I’ve heard of close races:

The state board’s Web site posted the latest unofficial results Friday afternoon, showing Tedisco and Democrat Scott Murphy with 77,225 votes each — a political anomaly about as rare as a two-headed calf. Unofficial results election night gave Murphy about a 60-vote lead.

Friday’s tally almost certainly won’t stand because of the ongoing recanvass of the machines used on Election Day. While many smaller counties had completed the task, larger ones such as Saratoga County were still midway through the process…

Tedisco’s next job — rank-and-file assemblyman or rank-and-file member of Congress — will almost certainly be determined by the more than 10,000 absentee ballots sent out by county elections boards. The last of the returned ballots, including votes from military and overseas denizens of the 20th District, can arrive no later than April 13 to be counted.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Next Tuesday, March 31, voters in New York’s 20th Congressional District will choose who will represent them in the House. Will they elect a newcomer out of touch with the the threats America faces?

If you live in New York’s 20th Congressional District, make sure to get to the polls next Tuesday.

I wrote yesterday about the most recent New York poll showing both Governor Paterson and Senator Gillibrand in trouble in their 2010 re-election bids. The Politico notes that these races are just one part of a what seems to be a hopeful GOP resurgence in the region:

In Connecticut, there is an unexpected opportunity to unseat veteran Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) in 2010. In New Jersey, incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine (D) trails his Republican challenger in the polls. Several House races seem promising in neighboring New York, where Democratic Gov. David Paterson’s bungling of a recent Senate appointment has jeopardized both his seat and the one now held by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.)…

The economic crisis is also fueling opposition to Dodd, a five-term senator whose personal financial dealings and role as Senate Banking Committee chairman have been closely scrutinized and under attack. His recent admission concerning the insertion of a provision into the stimulus legislation — the one that effectively allowed American International Group employees to receive millions in bonuses — threatens to derail his bid for a sixth term in 2010.

Former Rep. Rob Simmons (R-Conn.), who entered the race last week, immediately blasted Dodd for “failing in his oversight duties” as chairman. And he accused Democrats of backing legislation that would stifle economic growth — sounding off on the major theme of his campaign…

After seeing the party’s 2006 gubernatorial nominee get thrashed by Spitzer, Republicans are optimistic about their chances in 2010 — especially if former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has said he is considering a gubernatorial campaign, jumps in. Polls have shown him leading the embattled Democratic governor.

Elsewhere in New York, several promising GOP recruits have emerged in upstate House races where Republicans have traditionally run well. Businessman Richard Hanna, who came within 4 points of defeating Rep. Michael Arcuri (D-N.Y.) last year, is seriously considering a rematch. And 31-year-old Assemblyman Greg Ball, a Republican who has attracted notice for bucking his party’s Albany establishment, is poised to present a tough challenge to Rep. John Hall (D-N.Y.).

These aren’t the only races in the Northeast where Republicans can be competitive next year. Apart from the 3 New York races, there are several prominent GOPers looking at a race against Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH). There will be strong Republican candidates in several races in Pennsylvania, and I am hearing talk of promising candidates against other New York Democrats. According to Charlie Cook, there are 10 House seats in New England, New York, and Pennsylvania whose partisan performance is such that Republicans could run competitive races. By way of comparison, Republicans currently hold 10 seats in the entire region. I don’t expect to win all of them, but we ought to run competitive candidates in all of them. And if we win half, we will have expanded our representation in the region by 50 percent.

All this begins of course, with a win in New York’s 20th Congressional district a week from today. You can do your part to get the ball rolling by donating to Tedisco today:

Kirsten Gillibrand broke the traditional GOP hold on New York’s 20th Congressional district by making a name for herself as a conservative Democrat. When local Democrats nominated Scott Murphy in the race to succeed her, they said they did so because Murphy was cut from the same cloth. But Scott Murphy clearly hasn’t learned anything from the shared experience of New Yorkers about the war on terror:

Murphy opposes the death penalty for terrorists because it’s too expensive to execute them. He apparently also wants to make sure that when people like the 9-11 hijackers are captured, they get a fair trial where we are certain of their guilt before we lock them away.

These are not the views of a conservative Democrat, or of a Democrat who has learned the lessons of 9-11. Murphy’s views sound more like an old-line liberal in the mold of Mario Cuomo: legalistic and out-of-touch with reality. It’s surprising that someone who worked on Wall Street for years would demonstrate such a lack of sensitivity to the concerns of New Yorkers about terrorism. But perhaps he was still living in Missouri when New York was attacked; his bio has changed several times, so it’s hard to tell.

This surprising candor is so noteworthy that I almost want to let it stand alone, but I also need to mention that Murphy thinks the Obama-Reid-Pelosi debt spending was so gosh-darned wonderful that he would have supported it even knowing that it had a loophole for AIG bonuses in it.

That’s right: Murphy opposes the death penalty for terrorists because it’s too expensive, but he supports a $1.1 trillion debt spending bill… even one with an AIG carveout:

Not to beat a dead horse, but it might be because Murphy is not just a Mario Cuomo Democrat; he’s a Tim Geithner Democrat as well:

Donate to Jim Tedisco today:

<a href=”http://www.jimtedisco.com/donate/”>contribute:

This is the latest polling in the race to succeed Kirsten Gillibrand:

The first independent poll in the special House election to replace now-Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) shows that Republicans have a strong chance of taking back Gillibrand’s upstate seat.

Read More →

Update: you can watch Assemblyman Tedisco’s announcement video here.

In the race to replace now-Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, the Democrats have nominated a wealthy newcomer to the region. But he won’t admit he’s a newcomer. Instead, he stresses having lived in New York since ‘the early ’90s,’ when the truth is that he was living in Missouri as recently as the year 2000. Truth be told, New Yorkers have shown a penchant for electing carpetbaggers - so his residence is probably not a big deal, in and of itself. But a Congressional candidate ought to at least be honest about it.

Read More →

In 1992 the Republican party lost control of the White House, the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. Political commentators asked whether the party was likely to matter in the near future, or be consigned to long-term irrelevance. Yet the inexperienced new president put too much trust in Congressional liberals to set his agenda, failed to properly vet high-level nominees, and embarked on a pointless and wasteful ’stimulus’ package whose early troubles presaged major difficulties ahead. Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, and their rise to power was signaled early with victories in a special Congressional election in Kentucky, followed later by victories in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races.

And while history may not repeat itself, there are often echoes. Help set off an echo now, by contributing $20 to the candidacy of Jim Tedisco in New York’s 20th Congressional District. If you want to know more about Tedisco, check out the video below. And note that he has recently received the endorsement of New York’s Conservative Party, in addition to the Republican Party. Tedisco previously received the Conservative endorsement during his tenure in the New York State Assembly as well.

You can read Tedisco’s bio here, or contribute here.

I wrote yesterday about Scott Murphy — the Democrat candidate for Kirsten Gillibrand’s old House seat. I pointed out that he was trying to send part of his resume down the memory hole — suddenly erasing from his biography his role in starting an Indian rival to Ebay. I pointed out that he’d also had problems paying his taxes in the past. But now I see that his firm — Small World Software — still has outstanding liens against it with the New York State Department of Taxation.

Read More →

According to several news outlets, Democrats in New York’s 20th Congressional District may today choose their nominee for the upcoming Congressional race to fill the seat of Kirsten Gillibrand. And it looks like they may come up with a well-heeled candidate who can fund his own race. Scott Murphy is a managing director of Advantage Capital Partners, a venture capital firm that has more than $1 billion under management. Although he doesn’t appear to have disclosed his net worth, he’s probably earned enough to pay for the race himself (which may be why he hasn’t disclosed it yet). Further, as a venture capitalist, he’s probably benefitted from the low tax rate for carried interest that so vexes Charlie Rangel and many of his Democratic colleagues. If he gets the nomination, it should make for some interesting policy discussions on the campaign trail.

Read More →