Vice President Joe Biden is helping out a Democratic congressional candidate in the final hours of an upstate New York campaign that has become a referendum on the Republican Party.

Biden spoke at a rally Monday to support Bill Owens, who is facing third-party Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman in the special House election Tuesday. Biden said at a hall in Watertown that Hoffman wants to continue the failed policies of the Bush-Cheney administration.

Hoffman spokesman Rob Ryan says the candidate is talking about mainstream issues like high taxes and big spending. Ryan says Biden and Owens push extremist views.

Over the weekend, state assemblywoman Diedre Scozzafava withdrew as the official GOP candidate -- and then threw her support behind Owens rather than Hoffman, who is favored by many fellow Republicans.

Her cross-party endorsement put the spotlight on an apparent schism between the Republican Party and its conservative base.

The GOP leadership insisted on Sunday political TV talk shows the party is strong and inclusive while Democrats described a Republican party out of touch with the people.

"We accept moderates in our party, and we want moderates in our party. We cover a wide range of Americans," said Republican House Leader John Boehner in an interview on CNN's "State of the Union."

However, the party was divided between Scozzafava, who supports abortion rights and gay marriage, and Hoffman, who was favored by conservatives in the Republican Party, including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.