NRCC

Erick Erickson, who is admittedly the mastermind behind Doug-mania in the Rightosphere, has a rather disturbing post in RedState.

Two party officials tell POLITICO that the NRCC will continue to air TV ads propping up Scozzafava in the days leading up to the Nov. 3 contest and plans to keep up a near relentless barrage of press releases slamming Hoffman.

Here’s my favorite part, which is also the most insulting:

Asked why so many prominent Republicans had thrown their support to Hoffman, the official responded, “We’re dealing with data, not hopes and dreams

OK. I'm a data driven guy. Let's look at these numbers.

1. Let's assume the Kos poll is correct.   It shows Doug Hoffman in third place. It also shows Dede Scozzafava with the highest negatives in the race. And that if Hoffman wasn;t running, very few of his supporters would show any interest in backing Scozzafava. And, hmm what is the likely impact on such voters of running negatives on Hoffman?

Democrat candidate Bill Owens is sitting pretty;  by my estimates if he turns out the same Democratic House vote the losing candidate got in the 2006 midterm (which had turnout comparable to the 2009 20th CD special) he stands to win. Especially since the NRCC strategy will lead to less Republican turnout. Brilliant. 

2. With the exception of Newt Gingrich, most informed people realize Scozzafava is going to be one of, if not the most liberal members of the GOP caucus. And the one most likely to switch parties (more on the reasoning later).  On the other hand, Owens was a registered independent until recently and has focused much of his campaign on military issues.  So, it seems reasonable to think he's be a bit of a Blue Dog, especially compared to other northeastern Democrats.

True, Owens is a pro "public option" vote. But can we be sure Scozzafava isn't?. She hasn't committed, has she? (The Politico seems to think she's off the reservation already)

Query to the Beltway Brain Trust: How much is a RINO worth to us compared to a Blue Dog?  Maybe we'd be better off losing the bidding war and letting Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer try and keep another wobbler in line.   

3. This seat is a rental. Not a purchase.  New York will certaintly lose a House Seat for '12. The Democrats are highly likely to control reapportionment (they control it now). The 23rd is the least Republican seat we still hold in NY; it has no major population centers, and will be held by a low seniority member.  The Democrats will make an upstate Republican walk the plank and the 23rd could easily be parcelled out between the Democrat held 20th (Saratoga), 24th (Utica) and 25th (Syracuse) districts.  

Which comes to Scozzafava switching parties. Anyone think she wouldn't flip parties to save her district and make a Republican colleague lose his seat in the re-map? Please.

4, Stop doing single-entry accounting, folks.  The DC Republicans are looking at the cost of holding one House seat.  And that's not insignificant. But they certainly don't have the cash-on-hand to fight in 40-60 seats next fall. That's going to take a monumental effort from the party's contrbutor base.

Hmm, guys, where do you plan to get that cash after you tell your most loyal contributors to stuff it? Last time I checked, K Street had sold out to Obama and Pelosi.  Unless you plan to borrow Ben Bernacke's printing press, appeasing the folks who write you checks might seem like a good idea.  

5, For the effect of electing a useless RINO while alienating the financial base of the party, please look up this definition. You genuises in DC are bright enough to figure this concept out, right?

When one considers the potential lost revenue for next year, this might turn out to be the most expensive House campaign in American history.

It seems the NRCC simply can't get out of its own way when it comes to upstate New York elections.  In 2006 they helped lose the 24th District, in 2008 we lost the 25th and 29th districts. And early this year their efforts were so counterproductive in the 20th District Jim Tedisco had to disavow them.

My suggestion to the DC Republicans. Quit while you're behind.  Punt on 4th down. Accept that the voters are going to do what they are going to do in the 23rd District. And hire someone with a clue before the '10 cycle gets going in earnest.

The Sienna poll of New York's 23rd Congressional district released Friday found Democrat Bill Owens pulling into the lead with 33 percent, followed by liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava at 29 and Conservative Party hopeful Doug Hoffman at 23. 

Combined, the Republican and Conservative lines lead the Democrat 52 to 33 percent. And in a normal election, that would be that -- maybe 95% of the time the Conservatives cross-endorse the Republican. 

Scozzafava's particularly egregious liberal record -- pro-card check and pro-stimulus -- rendered that impossible. And so we are faced with a center-right vote that's nearly evenly split, enabling a Democrat (who many believe to be more conservative than Scozzafava) to squeak by.

It is a simple, indisputable fact that the Republican and Conservative voters of NY-23 will have to rally around one candidate to prevent a Democratic pickup. And that candidate should be Conservative Republican Doug Hoffman.

Sadly, the RNC and NRCC are doubling down on a flawed candidate with little chance of generating any significant momentum in the last 16 days. In many ways, this should be a situation like Bernie Sanders' many elections in Vermont, or Joe Lieberman's election in 2006, where there should be no harm and no foul in supporting a viable, like-minded independent over a non-starting major party nominee. 

Instead, this looks set to go down as yet another misfire by DC Republicans, drying up the small donor base to the committees with a shortsighted "all Republicans are created equal" approach to supporting liberal Republicans when perfectly acceptable conservative alternatives exist. 

I'm not one to suggest that the party should go out of its way to anoint candidates who can't win in blue states. Rather, I am suggesting that there is a pragmatic case for the NRSC and NRCC to stay neutral in more primaries or support conservatives in a way that doesn't lose elections -- and makes it more likely that Mitch McConnell will prevail on the Senate floor more often. 

Take everyone's favorite example, the Florida Senate race. There is no doubting the fact -- even amongst conservatives -- that Charlie Crist is practically unbeatable in a general election. Let's peg his chances against Kendrick Meek at 95 percent. 

The problem is that Marco Rubio is no slouch in this department either. The polls I've seen have him up double digits over Meek. Assume that Rubio's chances in a general election are between 80 and 85 percent. 

Looking at electability only, Crist would still come out ahead. But that doesn't necessarily give Senate Republicans their best outcome. Notice I said Senate Republicans, not conservatives. 

Naturally, the national party is going to go for the "W" wherever it can in order to bolster its number of seats. And if this were the only thing that mattered, electability alone would be king. 

The problem, as we are finding out in the health care debate, is that it's not enough to have 60 Democrats to break a filibuster, or 41 Republicans to sustain one. How your members vote in that process matters to the outcome. In deciding which candidates to support, the national party committees -- not just activists -- should be looking at whether the candidates are likely to support leadership on key floor votes. If Rubio is just 10 or 15 percent better than Crist on key votes, Crist's electability advantage is nullified from the perspective of Leader McConnell and the Senate Republican Conference. 

To me, this could go either way given that Crist is not liberal in the way that Olympia Snowe is, and that his maverickness has always been more about staking out a particular brand in Florida than currying favor with a liberal electorate. But even so, the PR advantage of having a high-profile Hispanic conservative with a potential national career ahead of him tips the scale in Rubio's favor. 

The same would go in California. Carly Fiorina does not have a particularly strong electability advantage over Chuck DeVore, and her celebrity CEO past renders her vulnerable to rookie mistakes and greater scrutiny of her private sector activities. It would be one thing for the NRSC to support Fiorina if she were polling 10 to 15 points better than DeVore against Boxer, but she's not. 

In deciding whether to support conservatives like Hoffman, Rubio, and DeVore, there is a reasonable middle ground between craven winnerism and a kamikaze strategy that ignores electability. The committees should factor in adherence to core Republican principles (in addition to electability) because the job of a political party is not just to win elections, but to win votes on the floor. And though the impact of an errant member is much less in the House than it is in the Senate, Scozzafava's not-so-veiled threats to switch parties if she isn't treated nicely should render her completely unacceptable to Michael Steele and Pete Sessions, who should make it clear that they won't be blackmailed. 

I'm sure many people here did too.  It was a fundraising letter on behalf of the NRCC.  I"m sure you also realize that there is a lot of buzz on our side of the aisle when it comes to the 2010 elections.  In short, people are pumped up and excited about voting the Dems (and RINOs) out of office.  Republicans have a real shot at capturing back the House.

Now I know that many people here disagree with the current direction of the Republican Party generally.  But, as a practical matter, 2010 is an opportunity to take Congress in a rightward direction, and we shouldn't squander it.  This doesn't mean that we should necessarily line up and march lockstep, but we should appreciate the opportunity that arises.

So even if you think the Republican Party is too socially conservative, too beholden to business interests, too inept in its leadership - criticisms I share, BTW - I still think we owe it to our principles overall to seize upon this opportunity.  I think it would be a mistake to pout and sit out one more election.  In 2006 - yeah, the Republican Congress had lost its way.  In 2008 - yeah, McCain was a terrible candidate.  But now?  So even if we don't agree with the Republican Party in every detail, this is a big opportunity to put the brakes on our current socialist joyride.

Last month after the House passed Waxman-Markey with help from 8 GOP votes, Robert Stacy McCain called on conservatives to stop giving money to the NRCC: Not One Red Cent. I thought this was an over reaction at first. But then I stopped by the NRCC to see if they were actually supporting any of the 8 cap and tr8ors. I clicked on their Patriot Program and learned that "The NRCC unveiled ten incumbent Members who, because of their outstanding efforts as "Patriots," will be rewarded with participation in "Patriot Day" on June 25th." But was there a list of these "Patriots" anywhere on the NRCCs site? No. I had to resort to Google news to find out that:

Among those on the list are Reps. Dan Lungren, Ken Calvert and Brian Bilbray of California, Judy Biggert of Illinois, Anh “Joseph” Cao of Louisiana, Thad McCotter of Michigan, Erik Paulsen of Minnesota, Leonard Lance of New Jersey, Christopher Lee of New York and Dave Reichert of Washington.

Matching the two lists up we find that the NRCC's Patriot program is in fact providing comfort to two traitors: Reps. Leonard Lance (NJ-7) and Dave Reichert (WA-8).

So on second thought, yeah, by all means conservatives should definitely stop giving any money to the NRCC until Lance and Reichart are kicked out of the Patriot Program. But that is not enough. Duncan Black and I don't agree on much policy wise, but when it comes to politics,  we agree a lot. Responding to RSM, Atrios wrote: If you ever demonstrate an ability to actually raise money for these organizations, they might start caring what you think. Before? Unlikely.

But this isn't really what the netroots did. They didn't move their party to the left by throwing money at the DCCC. Quite the opposite. Instead they created their own institutions, a parallel party, that allowed them to support the candidates that they trusted. So instead of leading a boycott of the NRCC, conservatives should be raising money for candidates challenging those Dems who are vulnerable to cap and trade.

But how can we do that? The left has ActBlue which allows bloggers to get together and create fundraising pages that allow easy one-stop shopping for donating to Democratic campaigns. So where is our ActBlue? Why can't we go out and create a page allowing fired up conservatives to vent their anger at the NRCC by giving their money directly to challenger campaigns? Slatecard is retooling. So is Rightroots. Meanwhile ActBlue is enabling the nutroots to raise money for Michael Jackson Fans AGAINST Peter King.

Conservatives are fired up about Obama's spending and imminent taxing disaster. Independents aren't far behind. We need to make sure our infrastructure is in place to best harness the incipient wave of Obama anger.

I've been putting this off, but before I forget what happened, I thought I'd write the last word on the NY 20 special election.

I note I was not a participant in the race, but as my wife is from Rennselaer County I thought I had something useful to add to the proceedings.  And I was paying attention.

My main point is we'd better not draw the wrong lessons here or we will make the same mistakes.

There are two major misconceptions that we first ought to get out of our heads:

a. "We lost because we ran a weak candidate" 

Jim Tedisco was an experienced office holder, had lots of media exposure, and worked very hard. He was not an aging party warhorse who had previously lost elections or nominations; or some young rookie who didn;t seem up to the job. While I think Saratoga District Attorney Jim Murphy or State Senator Roy McDonald might have made stronger candidates, neither chose to run. We will do well to get equally qualified candidates in most of our 2010 open and challenger races

A quick note. Our candidate selection process here was the proverbial "smoke filled room". So was theirs. Our problem is the unsuccessful suitors (Fmr. Columbia County Assemblyman John Faso and North County State Senator Betty Little) thought they were equally worthy of being Gillibrand's heir apparent; while the Democrats had an unelected cast of thousands. So we had some dissention from the losing candidate's localities and they didn't. But had we picked Little or Faso, we might have run weakly in Saratoga.

b. "NY 20 is really now a Democrat district" 

Yes, NY 20 has drifted towards the Democrats in recent years; and so has most of the country.  It is still one of the five most Republican districts out of 29 in NY State and virtually every legislator in this region is a Republican. (McDonald won an open state senate seat in the heart of the district going away in 2008 against Gillibrand's top aide). Plus, demographically it is a middle class district populated by rural and suburban whites. Obama won the seat by only 3 points when McCain didn't contest NY State.

We are never getting back to 218 seats in the House unless districts like NY 20 vote reliably for Republicans again. This district is a clone of places like PA 10, MI 7, WI 8 and MN 1 we used to hold easily.

So what happened to make us lose? 

1. Fear and inertia on the GOP's part

I think had there been no early polling in this race Jim Tedisco won have won. An early public poll showed him up 50%-29%.  This indicated it was his race to lose. And he started off running that way.

Evidently private polling showed Obama and the stimulus package as very popular in this chronically economically challenged part of the country.  So the Tedisco brain trust decided that they had to avoid any confrontation to Obama at all. This proved to be a disasterous strategy.   Obviously the other side would press the case a vote for Scott Murphy was a vote for Obama.  Some rationale for not electing a rubber stamp needed to be presented. But it wasn't

2. Upstate NY did not love the smell of napalm in the morning

Instead of engaging Democrat Scott Murphy on substance, the decision was made to attack his record in private business.  Some relatively small tax liens were hammered to draw a parallel to Tim Geithner.  Some old writings at Harvard were pulled out to draw an anti-military picture.  The payment of bonuses at a money-losing firm he ran was also hammered.

While none of these were smears, the NRCC had left a bad taste in the mouth of the upstate NY media after the 2006 NY 24 fiasco, where two misdials were played into making Mike Arcuri a pornmonger. (NY 24 is an adjoining district)  The bill for that stupidity came due. The press therefore depicted Tedisco and the GOP in a bad light.   Murphy also responded that at least he was trying to create jobs in upstate NY. And that was the only issue that mattered.

I think a better line of attack would have been to have painted Murphy as a crony capitalist who profited from political connections in MO, and just interloped for poltical fortune.  But the bigger lesson here I draw---which I saw in 2006 with another Murphy in CT 5---is the traditional GOP tactic of massive negative TV ads early---just isn't working anymore.  At least not against younger candidates who act apolitical---or in white bread districts in the North. The negatives rise for the Republicans as fast as we raise them for the targeted opponent.

Late in the race the Tedisco ran death penalty and terrorism ads which failed, perhaps because we are years past 9/11 and the district isn't in metro NY. Once again, our playbook failed. 

There's something worth chewing over. Once again, our own candidate was forced to disavow what the NRCC was doing ostensibly on his behalf.  This is no longer an isolated occurrence. Maybe you'd best pay attention, ya think?

3. You can never win in the Waffle House

Tedisco and his handlers spent days not answering the question of whether he'd have voted for the Obama stimulus package. The district's leading paper. the Times Union. hammered him mercilessly on it.  In trying to avoid looking too much like a negative partisan Republican the GOP brain trust made Tedisco out as a politically manipulative cipher.

This was disasterous for two reasons. First, Jim Tedisco's "brand" was being the guy who stood up to Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson.  They failed to use their candidate's positive qualities by trying to hide in the Waffle House. The campaign's paid ads, which were vague on specifics, probably made matters worse; since again, his attributes weren't used. The failure of Tedisco, Assembly Minority Leader, to tie Murphy to the increasingly unpopular and incompetent Democrat Governor, David Paterson, was another question out of Unsolved Mysteries .

Tedisco's negatives were that he was a career politician in a dysfunctional and disliked state legislature. This tactic only made Scott Murphy's case for him: that Jim Tedisco was just another self-serving, dissembling Albany hack unworthy of promotion.  So the Tedisco camp trapped themselves and found themselves validating the Murphy negative ad wave when it arrived. Indeed, it almost seemed like Murphy implied Tedisco was tied to Paterson. 

Worst still, Tedisco then finally came out against the stimulus bill. Then he got blasted as a partisan refusenik anyway.  The trifecta achieved. Anger liberals anyway, demobilize conservatives who perceive you as a RINO invertebrate; and make swing voters think you are a ambitious politician lacking candor.

Part of the downside here is Tedisco spent valuable time late in the race motivating national conservative bloggers which might have been spent more usefully doing appearances in the local media.  Your base needs to be locked down early.

4.  Late work and a late voice can't overcome early missteps

 About 10 days out the Siena poll showed the 21 point Tedisco lead had turned into a 4 point Murphy lead, with Tedisco's negative ratings surging. Then manna from heaven occurred. The AIG bonus flap erupted and the Obama stimulus bill and corporate bonuses didn;t look so good.

Tedisco finally found his voice--blasting Geithner and making clear he was the candidate who could effectively deal with Wall Street greed and the economic mess.  He pulled out an endorsement ad from the prominent local businessman Neil Golub. And he campaigned 24/7 up to the election. 

Some libertarian minded folks think Tedisco never should have been perceived as "anti-business" and that he would have won as a free market devotee.  I can't disagree more. We may raise lots of money from the Club for Growth, but they have few members in Saratoga and Rennselaer county. The GOP is now a blue collar rural party and Tedisco finally offered a message that resonated for the voters we needed.  Remember, Gillibrand had voted against TARP and her political instincts in this district were excellent.

On election night, the vote was a dead heat.  The Albany suburbs came in big for Tedisco.  He lost Murphy's home turf in the North Country and NYC expat area Columbia County. But what proved devastating for Tedisco was his failure to achieve any margin in the counties furthest from Albany....traditionally Republican Delaware and Otsego counties. But for the want of some ads and appearances on Binghamton and Utica TV....

Tedisco won the Battle of Saratoga. I did not expect him to lose the Battle of Oneonta.      

5. Losing ugly after the whistle. 

The GOP expected to win the election on AB's; after all it had sent out a lot more than the Democrats. But relatively few military ballots came back; they evidently weren't sent out quickly enough. And not all the Republican AB's voted for Tedisco, while the Democrats seemed to be in lockstep. Perhaps the "Waffle House" strategy backfired since the AB's were cast before Tedisco made his late surge against the stimulus.

The GOP tried to overcome this pre-election deficiency by aggressively challenging returned AB's; including that of Senator Gillibrand. This failed to work and just made the Republicans look like they were trying to rip things off after the polls closed.  Tedisco prudently stood down before matters got worse as he was down 400 with no real hope of making up the difference.

A last word. The NY GOP has tried to win races with ballot challenges, handpicking candidates and throwing third party candidates off the ballot.  (The Libertarian candidate was thrown off the ballot at the 11th hour and endorsed Murphy; this may have net Murphy more votes than having him left on the ballot)  They have not engaged much in the realm of ideas. They used each of these tricks in this race and failed---much as they failed in recent special elections for the State Senate. Will they finally learn from this public debacle? We better.

I do not include the folks who blog here in this critique. Tedisco's fundraising and e-campaigns were very well run and neither Patrick Ruffini nor Tom Lewis ought to be part of the recriminations. The problem is without a message tools are not very useful.  

6. My take

We will only win in 2010 and 2012 if we stand for a positive set of ideas and let our candidates exploit their natural talents.  If we think we can win by incinerating our opponent and mumbling and stumbling through the campaign we will be defeated yet again. 

Democrats have regrettably been winning the narrative battle about the broader meaning of the current NY-20 tie, arguing that a district that with a significant Republican registration advantage and where Republican Jim Tedisco led by double digits only a few weeks ago should have meant the GOP was a lock for a pickup.

They should be reading Nate Silver on this count. He reminds us that NY-20 is a district Obama won by a slim 3 point margin, roughly four points less than his national victory. And it's a place where Republican Sandy Treadwell was not competitive at all against Kristen Gillibrand last November, despite spending $5 million of his own money -- another reason why we called out blind recruitment of self-funders by the Hill committees in the Rebuild plan.

At the end of the day, NY-20 is a Cook PVI R+3 seat -- Silver suggests it's R+2 in the current Congress. With the current Democratic lean in the House, this is essentially a swing seat, and quite possibly the definition of a pure tossup district in the 111th Congress. He posts this chart of how seats between PVI R+1 and R+4 voted in November:

Paradoxically, R+3 seats like NY-20 elected 8 Democrats and 5 Republicans last November. So much for being a Republican lock, especially with the blue undercurrents in the region.

What about the registration advantage? There are a number of regions throughout the country that are ancestrally Republican or Democratic that sport huge one-party registration leads and where the leading party has a lock on all the local offices. Many -- if not most -- areas in the Deep South still have many more Democrats on the rolls than Republicans. The most lopsided Bush/McCain margins in Florida came in the rural north Florida counties with the greatest Democratic registration advantage. On the flip side, Republicans appear much stronger places like upstate New York and rural New England than they actually are because these are traditionally Republican areas that have only recently started voting Democratic for federal offices with a shift driven largely by independents and moderate Republicans.

What these areas of Republican-in-Name-Only and Democrat-in-Name-Only strength all have in common is that they are generally rural areas with little turnover in population. If you're an older voter who has used been used to voting one way for 30 or 40 years, it's easier to rationalize your change in parties as "I didn't leave the party, it left me" rather than change your party registration outright. So there are a lot of Republicans on the rolls who may no longer vote that way. This may not be the case in fast growing metropolitan/exurban areas where political shifts are fueled by demographics and migration (e.g. Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William in Virginia).

As for the polls, Jim Tedisco began the race with vastly more name ID than Scott Murphy, who had the money to be competitive. And when a race gets nationalized with tons of earned media, with two relatively strong candidates running, it's hard to avoid a regression toward the mean, in this case, a close race to match NY-20's tossup status nationally.

Note: I've been doing some work for Tedisco.

Okay, folks. It's Friday. Who do you want to run for Congress?

A few picks I like:

New York 24th: Richard Hanna. Self-described political amateur Hanna nearly beat Democrat Mike Arcuri, losing by only 10,000 votes. He deserves another shot.

New York 29th: Senator Cathy Young. Senator Young would be a top recruit, bringing a ton of political sense, fundraising skill and organization to the race. She would be an excellent contrast to Democrat Eric Massa.

North Dakota At-Large: Drew Wrigley. Wrigley's coming off a successful and popular term as U.S. Attorney. He's well-connected and knows how to run -- he managed Governor John Hoeven's first statewide campaign.

1777 was a dark year for the forces of American freedom. British forces were engaged in an elaborate strategy to capture the largest cities in the Colonies and divide and conquer the American rebels.

It all came to naught along the banks of the Hudson in what was probably the most decisive battle in the history of the Western Hemisphere--the Battle of Saratoga. 

The Battle of Saratoga did not signal the demise of British resistance to American independence; but it ended any hopes the Crown had of a decisive victory on the battlefield to end the war.  

The Republican Party faces a decisive battle on the same battlefield this spring.  Kirsten Gillibrand's ascension to the U.S. Senate opens up her House seat. And the district is centered around---Saratoga.

I've attached the wikipedia article on the district.  The district is a white, suburban/rural district. As the CQ profile indicates , it's heavily weighed towards married couples living in owner -occupied housing; with relatively little poverty or very wealthy voters.  I would note that the district in by no means monolitihic, however, as it reaches from the far edge of the NYC TV market to deep in the Adirondacks.

Let's look at the geography:  Dutchess, Columbia and Greene counties are in the Hudson Valley. This area was Gillibrand's home area, and has shifted left during recent years due to ex-pat NYC residents; it's really too far to commute from these towns to the northern suburbs, let alone Manhattan. Columbia County voted Kerry in 2004 , when Bush ran well in suburban NYC.

Delaware and Otsego counties are part of the Binghamton TV market. They are small and usually dependably Republican.

Warren, Washington and Essex counties are the "North Country". The Glens Falls area is a micropolitan area of a bit less than 100,000 residents with its own radio stations, daily newspaper, and local insitutions.; although the broadcast TV is from Albany. The North Country is reliably Republican, but outside Glens Falls, thinly populated. 

The Albany suburbs are the linchpin of the district. Saratoga and Renssalaer counties are bedroom communitiies for Metro Albany. There is an academic/horse racing influence in Saratoga Springs (Skidmore College); but the larger community here is fast growing Clifton Park, which is soccer mom nirvana.

The presidential race numbers from 2008 were not encouraging, but McCain never competed  in NY. Obama won every county besides Greene and Delaware; but his plurality in the other counties ranged from Columbia's 56% to Washington's 49.5% , In 2004 Bush also did not contest NY State, but won every county in the 20th besides Renssalear and Columbia. 

A more accurate portrayal of partisan balance in this district was probably the 2000 Clinton/Lazio race. Hillary Clinton won statewide by 12 points, and ran very well in upstate NY, yet failed to achieve a plurality in any county within the 20th District besides Rensselaer. (and that is a bit deceptive; the strongest Democratic precincts in Rennselaer are in central Troy; which is and has been in the 21st District; I'm sure Lazio won the 20th District portion). The rest of the district yielded a 52% to 60% Lazio win. 

The NY State Board of Elections shows the GOP has a 71,000 voter registration edge . So the Charlie Cook (R + 3) rating understates the potential GOP vote here; especially as virtually every state legislator representing this part of the state is a Republican.  

We may have a plethora of candidates while the Democrats may need to import one from the adjoining district. This worries me, though.  None of the GOP names (Treadwell, Little, Faso) are from the politically crucial county of Saratoga, where the GOP hasn;t recently matched its 30,000 vote registration edge with election day pluralities; and which will potentially be amenable to an Albany based interloper.  Treadwell particularly strikes me in this failed model.

I would suggest that the NY Republicans look long and hard at a less partisan candidate from the district's political wheelhouse, who has a strong record fighting crime against women.

Whoever we pick,---and we'd better pick a winner-- we simply cannot lose this race. This is the House version of the Chambliss runoff.

We win the 2009 Battle of Saratoga and we are back on the path to victory.

We lose----well, there was another set of battles in this part of NY State a few decades before Saratoga.  

=======UPDATE========

The daily in Glens Falls, the Post-Star,  is reporting that the Republican county chairmen for this district will meet Tuesday.  A weighed voting system will be used to choose a nominee. No word on whether they will choose a candidate at this meeting; under NYS election law there is no primary for special elections, so it's boss rule

Treadwell has reportedly decided not to jump in as per the Post- Star  . The present candidates are State Senator Betty Little; Assembly Minority Leader Jim Tedisco, and former Assembly minority leader and 2006 gubernatorial candidate John Faso.   

Promoted - a Republican insider frets about leadership.

Today's Examiner editorializes about a proposed ruling from the Bush White House's FCC regarding freedom of the airwaves. It's everything we fear the new Obama administration will do. Except it's coming from a Republican.

George W. Bush has not done much to help the Republican Party. His abysmal approval ratings are a big part of why we suffered so badly in congressional districts last Tuesday. Even in solid Republican districts, his approval ratings are in the 20s or 30s and it's been reported that the the right track/wrong track numbers in these districts are in the teens or even single digits. This administration from the beginning has refused to work with Republicans in congress or at the state level. In short, they've been arrogant bullies to their own people.

Now, let's look at the internal politicking taking place with the Republican leadership race for NRCC Chair. I don't have a dog in this fight. It would seem there certainly are areas where Tom Cole can improve. But will Pete Sessions be a better NRCC Chair? Don't know. Fundraising will be extremely difficult this next cycle (fewer members raising few dollars), as will candidate recruitment (who would want to run for congress when it's going to be tough raising money?) - the two big issues Sessions says he will improve if elected NRCC Chair. Fine. Good luck to whoever ends up in that job next year.

What bothers me most about the Chairman's race is that Boehner and the WHITE HOUSE (i.e., Barry Jackson, the guy who replaced Karl Rove last year) are running the campaign to elect Sessions as NRCC Chair.

Boehner, who refuses to accept any responsibility for losing more than 50 - FIFTY - House seats between 2006 to 2008, wants his own guy at the NRCC. So he's making phone calls to Members and putting the heat on them to vote for Sessions. And his partner in all of this is Jackson, who still has the weight of the White House behind him.

How exactly is this party going to move forward if everyone in leadership is hand-picked by Boehner and the Bush White House? How is that progress?

There won't be one single person in leadership who is independent of Boehner. Aside from the NRCC chairman's race, none of the seats is being contested. Boehner cleared the field and selected his own people.

And what will this yield? What should we expect from a leadership team hand picked by the same people who, as noted in today's Examiner piece, think so little of Republicans and our freedoms that they would allow the FCC to regulate the airwaves with community activists (what's to stop ACORN members will sit on the advisory boards)?

I'm at my wit's end.

The GOP needs some new blood and bold ideas. Paul Ryan is the perfect combination of both.

Ryan, 38, is a six-term congressman, former speechwriter for Bill Bennett and Jack Kemp, and was at least at one point rumored to be considered as John McCain’s running mate. More importantly, he’s one of the GOP’s young guns who has been sounding the alarm on how we need to “…take our timeless principles and apply them to today’s problems and be the reform party we used to be.”

"…the energy he would bring to the party and conservatives generally would be immediate. The first impact would be felt in the fund-raising coffers of an NRCC also led by a new face, probably Pete Sessions of Texas. If in two weeks a Ryan-Cantor-Sessions team begins the first of a weekly Thursday briefing on the issues facing Congress…the response from the grass roots would be huge.” - Hugh Hewitt

Draft Paul Ryan for House Minority Leader