Could this be any easier? This is like taking Candy from a baby...

Except we're Democrats here, so it would be more like, giving candy to a baby.    

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by: JeremiahTheMessiah @ Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 23:22:35 PM CDT

Sorry about his health problem

and wishing him speedy and complete recovery. But this move may spare Mr. Cappuccilli considerable pain down the line.

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by: WoodyNYC @ Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 01:09:32 AM CDT

This seems odd.

This has moved from bad luck to something more. It's like the GOP is cursed. Or, hopefully, Mr. Cappuccilli is just faking to get out of the race.  

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by: C.S.Strowbridge @ Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 08:24:56 AM CDT

imho

I think it's straightforward- in the Northeast in the last 20 years the younger politicians with higher office potential have mostly simply not gone into the Republican Party.  Or once in it, they were quickly squashed, glass ceiling'd, or corrupted by older incumbent Republicans.  If you look around the Northeast, there really are few if any Republican "stars".

And it's not simply the partisan wave or talent- it's that the game in the Northeast has shifted away rather drastically from the country clubby and lower middle class ethnic politico machine styles.  They just don't have a viable answer to the Judis-Texeira formulation of the Democratic alliance/interests (technology economy and Latino integration) or its demographic increases in region.

To revive, it seems to me Republicans need to broadly give up their failing particular appeals on social/religious and economic and foreign affairs, find more relevant ones, and concede the earlier set lost (i.e. shift leftwards and not admit it).  I'm sure that will take at least 5-10 years and bleed out reactionaries.  

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by: Baystater @ Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 15:11:57 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Bill Baroni, Jennifer Beck

are 2 rising Republicans in the Northeast. Watch out for them. Property taxes and state taxes are high, and if taxpayers don't feel like they are getting their money's worth they could turn to Republicans again.

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by: duffman @ Fri Mar 28, 2008 at 22:56:20 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Regional and state woes

The Northeast has become the most monolithic region in the country politically and it has happened virtually overnight. In 2006, the GOP lost 11 House seats and two Senate seats in the region.  In 2000, Bush managed to escape (barely) with 3 electoral votes from the region; four years later he got zero.  Even Alf Landon and William Howard Taft managed to do better here.

Joe Bruno is playing dirty hardball and the state's few GOP resources have to go to preserve their own power point: the NY State Senate.  That will make it harder to get candidates to fill the vacancies in NY-25 and in NY-26.

I think that the state's Republicans will concentrate to protect what they have and throw the open House seats to the wolves. That means, NY-29, NY-13, Ny-3, and (I think) NY-23 plus the state Senate.  One lousy seat there and nearly 50 years of running roughshod and the infamous three men in a room crap is dead and buried.

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by: David Kowalski @ Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 10:03:38 AM CDT

eh

I'll agree with most of that.  But I don't see how Republicans hold on to the NY state Senate majority- it's not a fait accompli, but everything about Bruno et al in NY politics has that aire of dead men walking about them as did, say, national opinion of the US House Republicans about two years ago.  The growing New Yorker indifference toward Bruno's antics and efforts seems about as clinical and mildly beneficent.

After this election it won't all be over in NY, though.  The state Assembly will likely become the issue in the '10 election...probably around Shelly&Co and the Assembly being the ethics-defining entity in Albany.

For this election, I've become more interested in whether Pennsylvania Democrats are mounting a decent run at the state Senate majority.  '06 got them the bare lower chamber majority but was a wash for state Senate.  (It's 29R-21D, with about equal retirements iirc.)

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by: Baystater @ Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 15:45:18 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Clinton vs Obama primary

The Northeast is the least monolithic region in the country in the Clinton vs Obama primary.

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by: duffman @ Fri Mar 28, 2008 at 23:05:27 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

late filing date

Does the late filing date raise the spectre of Walsh rescinding his retirement, like Shadegg or Elton Gallegly?

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by: Christopher Walker @ Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 17:34:43 PM CDT

Republicans - NorthEast

Once upon a time the Republican party in the NorthEast was composed of "Rockefellow Republicans".  True they were mostly business men who belonged to Country Clubs, etc.  But it was a VERY different party then.  Mostly they were socially moderate, fiscally prudent, and progressive on issues such as infrastructure, public buildings, the arts, etc.  Then the Southern crazies took over the party with their racist bigotry and social paternalism.  They joined with the Goldwater libertarians and rode their hate to victory.  Southern Democrats switched parties and the Democrats lost most of the the "Solid South".  But for years, we had Republican incumbants who were decent, honorable statesmen and they kept getting reelected. Senator Arlan Specter used to have a group of them meeting for lunch and there were about ten.  Now there are two - the ladies from Maine.  Christine Todd Whitman, former Governor of New Jersey and head of Bush's EPA wrote a book, after she resigned over the demand to remove air pollution controls.  The title of the book is, "It's MY party, TOO".  But, NO, Christine, it isn't.  The party of Bush, Cheney, and Rove is now a fringe party composed of a variety of hate groups.  The former NorthEast moderate Republicans are gone and the people are abandoning the Republican party in droves.  This is of course great for the Democratic Party and should be great for the country.  But in a way it is kind of sad that so many people were captive to the crazies for so long.

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by: ABowers @ Fri Mar 28, 2008 at 18:39:02 PM CDT