Here's a nice snapshot of the divide that exists within the Republican Party between serious people and the un-serious people.

The conservative noise machine, marching behind Glenn Beck and Andrew Breitbart's routinely unreliable site Big Government, has spent the last several months trying to turn ACORN into an all-purpose bogeyman that can be blamed for all the nation's ills. But it turns out that perhaps the only people they've convinced about ACORN are themselves. (Can you say echo chamber?)

Facing an absentee ballot recount defeat for the special election in NY-23, conservative Doug Hoffman is now adopting the right-wing media's anti-ACORN mantra. But local Republican officials aren't buying it.

From the Watertown (NY) Daily Times [emphasis added]:

With his prospect of winning the 23rd Congressional District race now almost zero, Conservative Party candidate Douglas L. Hoffman suggested Wednesday in a letter that “ACORN, the unions and the Democratic Party” “tampered” with results to deny him victory.

Mr. Hoffman provided no evidence to support his claims, but asked fellow conservatives to send donations his way to “ensure every vote is counted.”

Jerry O. Eaton, Jefferson County Republican elections commissioner, called Mr. Hoffman's assertion “absolutely false.”

“No one has touched those ballots or has access to those ballots except board of elections staff - and in a bipartisan manner,” he said.