NYS Congressional Special Election 3/31 is raising money for this race.
Keep NY-20 Democratic and make Michael Steele sad. Act Blue is raising funds for Democratic candidate Scott Murphy to hold Sen Gillibrand’s seat.
–
Um, oops.
Mr. Tedisco, the Republican who’s trying to get Sen. Gillibrand’s old seat, has a small problem
Democrat Scott Murphy is galloping to catch up with Republican Jim Tedisco in the race for Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s vacated seat in New York’s 20th Congressional District, according to the new Siena Research Institute Poll. The trend lines are from the last poll released on February 26.
Republican candidate Jim Tedisco – 45 (-1)
Democratic candidate Scott Murphy – 41 (+7)
Libertarian candidate Eric Sundwall – 1 (+1)Last month, Tedisco was winning independent voters, but now, aided by the endorsement and ballot line of the Independence Party, Murphy is winning them by a margin of 43 percent to 31 percent. Murphy is actually performing better among Democrats than Tedisco is among Republicans, but the Republican voter registration advantage is enough to give the Republican a narrow overall lead.
That’s not just awkward for Mr. Tedisco. It seems like the NY-20 race now has national implications
Has Michael Steele’s bumbling reached a critical mass that it will cost him the chairmanship of the RNC — or will he just keep on bumbling instead?
The latest bad news for Steele is a report that certain Republicans may be plotting a coup against him, a no-confidence vote to be held after the March 31 special election for Kirsten Gillibrand’s former House seat is out of the way.
All of a sudden, embattled GOP chair (and "de facto leader") Steele (who came around last week to support Tedisco) is taking this very seriously
The Republican National Committee (RNC) today announced it is transferring $100,000 to the New York Republican State Committee.
"The RNC is proud to make an investment in our state parties and hard working grassroots. These funds will be used to show our commitment to re-establishing a strong GOP presence in the Northeast. Our party is devoting the energy and resources necessary to win the special election in New York’s 20th Congressional district," said Chairman Michael Steele.
I guess it was too little too late for Tedisco (still reeling from his anti-stimulus Giuliani endorsement), because he doesn’t seem to want to be Mr. Steele’s friend any more
Republican and Conservative congressional candidate James Tedisco is shaking up his campaign as his Democratic, Independence and Working Families opponent Scott Murphy gains ground in polling.
Tedisco said Thursday he is taking over control of the content of his advertising to distinguish "the real Jim Tedisco" from the partisan negativity his own national party has displayed in the campaign so far.
"I’m taking over and we’re going to run a campaign that relates to the people of the 20th Congressional District," said Tedisco, the state Assembly minority leader from Glenville.
…
Tedisco led by 12 percentage points in the previous Siena poll two weeks earlier. The new poll was the second indicator this week that the race is tightening.
On Wednesday, The Rothenberg Political Report, a Washington, D.C.-based political journal, changed its rating of the race from "toss up/tilt Republican" to "pure toss up."
which sort of makes you wonder
Now Tedisco, who led by 12 points three weeks ago, is shaking up his campaign and blaming the National Republican Congressional Committee for negative ads in the district. The GOP candidate plans to "distinguish ‘the real Jim Tedisco’ from the partisan negativity his own national party has displayed in the campaign so far." "We’re going to be running it right here from Albany," Tedisco said. "I’ll be fully in charge of it." It’s a statement that must raise questions among voters about who was running the campaign before.
Of couse, Tedisco isn’t the only threat to Steele. fivethirtyeight has a little list.
On the other hand, the head of the Manhattan GOP, a Ms. Saul, is supporting Tedisco. Ms. Saul is the only thing standing between our current billionaire mayor, Mr. Bloomberg, and a place on the Republican line for his next mayoral campaign. Her endorsement could be fairly valuable right now.
Whatevs. As ever, if you want to help hold this seat, discommode the people who don’t think that’s a good idea, and possibly trigger a leadership struggle amongst the RNC, Act Blue is raising funds for Democratic candidate Scott Murphy to hold Sen Gillibrand’s seat.
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Now all we need is a report that Tedisco’s donor database uses the same security setup as Norm Coleman’s to really put a lasting finish on the race.
julia!
hee.
I’ve been enjoying that story.
I can’t quite decide whether the nationals want him to lose so they can toss Steele, or if their internal polling told them he was too close for comfort and they decided to take advantage.
hey, you.
Kayton “Klansman” Dawson for RNC Chair!
Hey Julia!
What the voters in NY-20 really want to know is, how many guns does Scott Murphy keep under his bed?
I’m pretty confident Steele is toast, the GOP is just waiting for the least damaging time to make a switch. Good luck with that…
Hey, there.
I’m holding out for Mr. Blackwell. After ‘04, he’s got a much better record of keeping minorities from voting than Dawson does.
Of course, so does Steele…
I can’t imagine. The candidates are pretty much uniformly without charisma, and when you don’t have the issues you more or less have to have charm.
When it does happen, there goes their ‘brown persons’ outreach tour.
I’m not sure which is more laughable – replacing Steele with a guy from “insert white-guy state here” and hoping to maintain their ‘big culture tent’ pretense, or keeping Steele and using his diversity to drag Blacks and Latinos into the Republican party with teh bling.
I think Meghan McCain would (totally) like the RNC job, it’s just that like cardinals queuing up to become pope, one has to feign disinterest.
Julia, if there were no ‘competent’ Dem running, could Tedisco win? He sounds like Soupy Sales for Congress.
i fear the competent ones are way out numbered by the incompetents currently shilling for
bribescampaign donationsCan’t really tell. He’s been a powerful state Republican for years, but the state Republicans aren’t doing that well these days.
Oh newt! Soupy Sales! My Saturday mornings were spent with him — my brother tells a story that Soupy told all the kids to take dollar bills from their parents wallets and mail them to him. I’m sure that’s not true, but, hey, that’s what a big brother tells little sister.
I’ve been thinking that if/when the O’covery shows some deliverables, the Republican party is sunk (not really some kind of revelation, I know). Just the perception of competence and confidence are enough to throw the NY and national Republican Party into chaos – imagine if banks start to rise again, foreclosure rates slow, stuff starts getting built…
coincidently all of which has been reported in the last few days.
Hey Chris! My Sat mornings, too. It does sound like Soupy, you gotta admit. And in my scenario, I was the big brother :-)
Heh heh, and Black Fang and White Tooth had this back and forth with letters “F” and “K.” “How come every time I see F you see K?”
Outstanding recall you got!
Thanks for the link, too bad my memory is proven false. Poor Soupy had very hurt feelings. Anyway, we loved him. And that rotten big brother, too.
Hey, you remembered the phrase. When I read it, little light bulbs went off here.
or else i stood up too fast…
dugg
Gosh Suzanne, where is everyone?
The weather in CA is terrific, was all day. I’d be outside if it weren’t for this damned phone.
Newt we have freezing temps, but lots of sun which is unusual here. And I’m so glad that it is the weekend. I have tons of things to read and cook. And, I may have a trip to Naples in June. Anyone recently visited Naples, Italy?
i dunno christine e – tonight is date nite (i think i remember fri as date nite)
Watching Jon take down Cramer over & over & over…
it gets better with each viewing
Oh no!! I forgot it was date nite. I was scrubbing the bathroom and mopping floors!
Ah well, a date with domesticity is better than no date at all!!
I’m saving the full monty ’til tomorrow. I didn’t get to see the show, but I want to savor every moment.
cheers!
;~P
I have not seen the unedited version — can’t wait. We were off the sofa, shouting.
sat is, after all, about nekkid drunk blogging yanno
those are the only kinds of dates i have now that i am just a consultant
At this time of night… really? Guess there’s more than one of us’n that don’t have a life, huh?
Hey me too! Spent Saturday last cleaning. We sure know how to have fun here!
Yes! Pointing and shouting.
Yeah, I always get embarrased when I nekkid drunk blog on Fridays… My pantses are on at present.
;~P
Yes! Isn’t that hilarious?
It was like watching my team kick butt at a football game.
…in a sobering kinda way, I hear. ;(
Yes, DrBong, like newtonusr @ 40 feels. And me too.
I beg to differ…I do have a life. It’s just not normal.
I saw a bumper sticker a few years back which clarified this ackwardness for me.
” Normal people are just the ones you don’t know real well.”.
this from the local political organization i’m involved with here in the hudson valley, a few miles south from the 20th district :
__________________________________________________________
Our friends in the 20th Congressinal district need our help
The special election to fill the 20th congressional district seat left vacant by the recent appointment of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is on March 31st. The Democratic Candidate in that race is Scott Murphy.
The Republican Nominee in this race is Assemblyman Jim Tedisco, the current Republican Leader of the NYS Assembly Minority. In a letter from Albany4Obama, Tedisco’s candidacy has “brought on the full onslaught of the Republican Machine. They’re throwing every dollar and ounce of influence they have into this race because they want to make this race a referendum on President Obama’s economic policy.”
The Scott Murphy campaign needs help canvassing and phonebanking, especially the Catskill office located at 262 Main Street in Catskill. For more information contact the office at 518-291-4671, or manager Mike Coyne (cell 518-755-8676). The office is open 12pm to 9pm, 7 days a week.
Other Murphy campaign offices are: Red Hook: 31 E Market Street – 845-758-3317; Ghent: 2237 Rt 66 – 518-392-2487; Saratoga Springs: 328 Broadway – 518-584-0909; Troy: 5 Broadway, Office 202B – 518-273-2797; Glens Falls: 3 Warren Street – 518-761-2009. Please call ahead for office hours and directions
Help is especially needed during the Get Out The Vote (GOTV) weekend of March 28th to 31st.
Thank you!