It looks like the independent expenditure war in New York’s 23rd District is heating up in a big way. The Club For Growth reported a $275,000 media buy attacking Democrat Bill Owens and Republican Dede Scozzafava earlier this evening with the FEC, on top of a $15K direct mail piece in support of Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman.
The party committees are also in the thick of it, too: the NRCC upped their ad buy against Owens by $35K, raising their total tab for the open seat race to just north of $150,000. The DCCC dropped another $65K on media buys earlier this week, too, bringing their total amount spent on Owens to $127K. I’d expect those buys to snowball in the coming days, as the committees try to neutralize the Club For Growth’s investment.
The Club for Growth is hoping for a “Buckley” scenario, with reference to the ’70 Senate election where James Buckley on the C line beat a liberal R and D with 38% of the vote, ref
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J…
I believe that 38% of NY-23 are willing to vote for a wingnut.
Therefore, it’s important to make sure to paint DeDe as one of them in at least a few ways – and her socially liberal positions are consistent with today’s followers of Ron Paul.
The problem with that strategy is that Dede is an economic liberal too. If she had a conservative economic voting record in the NYS Assembly she probably could have avoided a Conservative Party challenger.
It’s an odd race where the most liberal candidate is the Republican. In that sense it is kindo of like the Buckley race.
And should be able to match and exceed the money CfG and all their friends are spending.
Isn’t that the reason this non-Dem was picked by the Dem. party bosses, right?