Tedisco: "Rush Limbaugh is meaningless to me."

In an interview with the Oneonta Daily Star newspaper, 20th House district candidate Jim Tedisco (R-Schenectady) said that “Limbaugh is meaningless to me.”

The Associated Press interpreted the statement this way:

The Republican running for New York’s Congressional seat says he’s not worried about pleasing the national party or its high profile booster, radio personality Rush Limbaugh…The comment is intended to illustrate Tedisco’s independence, but comes after recent controversy over Limbaugh’s role as unofficial GOP spokesman.

Tedisco’s campaign hastily issued the following statement:

Jim’s comments were in response to a question about what voters are asking him about on the campaign trail. So far, the concerns he has been hearing from voters on the campaign trail have been local in nature…That was his point and any effort to characterize it otherwise is a distortion of the facts.

Fair enough, but this isn’t the sort of distraction Team Tedisco needed now. Limbaugh has become the third rail of conservative politics.

Tedisco has been losing ground with independent voters and he’s viewed with some suspicion by many core Republicans, especially in the North Country, where he shouldered aside state Senator Betty Little.

Earlier in the week, the conservative National Review warned of “extreme Republican self-suppression” in the district, in part because the “base is not enthused about their candidate…”

And North Country Republican Paul Maroun complained publicly that “Betty Little is the candidate who could have won that seat.”

All of which leaves us wonks crying, “A poll, a poll…my blog for a poll!”