Cherry Hill Council 6173 at 2001 N. Springdale Road, Cherry Hill, NJ 08034 US - News about NJ from National Organization For Marriage

In New York, the race for New York's 23^rd continues to heat up. Dede Scozzafava was hand-picked by GOP leaders to be the Republican candidate for a special election in this district in upstate New York, which has elected Republicans since the Civil War.

A safe, reliable GOP district. So what do the party bosses do? Nominate one of the very few pro-gay-marriage Republicans around. Nice, huh? Then it becomes increasingly clear that Dede is not just a leftist on social issues--she's pretty far out of the mainstream all the way around.

Human Events just published an expose of Dede Scozzafava's relationship with the Working Families Party in New York. If you are in New Jersey or elsewhere, maybe you've never heard of it. But stay with me.

The Working Families Party was founded by hard-left interest groups to promote their positions. Scozzafava is not only one of the few gay-marriage Republicans, she is one of the very few Republicans to get elected by earning the party-line of the Working Families Party (sharing that line with John Kerry!).   

But it gets worse than that: Guess who is a founding Co-Chair of the Working Families Party? Bertha Lewis, the head of ACORN. I'd never heard of Bertha Lewis until last week. But when videos emerged of ACORN employees counseling a young man on how to get taxpayer financing to run a brothel for underage prostitutes, all of America watched Bertha Lewis respond by denouncing the videomakers as liars and frauds. Then, as the scandal built, she abruptly reversed course and pretended to be concerned with reform.

Her big "reform"? Accept no new clients while the "investigation" is underway. That means, of course, that no new videos can emerge while the story is hot of yet more taxpayer-funded ACORN employees using your hard-earned money to figure out how lawbreakers can join them at the public trough.

Bertha Lewis is one of Dede Scozzafava's political friends and supporters. (Scozzafava spokespeople told Human Events that she would have voted to defund ACORN.  But she has not rejected or repudiated the Working Families Party's powerful endorsement, either.)

None of which would be our business here at the National Organization for Marriage except for one thing: In a backroom deal, without the voters' approval, New York's GOP party bosses hand-picked Dede to be the face, the voice, and the values of a new generation of Republican.

Ronald Reagan must be turning over in his grave.

At the same time, a new poll released by the Doug Hoffman campaign shows that Dede is paying a price in this hard-core GOP district for her extreme views. The number one pick of voters in that district? "Undecided" by 31 percent. Only 30 percent of voters say they will vote for Dede, and the rest are about evenly split between the Democrat and Conservative Party candidate, Doug Hoffman--both of whom are to the right of Dede on gay marriage. (The Democrat has yet to say, however, how he will vote on efforts to repeal the federal Defense of Marriage Act).  

No date for the election has been set, but Novemeber appears likely.  Stay tuned!

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