Sniffin' 23rd

I mentioned the danger of Sarah Palin sticking her nose into the NY 23rd race HERE and HERE. And gee, what do you know:

We crunched the FEC contribution numbers this afternoon to discover that 95 percent of Hoffman’s donations came from individuals and PACs based outside of the district. (Hoffman himself doesn’t even live in NY-23.) Only $12,360 of the $265,341 he’s raised came from potential constituents.


Hoffman’s been criticized in local NY-23 press for his weak grasp of district issues, which Dick Armey, former House GOP speaker who is campaigning for Hoffman, brushed aside as “parochial.” Hoffman has acknowledged this weak point, even saying that if he were elected, he would reach out to moderate Republican Dede Scozzafava (who has since dropped out of the race) for her “ knowledge and experience,” as a local.

So thanks largely to the wishes of someone from 3000 miles away who likely will never spend one minute in this district, a candidate about whom the only thing we seem to know is that he's not really familiar with the district itself has seen his campaign contributions increase 21 times over. Looking at this along with with Armey (among others) blowing off all this as being "parochial," can we now call the time of death for the party's claim of wanting to keep government small and local? Looks like they wanna be some national takeover party, don't they? Interesting. I'd love to hear from any Republican readers out there who would be thrilled with this happening to their own district.