NY-23: It's all over but the whining, the begging, and maybe the lawsuit
Douglas Hoffman, the independent challenger who lost and conceded and unconceded and re-lost the race to fill a traditionally Republican seat upstate, has given himself the weekend to decide if he's going to drag the whole thing into court.
Hoffman, the spotlight insurgent spoiler who was supposed to provide a victory for conservatives over the Republican establishment (apparently they're not the same people), has been fundraising this past week for a possible challenge to the election results.
Since Democrat Bill Owens has already been sworn in, a Hoffman lawsuit wouldn't provide the benefits of the Norm Coleman lawsuit and tie up the seat, and Owens' vote, while it worked its way through the courts. It would, however, provide some publicity for potential future candidate Hoffman, and a way for his backers to keep current political scorn object ACORN in the news. Hoffman's attempt to tie his loss to a shadowy liberal conspiracy isn't impressing local Republican leaders or the district's biggest paper, but the "parochial" interests of NY-23 were never really the point of his campaign.
Hoffman's campaign also claims that there may have been problems with the voting machines, but no-one else appears to think so.
On the other hand, there's nothing to say that self-funding candidate Hoffman won't use at least some of the money to retire his fairly substantial campaign debt instead.
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