Wherein a former candidate implodes

Rep. Bill Owens got a huge boost for his re-election campaign yesterday from an unexpected source – political foe Doug Hoffman, who put out a letter charging election fraud on the part of, well, the little demons running around inside that somewhat goofy looking head of his.

Hoffman's letter, seeking money from conservatives to enable him to challenge the results of the election he conceded to losing only two weeks ago, charged the Democratic Party, the liberal organization Acorn and, presumably, the Oswego County Board of Elections, with election fraud. He did this without a shred, not an iota, of proof.

In reality, the only acorns in Oswego County are produced by oak trees. And the Oswego County Board of Elections, like every other such body in New York state, is run equally by Democrats and Republicans, and has nothing to gain in an 11-county congressional district by cheating, or allowing others to do so.

Leveling criminal accusations against political opponents – and in Hoffman's case, even against political allies – is a serious action. You ought not do it unless you have some proof. When pressed on that issue by Times reporter Jude Seymour, a Hoffman aide rapidly distanced himself from the allegation and offered not a shred of evidence, even a hint of a third-party rumor, that the ballot process was tampered with.

A lot of conservatives are still frothing at the mouth over Hoffman's defeat, and making plans to turn that election around next year, in the regular election. Unfortunately for them, they've backed a candidate that has shown, and now, in defeat, continues to show, he is spectacularly unqualified to be in Congress.

In politics, as in bar fights, you'd better be prepared to back up whatever silliness comes out of your mouth. Hoffman's paranoid rant about Acorn and the little men who weren't there in the Oswego County elections office is going to be impossible to back up. And it will show him to be the small-minded, confused man that came out during the last campaign.

The conservatives probably ought to quietly take the saddle off Hoffman, brush him down, put him out to pasture and start looking for a new horse to ride next year.