Podcast: UL talks NY-23 with the Club for Growth

Wed, 10/28/2009 - 8:37am | posted by Jason Pye

Yesterday evening, I spoke with Andy Roth, Vice President of Government Affairs at the Club for Growth, about the special election in NY-23 and the PAC’s support of Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman over Dede Scozzafava, the GOP candidate.

As I’ve previously noted at UL, Scozzafava has been criticized by conservatives for her support on various fiscal and labor issues, such as her votes for higher taxes (which the DCCC has made an issue) and card-check.

Chris Choccola, a former GOP Representative and now President of the Club for Growth, penned an editorial for the Washington Examiner highlighting Scozzafava’s record on these issues.

Roth tells us that the Club’s PAC has spent close to $1 million in this race and have run three ads (you can see them here, here and here). He also points out that they aren’t running on a budget for this race.

Based on the Club’s own polling and a new poll released yesterday, it would seem that momentum is on Hoffman’s side. That hasn’t silenced criticism from the Republican establishment, the loudest coming from Newt Gingrich, who is calling support for Hoffman a “mistake” because he feels that Hoffman may tip the race to Bill Owens, the Democratic candidate. This has led many conservative activists to lash out at the former Speaker of the House.

When asked about the criticism, Roth says that Gingrich’s endorsement of Scozzafava wasn’t surprising, because after all, Newt plays for Team GOP. But he wasn’t shy about sharing his feelings about Gingrich:

At first when he endorsed him, that made sense. I mean, this is what Newt does. He tries to portray himself as this deep-thinker and strategic tactician for the GOP, but he’ll always back the establishment. And so, when he came out and did what he did, that’s fine.

What I find extremely disturbing is that now that it’s clear that Hoffman is in the lead, Newt is not backing down, he’s digging in and he’s spreading the idea that Dede is the only one who can win. And that’s now hurting us. It’s not only hurting us, it’s helping the Democrat. So now his own words are coming back to bite him and I think the best thing he could do right now is to just be quiet.

You can listen to the podcast here (16+ minutes/15MB) or click the image below.