Big drip Joe Biden fails to make a splash in Watertown

Joe Biden drew a pitifully small number of people to an Owens rally on th eve of a special election in New York's 23rd Congressional District Monday, prompting the Weekly Standard's John McCormack to title his first blog post from the Watertown event "Biden Packs 'Em In":

"There are maybe 250 people gathered (50 of them are with the media); Watertown has a population of 30,000. The event is open to the public--no one needed a ticket to get in--but the room is only about 65 percent full. The turnout suggests that Joe the Vice President might not connect with working class voters (the kind who populate Watertown) as much as the White House believes he does."

In contrast, Sarah Palin attracted a warm and enthusiastic crowd of 20,000 to Auburn, New York (a town with a population of 27,317) last June.

In a subsequent posting, McCormack reports:

There are signs that Biden may be a toothless attack dog. He was only able to fill a small venue to about 60 percent of its capacity, and a new poll released by Siena college this morning shows that Biden is not popular in the district. The vice president's favorable rating is only +4 (41-37 percent); Hoffman's favorable rating is +14 (47-33 percent).

And then there was the content of the speech itself. The vice president's 35-minute speech meandered through childhood recollections -- such as his lifeguarding on Lake Ontario and watching his father leaving Scranton to look for a job in Wilmington -- and attacks on Republicans.

Biden lit into Republicans for not doing anything about global warming, but one of liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava's few conservative positions was opposition to job-killing cap and trade. And as gas prices have begun to rise, Biden decided to pick a fight with Sarah Palin over drilling for oil.

We wonder, how many votes having Biden campaign in the district will cost Bill Owens and the Democrats?

Hoffman, Baby, Hoffman!

Stacy McCain has more from Watertown here and here.

- JP

Dede's Revenge: She Endorses Owens (Updated)

The editorial in Sunday's Watertown Daily Times makes it clear which candidate the local newspaper wants to win the U.S. House seat in New York's 23rd Congressional District. The big news is not so much that the Daily Times' editors have endorsed Democrat Bill Owens, but rather that their editorial has revealed that Republican Party candidate Dede Scozzafava is doing the same thing in private:

"During the day Saturday, she began to quietly and thoughtfully encourage her supporters to vote for Democrat William L. Owens."

Finally, Dede shows her true colors. This is the candidate in whose campaign Beltway Republicans invested a million dollars. But Hell hath no fury like a RINO scorned. The assemblywoman is, of course, free to endorse whomever she chooses, publicly or privately. And no one can doubt that she is feeling a deep sense of betrayal, and who could blame her for that? But by supporting the Democrat, Scozzafava has shot holes in the arguments of GOP moderates who assured us that if elected, Dede would be a reliable House vote against Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her ultraliberal agenda. On the contrary, Scozzafava has demonstrated that Republicans cannot trust her to be anything other than a Vichy Republican. Dede also makes laughing stock out of all those media rats who have been trying to pass her off as some kind of "moderate." She's not. In her heart and in her mind, Scozzafava is a liberal Democrat. Her Republican veneer, like a cheap Halloween mask, is a poor disguise. Nelson Rockerfeller and Jake Javits would have loved her. This is the politician, remember, who, just the day before she urged her supporters to vote for Owens the Democrat, publicly proclaimed:

"I am and have always been a proud Republican. It is my hope that with my actions today, my Party will emerge stronger and our District and our nation can take an important step towards restoring the enduring strength and economic prosperity that has defined us for generations."

Here's a little clue, Dede:  "Proud Republicans" don't urge their supporters to vote for liberal Democrats, or at least they should not do so.

Sarah Palin and other conservatives have been trying to make the establshment of their party realize that the future of the GOP lies not with untrustworthy RINOs, but with the very people that the Republican Party is supposed to be working for. Sarah in particular has sent those Beltway Republicans a series of strong messages. Now Dede Scozzafava is proving Sarah's point. The Grand Old party needs to put its trust in its own party platform and Reagan Republicans like Sarah Palin, not in back-stabbing RINOs. It needs to put its time and resources into the campaigns of conservatives and stop backing Vichy Republicans who will, if elected, advance a liberal Democrat agenda.

Updates...

Dan Riehl:

"I imagine that party change is simply a matter of time, now."

The NY Daily News quotes Scozzafava's husband, labor leader Ron McDougall:

"I wholeheartedly and without reservation endorse the candidacy of Bill Owens."

Fox News reports that Dede has made her support for the Democrat public:

"I am supporting Bill Owens for Congress and urge you to do the same," she said.

Stacy McCain:

"Surprise, surprise! Dede is a Democrat"

- JP