GOP: home court advantage and no one on the bench?

PolitickerNY, the blog hosted by the New York Observer, has an interesting think piece up about the Republican Party’s conundrum in the Empire State.

Next year looks like the kind of year when the GOP should pick up seats across New York.

Realistic contests range from the state Senate and Assembly right up through the US Senate and governor’s races.

But with a political mood that’s fiercely anti-incumbent, the Republican bench appears largely empty.

Republicans in New York will have something in 2010 that they’ve lacked for years: a real opportunity to win. What they don’t have are candidates.

The piece focuses on the fact that George Pataki and Rudy Giuliani are still on the sidelines, even as their likely Democratic opponents (Andrew Cuomo, David Paterson, Kirsten Gillibrand) continue do all the right pre-campaign things.

But the post also blasts the GOP for a “c-list” roster of Senate campaigns.

As I’ve written here, there’s a startling lack of heavyweight Republican muscle vying to retake the NY-20, NY-23 and NY-24 seats.

So what’s the problem? I have a theory.

In recent years, the Democrats have centered themselves in upstate New York to the degree that candidates who once would have been moderate Republicans are running as Dems.

Kirsten Gillibrand, Scott Murphy, Mike Arcuri and Bill Owens are all the sort of politicians who would have fit comfortably in the Giuliani-Pataki axis of the GOP.

(Murphy has strong ties to Republican state Senator Betty Little and hired GOP staffers; Owens worked for years with GOP titan Ron Stafford; and Gillibrand has strong ties to former Senator Alfonse D’Amato and to former Pataki aides.)

Even state Senator Darrel Aubertine is in that purple zone where the two parties overlap.

With the Republican Party increasingly defined by Limbaugh, Beck and southern conservatives, the best centrist talent is tipping into the Democratic team.

Meanwhile, strong North Country Republicans have been passed over (Sen. Little), thrown to the wolves (Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava), or threatened with conservative primary challenges (Assemblywoman Janet Duprey and Teresa Sayward).

Not exactly a winning formula for building a farm team.

In politics, recruiting is at least half the battle. The climate can be downright wonderful, but if you don’t have strong candidates…

So what’s your theory? Is there a pool out there for Republican talent that I’m missing?