When I first started covering North Country politics in 1999, Democrats were viewed as essentially unelectable.<\/p>\n
There were plenty of office-holders at the local level: town officials in urban areas like Plattsburgh and Glens Falls; a few supervisors in places such as Wilmington.<\/p>\n
But when the big elections rolled around — for Assembly and state Senate seats or for House races — the Dems generally rolled out sacrificial candidates.<\/p>\n
They were sincere, well-meaning and enthusiastic. Sometimes they had good ideas. But with a few rare exceptions they polled only around 35%. <\/p>\n
One of the reasons was clear: These candidates were distinctly progressive, even liberal. <\/p>\n
In a heavily Roman Catholic, definitively rural district, they struggled to connect with voters.<\/p>\n
But beginning with Kirsten Gillibrand in 2006 and continuing with Mike Arcuri, Darrel Aubertine, Scott Murphy and Bill Owens, the Democratic Party has widened its pool.<\/p>\n
The new crop of candidates is drawn from a more conservative class of politician.<\/p>\n
These are corporate attorneys, businessmen, venture capitalists, farmers and district attorneys.<\/p>\n
Their views on social issues range from the moderate to the distinctly conservative. <\/p>\n
Aubertine and Owens (the current Democratic candidate for the seat being vacated by John McHugh) sit to the right of many regional Republicans on the issue of same-sex marriage.<\/p>\n
Gillibrand was a strong proponent of 2nd Amendment gun rights, before her elevation to the US Senate. <\/p>\n
This new breed of North Country Democrat has one big advantage over the more progressive variety: they tend to win. <\/p>\n
All the politicians named above (with the exception of Owens) beat their Republican opponents in close races. <\/p>\n
But they also represent an interesting new problem for the Democratic Party in New York and Washington.<\/p>\n
As Dems capture seats in more conservative parts of the country, the party as a whole is being pulled inch-by-inch to the right. <\/p>\n
(This trend is most visible in the US Senate, where red-state Democrats are dominating the healthcare debate.)<\/p>\n
The go-slow approach of this blue-red coalition infuriates Democrats who see their big electoral wins as a mandate for change.<\/p>\n
In the current special election for the 23rd House seat –which has yet to officially begin– Plattsburgh attorney Bill Owens could test the limits of the Democratic Party’s center-right strategy.<\/p>\n
Owens has never registered as a Democrat; and he had longstanding ties to state Senator Ron Stafford, one of the region’s most iconic Republicans.<\/p>\n
In choosing him, Democratic leaders obviously found a candidate with a shot at upsetting GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava.<\/p>\n
But it’s unclear whether voters concerned with labor and social issues will rally to his banner, especially in this contest where the Republican is more “liberal” on same-sex marriage and has strong ties to regional unions.<\/p>\n
Your thoughts?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I first started covering North Country politics in 1999, Democrats were viewed as essentially […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[874],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/989"}],"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=989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/989\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}