Their "focus" is to make people vote conservative writers rather than "leftists." It does not matter that their candidates aren't 100% the same, as long as they organize more votes for "proper" writers to draw the awards away from the unwanted writers.
Switch "conservative" and "liberal" around, and you have the
modus operandi of their enemies.
And I think that's an exaggeration. From what I gather, most of the folks involved in Sad Puppies don't want to rig the awards in their favor, but to combat the politicization of the Hugo Awards.
However, I disagree with their tactics. A more ethical response than what Sad Puppies did would simply be to try and recruit as many extra voters from everywhere you can. That would dilute any established unnatural voting. Organized voting lists was a poor response, and comes across as Sad Puppies pushing an agenda of their own rather than trying to restore a natural state.