'A little sideways'

Election '09 | Conservative insurgency comes up short in New York's 23rd House District | Alisa Harris

Associated Press/Photo by Heather Ainsworth

At a Nov. 2 Doug Hoffman rally in New York's 23rd Congressional District, country singer John Rich was franker than the man he was campaigning for, drawling to the small but roaring crowd that he wasn't running for office so he didn't have to be polite.

"Nancy Pelosi feels like the Wicked Witch of the West riding around on a broom. Someone needs to drop a house on her," he said between guitar strums, on a stage at an exhibition hall at the fairgrounds in Watertown, N.Y. Then, making a pun on the name of Hoffman's former opponent, Dede Scozzafava: "I'm a little sideways with the Republican Party putting Dede Schizophrenic out there."

The Hoffman campaign became a battle cry for anyone "a little sideways with the Republican party," from tea party activists to national leaders, for social conservatives and fiscal con­servatives alike. Like other 2009 races, it became bigger than the candidate himself—in this case a warning to the Republican Party to shun "Republicans in Name Only."