An interesting situation just might be going on in New York’s 23rd District, which will have a special election some time this year after GOP Rep. John McHugh is presumably confirmed by the Senate to be President Obama’s Secretary of the Army: The Republicans actually have their act together, while Democrats are still sorting things out.
State Sen. Darrel Aubertine, who had been a favorite of national Democrats, announced that he would not make the race. “My commitment is to the people of the 48th Senate District and has been all along,” Aubertine said in his statement. Keep in mind that if Aubertine had won, the state Senate could have been flung right back into the chaotic situation we saw over the past several weeks, due to the fact that Democrats have only a two-seat margin and the Republicans would have had a plausible shot of winning a special election for his seat.
Republicans, meanwhile, already have a candidate who seems like a good fit for a Democratic-leaning district: State Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, a social liberal who is not only pro-choice, but has voted in favor of gay marriage. It’s not often you see Republicans who favor that in any context, much less a high-profile race.
At the same time as he made his announcement, Aubertine got in a hit at national Republicans, saying they’d wasted their money by launching a TV ad campaign against him in a race he ended up not going for, anyway: “It’s no small wonder why the Washington Republicans are going extinct, and contributors should question why the money they’ve given was squandered here for no good reason at all.”
A GOP operative begged to differ: “For someone who claims the NRCC wasted its money, he sure has spent a lot of time responding to the attacks. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that Republicans achieved the objective.”
Some other names are now being thrown around: Former upstate Democratic conference chairman Stuart Brody, attorney Brian McGrath, former federal prosecutor Dan French, Assemblywoman Addie Russell, and others. It looks it’ll take a while to sort this through. But as the state Dem chairwoman pointed out, Republicans also had their candidate first in the NY-20 race, which Democrat Scott Murphy ultimately won by a narrow margin, and it’s still a long way off until the election itself — the seat isn’t even actually vacant yet.
A Democratic source disputed the idea that Republicans are on top of things here, pointing to objections to Scozzafava’s social liberalism from the New York Conservative Party. “They clearly have a major problem with the base” the source said.
Under New York’s fusion voting system, minor parties can cross-endorse candidates and thus exist alongside the big two. For example, the Independence Party endorsed Democrat Scott Murphy in the recent NY-20 special election, but are going for the Republican Scozzafava now. But if the GOP loses the Conservatives’ ballot line, this could potentially lead to a Republican losing votes to a right-wing spoiler candidate.
It’s too early to really make solid predictions about this race. For now, the Republicans certainly are further along in their efforts, but we’ll see what happens when the Dems find somebody, and when the campaign itself really gets going.
