Today a make-or-break test for North Country GOP
In much of the country, today’s vote is a test for President Barack Obama and his allies in Congress. Did their agenda — combined with the grim national economy — provoke a tsunami-sized backlash, or not?
But here in the North Country, the test is far more local: Is the region’s once-mighty Republican Party powerful, coherent and organized enough to capitalize on this kind of political mood?
The awkward truth for the GOP is that NY-20, NY-23 and NY-24, the districts which make up our region, were all once safe Republican territory.
Holding these districts should have been chip-shots.
Now it’s unclear whether, even in a landslide Republican year, the party’s regional leaders can pull off big wins.
The Watertown Daily Times has pointed out that, according to the latest statistics, Democrats have picked up roughly 2,000 new enrolled members in the 23rd district.
Republicans have lost around 200, while the Conservative Party has picked up 200. (Registered independents, according to the newspaper, have grown by around 1,000.)
Those trends, along with the on-going feuds between Matt Doheny and Doug Hoffman (NY-23 House race), and Janet Duprey and David Kimmel (114th Assembly), suggest that the GOP is still struggling to right its ship.
In both cases, party bickering may open the door to big Democratic wins, with Rep. Bill Owens and Democratic Assembly candidate Rudy Johnson hoping to capitalize.
It’s telling that during this year’s election season, the most prominent “party” activist wasn’t a Republican leader, but Plattsburgh tea party organizer Mark Barie — a man who shows open disdain for the GOP’s county chairmen.
In NY-24, meanwhile, Democrat Michael Arcuri appears to have solidified his hold on a seat that Republicans were once confident of retaking.
A late GOP surge might flip that outcome, but it’s remarkable in this climate that businessman Richard Hanna — who came very close to winning two years ago — needs a lucky break to catch up.
The regional party’s best hope may lie in NY-20, where Republican Chris Gibson has run a very smart, centered campaign.
Since 2006, Saratoga County chairman Jasper Nolan has been forced to endure some brutal, narrow losses, watching John Sweeney, Sandy Treadwell and Jim Tedisco tumble on election night by varying margins.
Polls show that tonight, could be, at long last, a return to what used to be normal for the party. But here again, territory that was once safe looks to be far more in-play, even in a year like 2010.
By tomorrow morning we’ll know whether the Republican Party in this region — like the GOP nationally — has turned a big corner, or whether it continues its dangerous slide.
Tags: election10
