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NY-20: Tedisco To Get GOP Nomination

by: Crisitunity

Tue Jan 27, 2009 at 4:25 PM EST


Roll Call is reporting that James Tedisco will be the GOP's nominee in the special election to replace Kirsten Gillibrand in NY-20.

While no official announcement has been made yet, the Republican chairmen of the 10 counties that fall within the 20th district agreed to nominate Tedisco during a meeting Tuesday at state GOP headquarters in Albany.

Tedisco, the current minority leader in New York's State Assembly, is a long-time player in Albany-area politics, in fact known as "Mr. Schenectady." Wait... what's that? Schenectady isn't in the 20th?

The Democratic nomination is still completely up in the air, and the same Roll Call article comes up with a completely different list of names than we saw a few days ago. With over twenty potential names to choose from (none of which seem particularly top-tier), they're looking at:

... former TV broadcaster Tracy Egan, venture capitalist Scott Murphy, state AFL-CIO official Suzy Ballantyne, and former New York Rangers goalie Mike Richter.
Crisitunity :: NY-20: Tedisco To Get GOP Nomination
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NY-20: Tedisco To Get GOP Nomination | 51 comments
We need someone...
with name recognition, money (or fundraising ability), and roots in the district. Do at least two of those happen to apply to any of these candidates?
Another Consideration
would be to pick someone with a similar political profile to Gillibrand's; someone more of a Blue Dog type of Democrat.
This is really too bad
As a resident and member of the Saratoga county Democratic party, I really hate to give this seat up.  Unfortunately, there is slim chance of Democrats holding this seat.  Against a candidate besides Tedisco, we may have had at least a chance, but dont see much of a chance now.  This is really a stake right through many of our hearts because we worked so hard to elect Gillibrand to this Republican district.  
Take heart
Tedisco will be at most a two termer.  NY-20's going bye bye in 2012.

Male, 23, DC-At Large
[ Parent ]
Seriously, If I were the DCCC
I'd want Paterson's head on a plate for this f%^&k up. The guy's indecisiveness and blatant lying to cover up his tracks should warrant a successful primary challenge. He's pissed off enough of the NY Dem more than the GOP could. It was clear from mid-Dec that CK was not up to it, why not find an acceptable alterantive. Gillibrand would have been a good appointee but for the fact that her district would be very hard for Dems to hold. If the rule was for an upstater, at least you had Higgins, but Israel might have worked just fine. But, in part because I suspect her dad's lobbyist influence in Albany, Gillibrand got picked and all of a sudden NY liberals are supposed to believe that all her center-right positions was just for show? Talk about lacking core beliefs. Either she was lying to her own constituents then or she is lying to NY Dems now. It's like Trent Lott getting caught praising Strom Thurmond's 1948 campaign only to flip 180 and say he is in favor of affirmative action for blacks. Hogwash!

Don't get me wrong, Gillibrand is probably a fine public servant and could make a fine Senator but under these circumstances, she is just in a lot of it. Now they are parading her around Harlem with that fraud called Sharpton and that is supposed to help her in the general?

On top of that her district is now almost certain to fall to the GOP...she should have at least been required to line up a strong replacement before getting this appointment..but no, as long as she got her Senate seat, the Democrat's margin in the house means nothing to her. Now a growth opportunity in NY-20 is going to waste and as compesnation it will be eliminated in redistricting? That is F^&*KING nuts!!! NY is 26-3 Dem and with the loss of 1 or maybe 2 seats it should be 26-2 or 26-1 but now instead it will be 25-3 or 25-2? In a state Obama, Kerry and Gore won by 60%? Are NY Dems nuts? Well they are if they can't count.  

Indepedent/Lean D. Dude.
All 5s (now TX-5; frmly VA-5 and CA-5)  

[ Parent ]
Youre preaching to the quior
This is pretty much the same thing that everybody else I talk to is saying.  
[ Parent ]
That's kind of disingenious
Gillibrand is supposed to stay in her House seat just to keep one extra seat in an already huge majority instead of taking opportunities elsewhere for statewide office? It's just one seat. How about instead of hang wringing, you fight for it?

As far as Paterson goes, he was screwed from the get go with this process. If he had picked a downstate liberal, upstate Democrats would want his head...if he had picked Higgins, women would've went mad...he needed to do the least damage and I actually think he did it with Gillibrand. He wanted a young upstate woman...the only thing she missing is she isn't Hispanic.

There were no good choices to avoid some group being offended and angry at him. Caroline Kennedy was paraded around as a compromise choice, but people weren't happy with her either.  

Liberty Avenue Politics - a place for politics in Southern Queens

[ Parent ]
There are no Upstate Democrats
besides Gillibrand.  This really was not an option.  
[ Parent ]
There are no Upstate Women Democrats
as experienced as Gillibrand, that was what led him to her.

He wanted Democrats...Paterson and the Democratic Party got slammed after the election for stacking the party powerful with City politicians...the Governor, Majority  Leader, Speaker, Attorney General...all from NYC. The Comptroller from just a few miles outside NYC.

He needed to throw upstate a bone...in December, he was really hearing it from Upstate Democrats.

If you want to blame anyone, it should be the Upstate party chairs who were threatening Paterson to appoint one of their own to the seat.  

Liberty Avenue Politics - a place for politics in Southern Queens

[ Parent ]
Upstate Dems want to give up a House seat?
This is what boggles my mind about this party sometimes.  They are so willing to cut off their noses to spite their faces.  
[ Parent ]
With a 75 seat majority
yeah I think they are willing to give up a House seat to gain a Senator for the first time in 60 years.

What boggles my mind is how quick we are to give up on the damn seat. It's like some people don't even WANT to TRY and hold it.  

Liberty Avenue Politics - a place for politics in Southern Queens

[ Parent ]
If he had done it sooner
when the writing was on the wall about how disastrous CK would have been he'd have been fine. I actualy don't think picking a woman would have mattered that much at the end of the day. If the test was an upstate experienced woman, Lousie Slaughther fit that bill to the T. If the test was an upstater...well, shucks, HRC came from OUTSIDE NY and did very well with upstate voters. Point is, the idea that you have to pick someone of some group to matter is insulting to members of such a group and other voters who will obviously have a say as to whether that person eventually holds on to office. Gillibrand is going to spend the next 6 months doing a 180 on just about every socially controversial issue she's held..Again I ask, was she lying when she won NY-20 or is she lying to NY Dems now?

No, this was all about Gillibrand being part of the Albany coridor of power. Obama is probably going to nominate a black male CEO to be his Sec'y of Commerce; you don't see Hispanics screaming cos another Hispanic was not appointed to take Richardson's place. Look at CO, the Dem governor nominated a policital nobody , but now the guy appears headed to election with little or no opposition. There are many other up and coming Dems upstate who are not federal office holders and they would have done quite well in the general.

Gillibrand may very well beat her primary challenger and win the general, but NY-20 is gone...worse it is gone to an extreme nutter which is a huge letdown to all those who worked hard to elect Gillibrand. Now NY Dems will console themselves by elimnating a district that they did not have to lose in the first place. This was pure ambition and a mullet head of a governor went along with it.  

Indepedent/Lean D. Dude.
All 5s (now TX-5; frmly VA-5 and CA-5)  

[ Parent ]
I think you would see Hispanics screaming
cause a Hispanic wasn't nominated in Richardson's place. I remember seeing a lot of that while he was picking the cabinet "not enough women, not enough Hispanics, only one black man, no black women"

Paterson was really getting hit hard by Upstate Democrats to appoint someone who hails from Upstate and lives Upstate. He was getting hit hard by women's groups to appoint a woman. Slaughter didn't want the seat if you remember, she had said no.  

Liberty Avenue Politics - a place for politics in Southern Queens

[ Parent ]
Huh?
Isn't Higgins seat considered upstate?  I thought he would have made a solid pick.  Plus his house seat would have been a near certain hold.
[ Parent ]
Not a woman
Paterson couldn't replace Hillary Clinton, the first woman to make a serious bid for the White House and narrowly lose the primary leaving many of her supporters believe she was sabtoged because she was a woman, with a white Irish guy from Buffalo.

Higgins was my pick too and I got blasted for it. "Oh sure, you don't want a woman!"  

Liberty Avenue Politics - a place for politics in Southern Queens

[ Parent ]
What about Louise Slaughter?
Or was she never a realistic choice because of her House Seniority?

Male, 23, DC-At Large
[ Parent ]
I love Louse Slaughter,
but she turns 80 this year.
[ Parent ]
She said no


Liberty Avenue Politics - a place for politics in Southern Queens
[ Parent ]
"It's just one seat"
They all matter.  Especially when it was totally unncecessary.  And the majority is not "huge."
[ Parent ]
I'd consider it huge
if our majority is at risk, we don't deserve to hold it.  

Liberty Avenue Politics - a place for politics in Southern Queens
[ Parent ]
"Don't deserve to hold it"????
well heck why not give up the seats in PA, VA, MS, FL, IN and need I go on? Each seat is important and unless the holder is an incompetent nitwit or a crook, each party should do its best to hold on to as many as it can and not throw any way. That is what good party building is about...the GOP threw away seats by blindly following an stubborn bonehead of an ideologue. Dems are not ideologues and they should'nt be throwing away hard won seats. There is no real Dem bench in that region and that is a sad fact. In fact, I won't be suprised if Assemblyman Tim Gordon decides not to run in the end.  

Indepedent/Lean D. Dude.
All 5s (now TX-5; frmly VA-5 and CA-5)  
[ Parent ]
A good point
For those Upstate Dems who want a competitive two party system in the region, throwing away Gillibrand was a huge mistake.  This is how you grow a party.  You elect a Congressperson there and you hold that seat and then elect more candidates to lower offices(mayors, state Senate, Assembly, ect) to have a good bench built up for when the person holding that seat does leave.  Republicans learned this is places like Kentucky and Oklahoma.  
[ Parent ]
You didn't get what I said
I said if our majority is really in such peril that we can't risk a single seat to advance someone who may be a good candidate for advancement, then we don't deserve to hold the majority.

If our party and it's ideals are strong, one seat is not going to matter much. Are we going to tell every Democrat who sits in a seat that could be lost they are not allowed to seek another office because we may lose their seat?

And they haven't won the damn seat yet.  

Liberty Avenue Politics - a place for politics in Southern Queens

[ Parent ]
OK fine
I agree the seat hasn't flipped yet, but this was an unreasonable risk and the risk is real that they will lose. But even if it is an eventual hold, the DCCC will spend precious dollars that it would not otherwise have had to spend. This is money that could be saved for folks like Walter Minnick, Chet Edwards, Kurt Schrader and folks like that. Once that money is spent, its gone!

Of course I am not saying Gillibrand should not seek higher office. She is young, bright and quite attractive in a motherly way..but the fact is this is an appointment not an election. The Gov could have appointed other upstaters and if Gillibrand or anyone else felt that they were better, then by all means enter the primary. NY is so overwhelmingly democratic and the GOP bench so thin, any reasonable dem would have won. You can't say the same about NY-20 at least not now when the Dem bench is virtually nonexistent. That was the point I was trying to make in addition to the trainwreck of bruised egos and flame wars this whole process had ignited. It was not Paterson's finest hour and I'm not sure he knows that.  

Indepedent/Lean D. Dude.
All 5s (now TX-5; frmly VA-5 and CA-5)  

[ Parent ]
Louise Slaughter
I wonder if Paterson was thinking, 'oh why cant I just pick Rep. Slaughter and let the Democrats duke it out in an open election in 2010? Shes a female upstate liberal who will appease everyone now...and she'll retire soon so thatll appease the hundreds of aspiring New York Dems too'. But I imagine Slaughter, very early on, nixed the idea to the Governor in blunt terms. And while the pick may have made most New Yorkers, and aspiring New York Dems, happy, it certainly would have made the national Democratic Party and Dems nationally quite nervous...since theyd be defending an open seat.  
[ Parent ]
Slaughter didn't want it
She said she wasn't interested and endorsed Kennedy for the seat

Liberty Avenue Politics - a place for politics in Southern Queens
[ Parent ]
Aspiring House members
I agree that its unfair to expect House Dems, especially in a seat that will soon get eliminated (probably, anyway), to stay in their office, rather than run for/take a better job, when their majority is so big. Its just one seat. The likelihood of the Dems losing their majority by one seat is very, very slim. Its not the Senate. And its unfair to expect people to spend alot of their own money and time to run for the House and then say, 'no, you shouldnt aspire for something better because we need your seat'.  
[ Parent ]
What about House votes by one vote?

[ Parent ]
Cause that happens alot
with a 75 seat majority.  

Liberty Avenue Politics - a place for politics in Southern Queens
[ Parent ]
What "75 seat majority"? Do Dems control 293 seats?
If your 75 is from 255 minus 178 (which is 77 by the way, but you get my point) then you are wrong. A majority in the US house is 218 so the GOP only needs 40 seats to take control, which is the what the Dems have. So "throwing away" (or at least, risking) NY-20, like any other buffer seat, is 2.5% of the Dems' majority, not 1 out of 75 or 77 seats.

Now add on top of that the fact that not all seats in the 40 seat buffer are equal. It takes a lot more resources to defend say FL-24 or AL-2 than OH-1 since McCain won the first two. Then you see that in management terms, resources spent to defend a buffer seat that should otherwise be more secure have a material impact on resources for the other seats.    

Indepedent/Lean D. Dude.
All 5s (now TX-5; frmly VA-5 and CA-5)  

[ Parent ]
Exactly
A 38 seat majority is comfortable, but not huge.  A huge majority is what the Democrats had after the '74 election, when their majority was about 75.  And, as you point out, in terms of passing progressive legislation, Democrats don't have a lot of wiggle room.
[ Parent ]
Those were "softer" majorities back then
Right now we have exactly 1 seat less than we did after the 1992 elections when we had out last majority Congress.  I did a tally the other day and basically what happened between 1992 and 2008 is we gave up about 40 southern and midwestern house seats in return for about 40 norteastern and western seats.  The new makeup of the house is far more polarized, but far more progressive then when we had all those southern seats.
[ Parent ]
Proof in the pudding
Not a single House Repub voted for the stimulus. Not one. Unbelievable.
[ Parent ]
Screw them
When this bill works our side will be the ones declaring victory and they'll have nothing to run on.  Looks like 12 Dems voted against.  Bet I can guess almost every single one without looking at the rollcall - Boyd, Boren, Taylor, Griffith, Bright, Childers, etc.  Though there could be a couple liberal Dems who voted against due to problems they had with pet projects not being included.
[ Parent ]
Correct
The Usual Suspects - Boyd, Bright, Cooper, Ellsworth, Griffith, Kanjorski, Kratovil, Minnick, Peterson, Shuler, Taylor.
[ Parent ]
Cao
Wonder how he's going to explain to his majority impoverished constituents that they don't deserve a tax rebate.  Or maybe he doesn't care.
[ Parent ]
RE: Vote
Boren and Childers both voted for it.

They are both in blood red districts, so that brings up two questions in my mind:

How does Kanjorski, whose district went for Obama, justify such a stupid vote?

Congressmen from much redder districts voted for it, why couldn't he?

I don't understand that one.

He couldn't vote for a bill that both Boren and Childers could.

[ Parent ]
Probably certain issues with it
It's possible that some Congressmen like Childers and Boren were able to get more projects into the bill for their districts and Kanjorski was unable to.  That's my best guess.  For someone like Boren to vote in favor he must have "brought home the goodies."
[ Parent ]
Paterson's an idiot
And he was probably "bought off" with promises of money in 2010 by Clinton and Rutnick to make the pick.
[ Parent ]
That AFL-CIO official sounds like a good pick
anyone know more about her?
I think I'll root for Richter.
Seems like a good Democrat from what I've read about him, and I think we need an unconventional candidate to hold this seat. He probably has more name recognition than the other potential candidates too.

Of course, this assumes he has any interest in running, which is doubtful. And even if he ran Tedisco would be the heavy favorite.

Ah well, looks like I'll have no effective representation at the house level for three years. At least I get to annoy my Senators.

Would they vote for a Ranger?
Richter was a New York Ranger.  I doubt many Buffalo Sabre fans would vote for him.
[ Parent ]
I'm not very familiar with the geopolitics of hockey
but the district (or at least most of it, being horribly gerrymandered) is closer to NYC than Buffalo. So I don't think there would be more Sabre fans than Ranger fans. Or is there some upstate-downstate hockey rivalry I don't know about?
[ Parent ]
If you go by
[ Parent ]
I was going to say
I think this is more of a Boston Bruins area.  

Liberty Avenue Politics - a place for politics in Southern Queens
[ Parent ]
The 20th takes in some NYC exurbs
Unless I'm mistaken, there's minimal Buffalo influence culturally.

Male, 23, DC-At Large
[ Parent ]
On hockey... and elections...
I'm from NY-20 - near Albany.

Buffalo sports fans don't exist east of Syracuse. Albany area is closer to New York City, Boston AND Montreal than Buffalo. They are "western NY," NY-20 is "Capital District" or "North Country" or "Hudson Valley." It's like comparing Pittsburgh, Harrisburg and Philly.

I'd venture that most are Rangers fans, particularly as you get closer to the city in the southern part of NY-20. The northern part of the district is probably a split between Rangers fans and Canadiens fans. If there are Bruins fans, they are close to the Mass and Vermont borders, but many of these areas are lower in population. On a purely practical matter, keep in mind that in the population centers (near Albany, partic in Saratoga County), you are getting MSG on TV but not NESN, so you are watching the Rangers (and Islanders!). Having lived in NY-20 until going to college, I think I knew maybe 2 Bruins fans.

Setting aside my hockey fandom...

As for name recognition, I'd bet that Richter's got it in NY-20. Will it win an election? Who knows. He'll fight the carpet bagger thing, though Tedisco will too. And he'll potentially have to fight the "rich guy with nice house in Adirondacks" thing, as opposed to "he's one of us."
They'll go after him as a Yalie liberal, too, of course.

I think to hold this seat will take an unusual candidate against Tedisco. He's got enemies, but he's smart, knows Upstate NY, and will have money. Someone too liberal will win solid Dem support, but won't be able to win the independent and crossover voters that Gillibrand relied upon. I think Ballantyne will be too quickly branded a labor liberal. Not sure what to make of Tracy Egan. But that's because I was always a Chris Kapostasy fan. Larry Bulman is possibly the best choice in terms of experience, and Saratoga County is the population base of the district.

A note on Richter from the Schenectady Gazette:

Bulman said Richter, who has a home in Essex County, helped both of Gillibrand's campaigns and has expressed interest in running for office. The former National Hockey League star recently completed a degree at Yale University and was considering a run for Connecticut's 4th Congressional district in 2007.

"He's someone who's actually been here knocking on doors," he said of Richter, who is also a member of the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame.

[ Parent ]
One more note
For those looking for coverage on this, don't look just at Roll Call.

Check out the local papers in the district, that actually know the county commissioners and the district's unique geography. The Times Union, Glens Falls Post-Star, Saratogian, etc.  

[ Parent ]
Looks like Richter's interested in running then.
If you search google news for Mike Richter a few stories down there's an excerpt from a subscription only site that says he has "been approached by Democrats" about running. Not sure if that's accurate though.
[ Parent ]
If Richter runs and wins...
The following headline is obvious: "Richter with the save, and the Dems win again!"
[ Parent ]
Sounds good to me!

[ Parent ]
NY-20: Tedisco To Get GOP Nomination | 51 comments

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