Scott Murphy is running as the Democratic candidate to replace Kirsten Gillibrand in New York's 20th district. Tonight he held a fundraiser in Millbrook, NY, which I just returned from. I'd thought I'd share some notes from the event.
The fundraiser was hosted by Congressman John Hall. There was a full house, with a diverse set of attendees from the area coming to throw their support behind Scott. This was the first time I'd met Scott in person, and I found him to be an impressive speaker.
He gave a short spiel describing his background: son of a postal worker and a school teacher, he's the product of public education who ultimately graduated from Harvard. His first job out of college was working for the Clinton campaign in New Hampshire, until his mother became ill and he had to return home to Missouri. There, he got involved in local politics for a while, before getting a job on Wall Street. He worked there for a few years, then decided to become an entrepreneur -- first with his own small business, then investing start up capital for others.
In chatting with his wife I learned that on the morning that they saw in the newspaper that Gillibrand was being tapped to replace Senator Clinton, she said to Scott, "you should run." And that's how it started.
He spoke about three main areas: jobs, education, and health care. The jobs discussion centered around bringing his business experience to the table in Washington; for education he wants to insure others have the same chances he's had. In talking about health care, he got personal. He suffered a collapsed lung as a kid and spent 4-5 days in the hospital recovering. He noted that his parents had health insurance and so did not have to worry about how to pay for his expenses, but 47 million people in the country today are not so fortunate. You could tell he'd given this little stump speech before, but nonetheless he did it well and seemed authentic.
Some big news for the campaign is that the DCCC just recently went "all in" with $750,000 for TV ads and direct mail. I had a chance to speak with one of his finance guys, who was bubbling about how Murphy's (disastrous) Republican opponent, Jim Tedisco, has 80% name recognition in the district but is polling at 42% support, while Murphy's name recognition is 30-40% and he's polling only about 7% behind that. Bad news for Tedisco, and no where to go but up for Murphy. Tedisco's team apparently is feeling the heat, since their TV advertising is currently 100% negative. It's also entirely funded by the RNC and RDCC.
While this district has a reputation as being Republican leaning (and it certainly has been for many years), Scott noted that it has been piling up a lot of Democratic wins recently. Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and of course Kirsten Gillibrand have won this district in recent years, despite a Republican advantage in registration. It's very winnable.
Of course, the challenge for Murphy is getting his name recognition up with only 3 weeks to go until election day. The infusion from the DCCC will go along way to help with that, and also shows they feel this is a very winnable race. He also needs a lot of ground support for get out the vote activities, which of course are crucial for a special election. Sounds like he's off and running in that arena as well, with eight campaign offices open so far. But more dollars for ads are needed as well.
I also learned that Murphy recently visited the White House, and met with people from the Obama team. They apparently are very interested in helping in various ways, including activating their supporters in the district and some other things.
It was a good event. For those of us in the 20th who shudder at the thought of going back to the bad old days of Republican representation in Congress, Scott Murphy is a strong candidate we can hang our hat on. Scott Murphy for Congress.