It turns out that Patrick Gaspard, a former ACORN operative now working in the White House, was instrumental in getting Dede Scozzafava to endorse Democrat Bill Owens instead of the conservative-backed Doug Hoffman.

  Steeped in New York politics, he played a pivotal role in the effort over the weekend to persuade Republican State Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava to endorse the Democratic candidate in the special election in New York’s 23rd Congressional District, two senior White House officials said Sunday. One senior official added that Gaspard was the “air traffic controller” of multiple parties as events in the district unfolded. Scozzafava, a rare Republican who who supports same-sex marriage and abortion rights, endorsed Bill Owens rather than the Conservative Party candidate two days ahead of Election Day, a major victory for Democrats in arguably the most closely watched contest in the country.

  But Gaspard is the last person to boast about his efforts and the first to bestow credit to larger personalities. He tends to talk through larger-than-life figures — he’s an avid comic-book collector. He declined interview requests for this article — and would not address questions put to him by e-mail on Sunday asking about his role in the NY-23 race — in what his allies said was a trademark style that stands in contrast to the frequent aggressiveness of his West Wing peers.

And just think: If establishment Republicans had gotten their way and Scozzafava had been the only candidate in the race we could have looked forward to her working with the Obama administration like this for her entire term in office.

On a related note, Scozzafava has already recorded robo-call messages in favor of Owens and her husband (a union official) was in talks with Democrats about Dede changing parties months ago.

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