Hoffman has a team

Doug Hoffman, the Conservative candidate for the 23rd Congressional District, has announced the key members of his campaign team.

Mr. Hoffman said the skills of these six people "will guarantee my victory over the liberal tag-team of Dede Scozzafava and Bill Owens."

The team:

- John McLaughlin of McLaughlin and Associates, will be the campaign's pollster. His Rockland County firm has polled for former House Speaker Denny Hastert, Steve Forbes and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the campaign said.

- Dan Odescalchi of Strategic Advantage International will be "senior advisor new media," which means he'll teach the campaign how to use technology to their advantage. (Hint: Get a Facebook page. And a Twitter account. And a Flickr page.)

Mr. Hoffman said Mr. Odescalchi, who lives in the Hudson Valley, "has extensive campaign experience within the U.S. and with political parties and candidates in emerging democracies in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. He has served as a consultant to two prime ministers of Hungary."

- Tom Slater of TLS Associates will be "lead consultant." Tom, a Clifton Park resident, is a former political director of the state Senate Republican Campaign Committee and has worked on House, Senate and presidential campaigns in his 40 years of work experience.

He'll focus on "strategy, grassroots organization and message."

- Rob Ryan is senior communications advisor. He gets to deal with the pain-in-the-butt-media that bombard his inbox and voicemail with silly questions and requests for interviews. Rob was George Pataki's campaign manager when he beat Mario Cuomo and then later worked in the Pataki adminstration. He also served as aide and spokesman on former Secretary of State Randy Daniels' brief gubernatorial bid in 2006 and John Spencer's failed run against Hilary Clinton for U.S. Senate that same year.

- Nelson Warfield will be "senior media consultant," which means he'll handle the TV and radio buys. (Hey folks, you can advertise in the newspaper too, you know.)

Nelson also worked on the Pataki campaign in 1994.

- Carter Wrenn is "senior strategic advisor." He has advised on presidential campaigns and "directed" five successful U.S. Senate bids, the camp said.

Interestingly, the camp said all six team members are registered Republicans.

Sadly not named to the team Wednesday: David Hasselhoff, Dustin Hoffman, or the late Abbie Hoffman. Phillip Seymour Hoffman, a Rochester native, was also snubbed.