Yesterday, I noted that the Weekly Standard held the high ground in its email dispute with the Scozzafava campaign, but the jury was out on the parking lot altercation.
As you might recall, the embattled GOP candidate for this upstate New York special election claimed that the Weekly Standard writer John McCormack was screaming questions at her:
Agree or not with Dede Scozzafava's positions, she should still be afforded a basic level of respect. Asking tough questions is one thing, but acting like John McCormack did tonight shows a complete lack of decency. This self-described reporter repeatedly screamed questions while our candidate was doing what she is supposed to be doing: speaking with voters (remember, those who will decide this election?). And then this "reporter" followed the candidate to her car, continuing to carry on in a manner that would make the National Enquirer blush.
The campaign ended up calling the police on McCormack, making this incident all the more surreal.
Unfortunately for Scozzafava, McCormack recorded the whole thing.
In the audio recording of the reporter's questioning played for The Associated Press by McCormack, the reporter didn't raise his voice, but repeated his unanswered questions several times, including one about abortion.
"I never screamed, I never yelled, I never shouted," he said. "My voice was only loud enough so she could hear my questions."
In a statement released Tuesday to the blog Politico, Scozzafava's campaign said the reporter "repeatedly screamed questions (in-your-face-style)," but later issued a statement deleting the accusation.
Basically you have the Republican nominee under heavy pressure from a conservative independent candidate backed by much of the conservative movement, and an agent from one those outlets -- the Weekly Standard -- was asking tough questions she'd rather not answer. Maybe she should've run as a Democrat (she was recruited by the Democratic Party before she stuck with the GOP), but as is, she made her bed. Calling the cops isn't the way out of the dilemma, and neither is making mistakes of this magnitude.
Michael Patrick Leahy, the Tea Party activist who has been going after NY-23 GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava with hammer and tongs, produces this photo of the candidate stumping today outside of one of Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman’s offices. Little-known fact: There are lots of campaign workers, and signs, in such offices, ready to be deployed.
Not a smart move.
We have Research 2000 polling this race right now. Results are expected either tomorrow or Friday, depending on when they finish getting a valid sample.
