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You are here: Home / Politics / Special election update

Special election update

by DougJ|  March 27, 200910:07 am| 38 Comments

This post is in: Politics

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Democrat Scott Murphy has pulled slightly ahead in the race to replace Kirsten Gillibrand in NY-20, according to the latest poll. Moreover, after weeks of staying out of what was thought to be an unwinnable race (the district is heavily Republican and the Republican candidate, Jim Tedisco, is a local legend), the party — specifically Obama and the DNC — is getting behind Murphy.

I know a lot of people in NYS politics and virtually none of them thought Murphy had a shot to make this close when I spoke with them a few weeks ago. They attribute the closeness of the race to Tedisco having run an awful campaign (hedging on the stimulus for weeks, getting in a dust-up with Rush, performing poorly in debates, etc.). What’s interesting is that they also tell me that in a special election like this one, the best operatives in each party will get involved (because there’s no other campaigns for them to be running at the time). So why has Tedisco’s campaign gone so badly? My guess is that almost any race that gets framed as Rush Limbaugh and Eric Cantor versus Barack Obama will go badly for Republicans.

In my view, the Republican party is insane to present a unified front against Obama. Cut the ones in competitive district loose to vote how they want to win races. That really seems like a no-brainer to me.

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38Comments

  1. 1.

    Scruffy McSnufflepuss

    March 27, 2009 at 10:11 am

    That really seems like a no-brainer to me.

    Ah, but you’re not a member of the party that thought Terri Schiavo was about to get up any minute and play basketball. If the party had any brains, it wouldn’t have gone in 8 short years from the dominant national party to a regional Southern party with pockets of support elsewhere.

  2. 2.

    DougJ

    March 27, 2009 at 10:14 am

    Ah, but you’re not a member of the party that thought Terri Schiavo was about to get up any minute and play basketball.

    In fairness, I’m not sure most Republicans actually believed that.

  3. 3.

    robertdsc

    March 27, 2009 at 10:15 am

    I read somewhere that the Dem guy is going to be a Blue Dog if he gets to Congress. Is that true?

  4. 4.

    Dennis-SGMM

    March 27, 2009 at 10:17 am

    The problem is that in an attempt to maintain the loyalty of the no-brainers in their base they’ve given over the leadership of the party to the most conspicuous no-brainers they could find.

  5. 5.

    DougJ

    March 27, 2009 at 10:17 am

    I read somewhere that the Dem guy is going to be a Blue Dog if he gets to Congress. Is that true?

    Sort of. In a district like that, you have to be a little Blue Dog, but we’re not talking about Heath Shuler here.

  6. 6.

    Keith

    March 27, 2009 at 10:17 am

    In fairness, I’m not sure most Republicans actually believed that.

    You wouldn’t know it from watching CSPAN

  7. 7.

    JL

    March 27, 2009 at 10:19 am

    Turn out is normally low in special elections. What type of ground game do the candidates have?

  8. 8.

    Dennis-SGMM

    March 27, 2009 at 10:22 am

    @JL:
    Just guessing here but I’d say the Republican will go with tax cuts and opposition to gay marriage.

  9. 9.

    DougJ

    March 27, 2009 at 10:25 am

    What type of ground game do the candidates have?

    Presumably, Tedisco has a strong one since the local GOP is strong. Gillibrand had an unbelievably strong one, though, so if Murphy inherited it, he should be competitive in that arena.

  10. 10.

    NonyNony

    March 27, 2009 at 10:26 am

    In my view, the Republican party is insane to present a unified front against Obama. Cut the ones in competitive district loose to vote how they want to win races. That really seems like a no-brainer to me.

    What, you mean they should become like the Democrats?

    Ha! That’ll be the day. The party activists have control of the GOP right now and they’re not going allow anyone to build a power base in the GOP the way moderate Democrats have built one in their own party. They’d rather have a small party that they control completely (and hope to hit the Lotto in election cycles) than run the risk of letting that control slip out of their fingers.

    As long as the party activists have control, they’re going to keep pushing the moderates out, making it harder and harder for the party to reform. A nasty dynamic.

  11. 11.

    geg6

    March 27, 2009 at 10:31 am

    In my view, the Republican party is insane to present a unified front against Obama. Cut the ones in competitive district loose to vote how they want to win races. That really seems like a no-brainer to me.

    Um, after that "budget" presser yesterday? "No brainer" and "insane" are the operative terms of the GOP. Boldly demonstrated by their best and brightest for all to see. It’s becoming completely unmockable. And you’re expecting them to take a logical course of action? You are giving them waaaaaaaaay too much credit.

  12. 12.

    Kirk Spencer

    March 27, 2009 at 10:31 am

    As I’ve said before, the Republican party is in a zealot cycle at this time. Until that cycle is broken or the party collapses and the resulting fragments form a new one, the party is going to continue getting smaller and smaller shares of votes and representation.

    A zealot cycle is when purity is THE driving force behind the organization. "We lost because we didn’t have TRUE candidates, candidates who were TRUE to our ideals." Note that there is some of this happening in the Democrats (the chant is "more BETTER Democrats"), but this isn’t the driving force behind them.

    We’ll see a zealot cycle through at least 2010. I think it too early to tell if we’ll see it in the 2012 campaigns, though it’s quite possible. What this means is that we’ll almost certainly see more Dems in congress in 2010. The choice in many places will be between a zealot Republican or a Democrat who is somewhat representative of the area’s mindset.

  13. 13.

    Dork

    March 27, 2009 at 10:42 am

    In fairness, I’m not sure most Republicans actually believed that.

    I didn’t hear a single one that said otherwise. Yes, they may have thought this privately, but nada one opened his pie hole to argue that, perhaps, this chick was incapable of performing open heart surgery on herself if she only was given a Big Mac and a bottle of Gatorade.

  14. 14.

    Mike Jones

    March 27, 2009 at 11:00 am

    I live in NY-20, and I’ve been doing phone banking for Murphy for the past several nights. We’ve been getting a good supply of volunteers, and are definitely drawing on folks who worked for the Gillibrand campaigns. I’m guardedly optimistic, especially with the last Siena poll today showing Murphy up 4.
    Obama and Gillibrand are very popular in the district, despite Republicans having a significant registration advantage, and their endorsements are certainly going to help. A lot of the district is rural, and it was originally drawn to be a safe district for Gerald Solomon, so it’s not likely that a very liberal Democrat could win here, but my read on Murphy is that he’s actually a bit left of Gillibrand. I don’t expect him to actually join with the Blue Dogs, though he’ll probably vote with them part of the time.

  15. 15.

    WereBear

    March 27, 2009 at 11:17 am

    As someone in the NY-20 district, I can attest that someone is pouring effort into this race: I’ve been called seven times, and polled once in the last two weeks.

    Not that I’m upset about it. Gillibrand turning this district Democratic was quite a coup; they shouldn’t give it up easily. It’s got parts that are quite rural and Republican; there won’t be a better time to flip it.

  16. 16.

    Mary Jane

    March 27, 2009 at 11:32 am

    I live in this district too, and what has struck me, is that the Tedisco campaign is operating in a time warp, as if the last two election cycles hadn’t happened. I think it thought that people would vote for him just because he was a republican, that Gillibrand was a fluke. His ads are all about Murphy – "he’s not one of us," gross distortions about him, without once saying what he (Tedisco) stands for, other than he IS one of "us." After a local tv station asked for proof of some of the allegations in one of the ads, rather than back them up, the ads were pulled. The campaign has alienated the local press, which can’t have helped. And considering how dysfunctional NY legislators are, being one doesn’t have the cachet it might have in other states. I wouldn’t be surprised if his ads have hurt him, more than helped.

  17. 17.

    bago

    March 27, 2009 at 11:37 am

    These are the people that literally put a double-dead-end republican in between in between "Federal Spending" and "Universal Access to Affordable Coverage".

  18. 18.

    bago

    March 27, 2009 at 11:40 am

    That really seems like a no-brainer to me.

    Even zombies believe in brains.

  19. 19.

    laym

    March 27, 2009 at 11:57 am

    A lot of the analysis of this race hinges on the number of registered Republican voters. I suspect (but don’t know) that a significant number of people just aren’t that committed to the GOP, even if they are still registered.

    Gillibrand won in a walk last year against one of the top guys in the NY GOP. I don’t know much about Tedisco, but I don’t think voters are going to just automatically line up behind him.

    Tedisco took a long time to answer the question about whether or not he’d have voted for the stimulus bill. Then he came out and said no. So, he’s lining himself up with the national GOP.

    How popular is the national GOP again?

  20. 20.

    NonyNony

    March 27, 2009 at 12:17 pm

    @Mike Jones:

    I don’t expect him to actually join with the Blue Dogs, though he’ll probably vote with them part of the time.

    I would actually expect it, since he comes from a moderately conservative district.

    I don’t get angry at Blue Dogs for being conservative Dems – as long as they’re voting on behalf of their constituents. The ones I get irritated at are the ones who feel like they have to maintain some kind of stupid "moderate cred" and do dumb things just to look like they’re not going along with the "liberals". It’s juvenile and stupid – either make constructive criticism or get out of the way. Making everyone cater to your superficial suggestions is just wasting everyone’s time at best, and actively harmful sometimes.

  21. 21.

    Anoniminous

    March 27, 2009 at 1:41 pm

    Party registration doesn’t mean much. A better predictor, for general elections, is recent voting patterns. In a special election it really comes down to the hard-core adherents — one might say the Real Members© of the parties.

    It is difficult to construct a polling filter to find these people and most polling outfits don’t go to great efforts to do so. Mostly because the outfits paying for the poll – usually some media company for their news shows – don’t want to pay for the work and time involved. And in keeping with Modern American Journalistic Standards why get the story when you can easily and cheaply fake the story?

    The winner of this election will be the candidate whose campaign has the more efficient GOTV organization that can get their parties Real Members© and identified ‘Definite’ and ‘Strongly Support’ voters into the voting booth.

  22. 22.

    Alan

    March 27, 2009 at 2:02 pm

    The only way this could possibly be happening is Murphy is a stealth social conservative. Everyone knows the Democrats can’t win Republican seats unless they run a social con. Rush Limbaugh told me so.

  23. 23.

    Chuck Butcher

    March 27, 2009 at 2:11 pm

    A Democratic win won’t change the number is the House but considering the district such a win will be another body blow to the Republicans. I don’t know if it will cause them to do a bit more questioning of their current stances, but it will hurt their power base, especially money. That piece could be meaningful a bit later.

  24. 24.

    Dennis-SGMM

    March 27, 2009 at 2:19 pm

    @Chuck Butcher:
    I agree about one more Dem in the House not, at this point being a game changer. Could you elaborate just a bit about how this might hurt the R’s monetarily? Is it because NY 20 is a rich source of donations or is it that the R’s will be seen to be in eclipse by wealthy donors nationwide?

  25. 25.

    gizmo

    March 27, 2009 at 2:37 pm

    I’m in the 20th District, which is turning purple, despite it’s heavily gerrymandered borders. The City of Albany sits geographically in the center of the district, but is extremely heavy on registered Democrats, thus the GOP made sure that the lines were drawn to suit their interests, and excluded Albany.

    This is a primitive way of looking at it, but the visuals are just terrible for Tedisco. On TV, Scott Murphy looks young and bright and handsome, and Tedisco looks angry and stupid and clueless. I’d bet that most voters made up their minds in the first 5 minutes of seeing these guys.

  26. 26.

    NonyNony

    March 27, 2009 at 2:49 pm

    @Dennis-SGMM:

    Could you elaborate just a bit about how this might hurt the R’s monetarily?

    I don’t know if this is what Chuck was thinking, but we’re talking about a district that the GOP was "supposed" to win easily. Losing it makes the party look like, well, a bunch of losers. At best it makes the current RNC and RNCC leadership look like they’re no good, at worst it makes it look like the Republican message is continuing to lose steam and they aren’t doing anything to fix it.

    Big donors (other than the hardcore wingnuts) don’t like to give money to losers. They want to be on the winning side – because what’s the point in shelling out big bucks if you’re just going to see your guys lose time after time after time. If it looks like the leadership is the problem, frustrated donors will withhold money until there’s a leadership change and send their donations elsewhere. Worse if it looks like the Republican message is used up and gone, then that encourages donors to think a bit more about how Democrats are going to be in control for a while and maybe it’s time to find some nice, pro-corporate, low-regulation Democratic Blue Dog types to back in the near future instead.

  27. 27.

    gizmo

    March 27, 2009 at 2:55 pm

    When Gillibrand ran for her second term against GOP candidate Sandy Treadwell (R-General Electric heir) she won easily in spite of the fact that Treadwell threw $7 million of his own money at the race. Treadwell had so many lawn signs up in this district that it was easy to get the impression that he was in a strong position. But it turned out that most of those signs were in generic roadside locations, posted by teenagers-for-hire, and not in the front lawns of real voters. Treadwell also spent a fortune buying Blackberries for his field staff and poll-watchers, but it turned out that a lot of them were old-fart Republicans who couldn’t even find the power switch on the device. What a hoot….

  28. 28.

    Legalize

    March 27, 2009 at 3:23 pm

    One of the GOP opperatives was on Hardball last night saying that their man should win this race, but he was hesitant as hell to express any optimism. I think they’re counting on Rove math but the smarter ones see the writing on the wall: the GOP is done in the north east for a generation.

  29. 29.

    Tsulagi

    March 27, 2009 at 4:31 pm

    the Republican party is insane to present a unified front against Obama.

    True.

    Maybe a glimmer of that dawned on them now to try a different tack in this new NRCC ad. It’s hardball. If this is a close race, this ad might make the difference.

  30. 30.

    The Tim Channel

    March 27, 2009 at 5:16 pm

    He’ll win simply because people are sick and tired of Bush and Rush Republicanism. Lucky bastard picked the best time in the world to run!

    We’ll chase the bums out of the south too, but we’ve got some work to do because the remaining holdouts are busy putting our best Dem lawyers and candidates in jail.

    Enjoy.

  31. 31.

    groundhum

    March 27, 2009 at 7:41 pm

    Be afraid. It seems the Rs have Pat Boone on the job.

  32. 32.

    groundhum

    March 27, 2009 at 7:51 pm

    OK. There was supposed to be a link to an entry re. robocalls at TheAlbanyProject but I munged it somehow, and can’t figure out how or why.

  33. 33.

    demimondian

    March 27, 2009 at 8:12 pm

    Cut the ones in competitive district loose to vote how they want to win races.

    Look at how long it took for the Dems to realize that, though. Seriously — that’s the key idea in the fifty state strategy, and that’s the Dean DNC, post 2004. I expect that the Republicans will come to that vision, but I expect that they’ll need to get a drubbing in the Pennsylvania Senatorial contest first, and possibly need to lose some other previously R seats before they recognize that they’ll need to accept RINOs in marginal districts.

  34. 34.

    Mnemosyne

    March 27, 2009 at 8:46 pm

    @Tsulagi:

    Maybe a glimmer of that dawned on them now to try a different tack in this new NRCC ad. It’s hardball. If this is a close race, this ad might make the difference.

    Uh, why are the Republicans calling for guys who’ve been dead for 8 years to be subject to the death penalty? What’s the plan, sort through the ashes of the various remains to figure out which ones are Mohammad Atta’s and hold a modern-day Cadaver Synod? Or are they gambling that people will, like, have forgotten that it was a suicide mission and all of the hijackers died in the crash?

    Sorry, but that commercial actually made me laugh out loud. Talk about tone-deaf.

  35. 35.

    Tsulagi

    March 28, 2009 at 2:36 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    Sorry, but that commercial actually made me laugh out loud. Talk about tone-deaf.

    You’re likely not the target demographic for that ad. More likely it’s intended for the Republican turning a tinge of blue and Independent crowd.

    While the morphing Max Cleland into bin Laden commercial was dishonest despicable bullshit, this ad uses the candidate’s (Murphy) own words and position that he believes the death penalty is too great a price to pay, even for terrorists like those who committed the 9/11 attacks. Some would disagree.

  36. 36.

    Mnemosyne

    March 28, 2009 at 2:58 pm

    You’re likely not the target demographic for that ad. More likely it’s intended for the Republican turning a tinge of blue and Independent crowd.

    It may be intended for them, but I’m pretty sure they also remember that the hijackers died on 9/11 and thus are not available to be executed even if we wanted to. It seems pretty single-mindedly directed to the wingnut crowd, not people who are on the fence.

    If it had just been OBL, that would have made sense, but it also would have reminded people that a Republican was the one who let the guy get away. Plus, since New York officially has the death penalty but hasn’t executed anyone since 1976, is it really a hot-button issue there right now?

    Everything about this commercial screams "six years out of date" to me.

  37. 37.

    Tsulagi

    March 28, 2009 at 3:43 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    I’m pretty sure they also remember that the hijackers died on 9/11

    I’m pretty sure too. Don’t think the point of the ad is suggesting the 9/11 hijackers need to die twice.

    Everything about this commercial screams "six years out of date" to me.

    Not really. President Obama campaigned saying unlike the previous administration he would have a priority to bring OBL (would also think Zawahiri) to justice and neutralize AQ. Also, this past week the Obama admin talked about a strategy to do so.

    Given this race is in NY, and Obama’s campaign and recent pronouncements, tactically if I were the Tedisco campaign, I would be running this ad hard trying to get local news talking about it and Murphy’s position. If it’s a close race, it could make a difference.

  38. 38.

    Mnemosyne

    March 29, 2009 at 1:40 am

    Given this race is in NY, and Obama’s campaign and recent pronouncements, tactically if I were the Tedisco campaign, I would be running this ad hard trying to get local news talking about it and Murphy’s position.

    If I were Murphy, I would be begging Tedisco to get on TV and explain why his party let Bin Laden escape.

    That’s the part you’re forgetting: the Republicans under Bush and Cheney let Bin Laden get away. Very few people in this country have forgotten that. Tedisco is going to have to do some fancy footwork to explain why he’s oh-so-concerned about finding Bin Laden now instead of seven years ago.

    Seriously, this is like when Bobby Jindal used Hurricane Katrina as an example of why we don’t need government help. Major blowback potential for the Republicans.

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