If it weren't for Glenn Beck, Doug Hoffman and his unlikely insurgent third-party candidacy in New York's 23rd Congressional District might never have happened. Hoffman did, after all, recently name Beck as one of his mentors, and the Fox News and radio host gave the candidate a boost by putting him on the air.
So it was only natural that Beck would weigh in on Hoffman's loss to Democrat Bill Owens during his radio show on Wednesday. And it wasn't particularly surprising that Beck, like some of his ideological allies, would say the defeat was really a win. In fact, he said it was "setting the stage" for something next year that would "dwarf" the midterm elections of 1994, when Republicans swept back into power in Congress.
From the transcript made available on Beck's Web site:
GLENN: Then you have New York 23, and I love the propaganda on this one. First of all, this just shows ‑‑ I mean, when you've lost Virginia by 20 points, Corzine loses in the most corrupt state in the union. No, my apologies to Massachusetts .... But anyway, when you lose that, when you've got the Democrats coming out and saying, yeah, but the congressional district 23. And here's their case: Well, you know, this just shows the failure of the tea party. Okay. Let's just go through this. Let's just go through this. If I heard that one more time last night, I was going to blow my head off. Here it is. This is the failure, okay? ....
I like him, but he is not, he's not flashy. He's an accountant eight weeks ago that nobody even knew, a complete unknown. He's a third party guy. The Republicans spent with what's her face, Scuzzia, they gave her, I believe it was $800,000? Is that right? .... To destroy him. To destroy him. Then she drops out of the race and then she unites with the Democrats who are also spending money hand over fist to destroy the accountant! And you win by 3 points? That's a victory? You've double‑teamed an accountant and you only won by three points. Boy, you guys are good .... That's like the Yankees playing a high school team and winning by three runs. Oh, wow! ....
And here's what the ‑‑ forget about the Democrats. Here's what the Republicans should learn. The tea party movement, if you think you're going to run people that are going to be, you know, ACORN wannabes and they're just part of the corruption, part of the system, if you're going to run those people, you can expect a tea party guy to come out, and the tea parties, they'll help you lose every single election. Every single election. Because I for one am not ‑‑ if I believe in the Republican, I'll vote for the Republican. But if you're running somebody who's like part of the system, I'm not interested. I'm not interested. And I think that a lot of Americans are like that. So the Republicans have a choice to make. You can either spend a million dollars trying to destroy a third party accountant, or you could say, wow, this accountant probably would come in within three points of beating the Democrat if we combined our efforts, Republicans and Democrats, spent a fortune, had our candidate then drop out and campaign for the Democrats, we might be able to come in with about a 3‑point margin. You might want to just say, "Maybe we should go with the accountants. Maybe we should go with the regular people...."
This is setting the stage for ‑‑ it's going to dwarf 1994, dwarf it. Dwarf it. What's coming next year, dwarf .... I really think that this is going to make what happened in 1994 look small.
One other Beck note: During his radio broadcast on Wednesday, the host reportedly suffered an attack of appendicitis. He's since had his appendix removed, according the president of his production company. Salon wishes him a speedy recovery.
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