{"id":2598,"date":"2010-09-07T12:06:03","date_gmt":"2010-09-07T16:06:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=2598"},"modified":"2010-09-08T10:09:25","modified_gmt":"2010-09-08T14:09:25","slug":"politico-gops-path-out-of-political-wilderness-leads-through-north-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/09\/07\/politico-gops-path-out-of-political-wilderness-leads-through-north-country\/","title":{"rendered":"Politico: GOP’s path out of political wilderness leads through North Country"},"content":{"rendered":"

Politico has laid out its most-likely-scenario<\/a> for how Republicans could re-take control of the House of Representatives in November.<\/p>\n

Two out of the 25 likely “majority maker” races in the U.S. are right here in the North Country:<\/p>\n

The NY-23 seat now held by Rep. Bill Owens (D-Plattsburgh) and the NY-24 seat currently held by Mike Arcuri (D-Utica).<\/p>\n

(Arcuri’s district includes Herkimer County and a slice of the North Country around Old Forge.)<\/p>\n

Here’s how Politico describes it:<\/p>\n

“If the GOP is winning most of these races on election night, a Republican majority will be close at hand. If not, Democrats still have a chance of waking up Nov. 3 with a slim margin in the House.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Politico is spot on that both of these races will be competitive.<\/p>\n

But Owens is currently benefiting hugely from a brutal primary battle between Republican Matt Doheny and Conservative-Republican Doug Hoffman.<\/p>\n

With the primary still a week away, the GOP will have to pivot with near-perfect timing to have a real shot at the Democrat.<\/p>\n

Arcuri faces a tougher fight against businessman Richard Hanna.\u00a0 But Arcuri is a battle-seasoned incumbent, so that race won’t be a cherry-pick either.<\/p>\n

One interesting — and even questionable — wrinkle in this assessment is that Politico thinks that Bill Owens is more vulnerable than Scott Murphy, the Democrat in NY-20 who won a special election for Kirsten Gillibrand’s old seat.<\/p>\n

According to the on-line magazine, Republican challenger Chris Gibson will need the momentum of a national GOP “landslide” to push him over the top in that race.<\/p>\n

It’s true that Murphy holds a sizable fundraising advantage and has been a capable campaigner, but Gibson is an articulate former Army colonel and also has plenty of cash on hand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Politico has laid out its most-likely-scenario for how Republicans could re-take control of the House […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[886],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2598"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2598"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2601,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2598\/revisions\/2601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}