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NY-23: Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On

by: DavidNYC

Thu Oct 08, 2009 at 9:52 PM EDT


Much to discuss re the NY-23 special election.

  • In what I think is the biggest piece of recent news, the Working Families Party is endorsing Democrat Bill Owens. This means that Owens will get their ballot line, of course, but it hopefully also signals that the WFP plans to deploy its well-honed ground resources on Owens' behalf. Last year, in a state Senate special election in a very red district in the same part of New York, the WFP sent 25 canvassers full-time and got huge praise all around for helping Dem Darrel Aubertine pull off a major upset.

  • Competing for the top slot is word that Barack Obama will hold a fundraiser for Owens in New York City on Oct. 20th. Obama, as you know, has shown a frustrating reluctance to personally involve himself in downballot races (for the NY-20 special, the best he could muster was a Biden radio ad). So I take his engagement as a sign that his political team likes Owens' chances, and thinks a win here would be a key score. Of note: Bill Clinton and Kirsten Gillibrand have both sent out fundraising emails for Owens - someone with a lot of juice is making this stuff happen.

  • Dede Scozzafava scored the NRA's endorsement. Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman had recently gone on the air with an ad touting his NRA membership - so much for that, I suppose.

  • Had your hopes about Scozzafava's ideology? Think she might wind up as a Susan Collins-type, or even the GOP's version of Joe Lieberman? Wonder no more! NRCC chair Pete Sessions explains it all:

    Sessions assured Members that despite Scozzafava's moderate leanings... she will be voting with the Republican Conference 95 percent or more of the time.

  • The party committees drop a bunch more scrilla on the North Country. The DCCC is in for a cool hundred grand on TV ads, while the NRCC plunks down about 65 large, also, it seems, for airtime. Here's a look at the DCCC's newest spot on the left, as well as a new web video on the right:

DavidNYC :: NY-23: Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On
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NY-23: Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On | 40 comments
Bill Owens
I personally believe that Owens will be the best candidate in this district.  DeDe will be another vote for the mainstream GOP agenda.  What is the GOP agenda?  Say "NO" at any progressive agenda of the Democrats.  Sorry, but just because she supports marriage equality (like myself) will not earn her my vote.  She will be another vote that the GOP will have in their pocket.

Owens is a solid candidate, and I think he will win this race.  He can support progressive economic legislation, while DeDe will be held back by her caucus.  There are very few GOP house members that are "mavericks".  If my memory serves correct, not one GOP member in the House supported the last stimulus package.

40, male, Democrat, NC-04

At the very best, she'd be Jim Leach or Connie Morella,
and neither one was all that great.  Gramm-Leach-Bliley is the name of the financial deregulation bill that helped cause last year's catastrophe, and cost the US Treasury unknown billions or trillions of dollars.  Even the GOP "moderates" are unhelpful half the time, and actively harmful at least a quarter of the time.  And Leach and Morella had very liberal districts that they had to work hard to defend; NY-23 is no Montgomery County, that's for sure.

The case for Scozzafava was never that strong, and has gotten weaker as the campaign has progressed.  I was always Owens, because I have believed for a long time that party wins out in the end, even in the case of the Blue Dog freshmen that everyone loves to hate.  In ten years, Bobby Bright will be Chet Edwards, Bill Owens will be Mike Michaud, and Dede Scozzafava will be Sherry Boehlert.  I'll take a Michaud over a Boehlert any day.

28, gay guy, Democrat, CA-08

[ Parent ]
What was wrong with Connie Morella?
I thought she was great.

I also don't see any evidence that Bobby Bright will ever be as mainstream a Democrat as Chet Edwards. I'm not familiar with Mike Michaud, though.

"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
--  Will Rogers  

[ Parent ]
Michaud's opposed to abortion
Otherwise he's pretty good.

But I don't see Owens going that way - he's been far too weaselly. With Republicans, the guys who stand up to the party are the outspoken ones - they're prepared to ignore the Limbaugh-drones. With Democrats, the guys who stand up are the wimps - because they fear the Republican attack machine more than the party.

That's not to say Owens will be another Jim Cooper, but it is to say that I see no evidence he won't just bend in the wind.

Bobby Bright, by the way, will at beast be Gene Taylor. Which is better than a Republican, but still pretty damn conservative.

[ Parent ]
Do you know how much it sucks
to have a anti-choicer from a New England state?  This is not Alabama we are talking about.  Unless Michaud is like Alan Grayson on other issues, it sucks.

Michaud and Lynch are not the kind of Democrat we need from New England.

Where does Michaud stand on gay marriage?

[ Parent ]
New York is not part of New England
It was a Dutch colony, remember? In fact, it was called New Netherland.

"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
--  Will Rogers  
[ Parent ]
Michaud is like Alan Grayson on other issues

[ Parent ]
If that is true then fine
Dennis Kucinich was anti-choice too before he ran for President.
[ Parent ]
I am really mad a progressives
who want Scozzafava to win.  If you think she will vote liberally, go look at Joseph Cao.

20, Male, Democrat, CA-44 (home) CA-12 (college)
I don't think that's a fair comparison.
Cao never promised to vote liberally, and any support for him was due to ethics, not ideology.  At least those who support Scozzafava are doing so based on her stated positions.
[ Parent ]
Like the way she pandered to teabaggers on health care?
See my previous comments on other diaries for details.

Note Politics64's retraction of his endorsement of DeDe - at the Albany Project - http://www.thealbanyproject.co...

[ Parent ]
I'm surprised that hasn't gotten more play actually
Not that I expected Markos to post it himself but not a word over there.
[ Parent ]
Look, I'm not defending her.
I just said it's not the same as Cao.
[ Parent ]
Scozzafava hasn't promised to "vote liberally", either
In fact, she's touting herself as a fiscal conservative who'll fight "the big spenders" in Congress. Those who think that she's a progressive (or even a "liberal") are deluding themselves.
[ Parent ]
Agreed
this is becoming quite clear.
[ Parent ]
I'm not for Scozzafava
I'm rooting for Hoffman.  In the long run, I think a Hoffman victory would be the best situation.
[ Parent ]
I think rooting for the most extremist candidate
to win outright is kind of nuts, and I don't buy any long-term strategy on that basis.

"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
--  Will Rogers  
[ Parent ]
It's not a long term strategy
It's more of a knee jerk reaction if you think about it.
[ Parent ]
Either way, it makes no sense to me
n/t

"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
--  Will Rogers  
[ Parent ]
A Hoffman victory
might convince teabaggers and other wingnuts that they can run third party candidacies and win, which would harm the GOP much more than a loss here would.  It might even convince Sarah Palin to consider a third party run in 2012 if she doesn't get the GOP nomination.
[ Parent ]
Are you afraid President Obama wouldn't win otherwise?
I'm not, unless no decent health plan is passed or the economy is still in the toilet come election day, or perhaps if things go to a tremendous calamity in Afghanistan or Iraq or the country, God forbid, is hit with a tremendous terror attack (and in that case, it's possible that people would rally around the president, rather than vote him down).

Rooting for the most extremist candidate is just not smart, in my opinion. There are too many dimensions in your strategic overthinking.

"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
--  Will Rogers  

[ Parent ]
No but a Palin independent candidacy
may given Obama around 500 electoral votes, and would be seen as massive landslide and an endorsement for his agenda.

And having independent right-wing candidates around the nation would give us more good Democrats that would allow us to tell the rural Southern Blue Dogs to take a hike.

[ Parent ]
You may be right
but I still don't think it's good to root for extremists to actually win anything. It's bad enough when they win Republican primaries, because then, some of them actually win general elections, but for them to win outright? Sorry, I get what you're saying but can't agree with you.

"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
--  Will Rogers  
[ Parent ]
GOP nominating wingnuts
An Owens win would ensure that.
[ Parent ]
And that would be fine too
because it would lead to the election of more Democrats when the GOP nominates wingnuts.

The best scenario for the Dems is that the GOP is split between their sane conservative wing and their huge wingnut wing.

[ Parent ]
Scozzafava has promised to vote as a liberal!
Scozzafava supports card check, gay rights, has a very pro enviorment voting record in the NYS Assembly, she publicly stated was open to a public option in healthcare and is 100% pro choice.

Owens is against a public option in healthcare and was at 1st was against the Employee Free Choice Act and now hasn't taken a position on it.

That is why UAW endorsed  Scozzafava and why the St. Lawrence County Central Labor Council endorsed her and the Plattsburgh-Saranac Lake Building Trades Council backs her.

When was the last time a GOP had more private sector labor support than the Democrat in the race?

The reason Sessions said what he did was because GOP donor base is up in arms over the NRCC spending so much money to back someone as far left on the issues as Scozzafava is. they want the NRCC to back Hoffman or just run anti Owen ads.

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My patience for your Scozzafava boosterism
is wearing pretty thin. If you think that Scozzafava has promised to vote like a liberal, then you may want to take a look at her campaign ads, which promise the opposite. It's one thing to state a preference, it's quite another to just sit there and lie about it. Owens supports EFCA in its current form. (Scozzafava says she too would vote for EFCA, but in contrast, says that she would have voted against Lilly Ledbetter, saying it went "too far" -- not exactly the words of a liberal.)

We've established before that Owens is on the fence with regards to the public option (Dede, on the other hand, refuses to acknowledge that there's a health care crisis that needs any immediate attention).

Stop insulting the intelligence of the users of this community with the garbage that you continually choose to post.

[ Parent ]
Thank you James. You point out that the SSP community...
...is a highly knowledgeable one, and this place has become one of my several-times-a-day "musts" because of the high quality of discussion in comment threads.  It's really second to none, the commenters here are at least as sharp and knowledgeable as many major published political analysts.

Even my politically engaged colleagues at work, mostly fellow lawyers, comment in awe when I start talking about something like the candidates' standing in a special election.

It just shows that as a group here we're really deep in the weeds.

And we don't suffer fools well.

43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

[ Parent ]
Can you elaborate regarding the UAW?
Do you mean a local chapter, or the national union, or what exactly?  

An endorsement from a local union in her home county is very different from the national UAW.  It'd be good of you to offer details.

28, gay guy, Democrat, CA-08

[ Parent ]
She was endorsed by the political arm of the UAW....
and B) I am not promoting Scozzafava in any way shape or form! I am just saying that based on her voting record in the NYS Assembly she is not so bad and is a Republican many can live with running in a solid Republican district against a guy (Owens) who is not even a registered Democrat!

She is a bit like Bloomberg running as a Republican. If all Republicans were like Bloomberg I think everyone here would be OK with that.

Scozzafava is part of a dying breed. She is one of the last of the New York liberal Rockefeller Republicans.

http://www.politickerny.com/55...

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[ Parent ]
More relevant, were these endorsements for Congress, or instead...
...endorsements in the past for her Assembly seat?

I haven't read that any union has endorsed DeDe for this special.  The only endorsement I've heard was the one Owens got.

I suspect this clown pumping DeDe here is trying to be too cute by half.

43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

[ Parent ]
Assembly
All of the above endorsements were for her Assembly runs only.  Who knows what the unions will do now.  But if the WFP is endorsing Owens, it's a really likely outcome that the unions and most of the other groups cited will follow.

30, male, Democratic, CO-01
[ Parent ]
union endorsements were for Congress
The Union endorsements were for congress.

Here is the link to PolitikerNY:
http://www.politickerny.com/55...
Which talks about the battle over labor in NY-23

It looks like the private sector unions are breaking for Dede while the public sector unions (i.e. Working Families Party) are going for Owens.

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[ Parent ]
Actually Scozzafava promised to vote conservative
you clearly didn't hear what she had to say about healthcare.

Also I don't know why the UAW endorsed her, but the Working Families Party in New York endorsed Owens. That should give you some idea of how she's gonna vote.  

[ Parent ]
Reason
Her husband is a member.
[ Parent ]
Thank god for that WFP endorsement
obviously, they've come to the conclusion that Owens would be a bigger help to the progressive agenda in Congress than would Scozzafava.
Win here would be huge
It would give the DCCC some nice momentum going into the midterms and may finally force the nattering nabobs of negativity on cable television to start actually do some analysis instead of repeating the same "2010 could be the next 1994" meme.  I heard it again ad nauseum on Anderson Cooper last night and it's really getting annoying.  The climate between those two elections are totally different, and even guys like Rothenberg admit that there's no way in hell the GOP will regain the House in 2010, yet it's still treated like the absolute truth on the news networks.  A win by Owens will prove that the Democratic message is still doing well in swing districts nationally and can reassure Democrats who may be anxious about their reelection.  Hell, given the historically Republican nature of the district even a close loss could be spun the right way.  Go Owens!
I'm skeptical of a close loss being picked up by the media.
While you're right that even that would be impressive for Owens, I think that he has to win outright for the annoying 1994=2010 meme to be rewritten. New York having 27 Democrats and 2 Republicans in its congressional delegation would immediately parroted ad infinitum by Wolf Blitzer, Chris Matthews, David Gergen, David Gregory, and all the rest.
[ Parent ]
Politik is right. Winning isn't everything, it's the ONLY thing......
Losers are forgotten.  Completely.  Immediately.  Winning is all that matters.

Owens has to win for us to get any positive spin.  An Owens loss gets us nothing.  And in the current context of the media hyping "anti-Democratic sentiment" among voters, an Owens loss if combined with Deeds and Corzine losses will be spun as a rejection of our party.

We need to win at least one of these three.  And Owens at the moment looks like our best bet.  Corzine has pulled into a dead heat, but I doubt we'll see the polling improve to give him any kind of consistent lead......we might be up late on election night in his case.  But Owens, if he proves a good candidate running a good campaign, should win NY-23 with as much trouble as DeDe is having.

43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

[ Parent ]
It's worth noting I think DeDe is in real trouble specifically because...
...she has raised no money and the NRCC advertising is a disaster.  They're running these ads trying to tie Owens to Nancy Pelosi, a generic attack that might work as a fundraising appeal to stalwart conservatives, but not as a vote-getter with anyone else.  The attack ads claim Owens will raise taxes, with no foundation established for why voters should think that.

As Chuck Todd says, candidates and campaigns matter.  Whatever the local GOP organizations thought were DeDe's general strengths, she's not proving very up to the challenge so far......and time is short.

Owens, meanwhile, is getting pretty good ads on the air.

And Hoffman has the resources to make himself visible.

The truth is DeDe might still have an edge if she could raise money and/or the party help was of good quality.

But the NRCC crew have been inept dingbats for several cycles now, with this race proving more of the same.

43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

NY-23: Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On | 40 comments

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