opponents were using against him — specifically, the claim that he’s soft on abortion and his association with the Republican Leadership Council proves that. A just-for-fun lightning round question about the candidates’ firearms proved, again, how hard Steele’s task would be if the party was looking for cultural validation from its next chief.

“Four handguns and two rifles,” said Duncan.

“Too many to count,” said Dawson.

“Seven,” said Blackwell. “And I’m good.”

“Two,” said Anuzis, “but they wouldn’t let me carry them in Washington, D.C.”

“In my closet at home,” said Saltsman, “I’ve got two 12-gauges, a 20-gauge, three handguns, and a 30.6. And I’ll take you on any time, Ken.”

“None,” said Steele.