Also at The Albany Project
The nationally significant 20th Congressional District special election between Democratic candidate Scott Murphy and Republican candidate Assembly Minority Leader Jim Tedisco continues to generate a lot of concern about Tedisco's chances at PlanetAlbany, the blog of longtime, though evidently laid off last November, Schenectady Gazette reporter Bob Conner.
Conner spends most of his blog time lately covering, and worrying about, the Tedisco campaign. He is clearly not worried in the same way about the Murphy campaign.
Though he's a conservative Catholic like Tedisco and an obvious supporter, Conner provides another somewhat critical look at the Tedisco campaign in his latest post, "Inside the Tedisco campaign."
Details, below.
Yesterday, Conner attended a Tedisco press event described in the Glens Falls Post Star this way:
Republican and Conservative candidate James Tedisco announced he will launch a volunteer door-to-door campaign effort at 9:45 a.m. Saturday at his campaign headquarters at 1707 Route 9 in Halfmoon.
Of course, Conner does not see the real "inside" of the Tedisco campaign, just the spin of the day, that lots of "people like us" are volunteering for Tedisco.
Conner has evidently not attended any such Murphy events, and is apparently ignorant about a key part of his campaign -- union volunteers who have been canvassing and phone-banking for Murphy for weeks:
A lot of volunteers today at Republican congressional candidate Jim Tedisco's campaign headquarters in Halfmoon, which is a sign they may have a good ground game on Election Day (March 31). They're going to need one. Democratic candidate Scott Murphy's union allies have been doing robocalls and mailers, and might provide some volunteers, too.
Did you get that dog-whistle? Tedisco has a "lot of volunteers," real people like us, while Murphy relies solely on "union allies" who are annoying real people like us with robocalls and mailers and are the Murphy campaign's sole source of potential volunteers.
The fact is that much of Murphy's volunteer base are the same liberal/progressive/active Democrats throughout the district who worked tirelessly to elect Kirsten Gillibrand in 2006.
Conner gets some real "inside" stuff from Tedisco, who "hopes both campaigns will run positive ads from now on, but was unwilling to say the NRCC should pull its negative ones, instead criticizing the McCain-Feingold law which prevents candidates from coordinating with outside groups."
Tedisco did a phony press event Thursday, following the news that his lead in the polls had practically evaporated, saying that he was taking charge of his campaign and it would be all-positive from now on.
But, adding to Thursday's phoniness, Tedisco wants Conner to believe that it's an awful shame that the law prevents him from discussing his new all-positive plan with the people who are paying for most of his TV advertising, both positive and negative.
And Conner evidently swallows that BS sandwich whole.
But he still has real problems with the NRCC's ubiquitous negative ads, and advice on what would make better negative ads:
Maybe the NRCC will stop running ads with its dumbest and most obnoxious theme about how it is supposedly a scandal that Murphy (a venture capitalist) created jobs in India. Their latest attack ad does not mention that, instead returning to the issue of executive bonuses.
But it's still a theme of trying to depict Murphy as a bad guy, when a more promising, because true, approach would be to call him a novice who would owe his election to the Democratic establishment in Washington, and hence would be under pressure to be a reliable vote for their agenda.
Tedisco should be familiar with that theme, because attacking upstate Democrats as tools of the nefarious New York City "Democratic establishment," which represents people who are not like us, is something Assembly Republicans, under Tedisco's leadership, do every election year.
Conner closes with more general advice for Tedisco, though whether Tedisco can change his spots overnight is unlikely.
Tedisco needs to come across as someone with a proven record of accomplishment and sound, independent judgment, willing to support stimulus measures but with legitimate concerns about piling on trillions in debt by permanently expanding government. He has to move beyond combativeness and talking points to convince people he will examine proposals on the merits and support sensible policies to benefit the farms, businesses, local governments and people of the district.
Conner well knows that "combativeness and talking points" are Tedisco's stock-in-trade, and "examin(ing) proposals on the merits and support(ing) sensible policies" are not.
While it is no doubt good advice that Tedisco should try to hide his true personality from the voters, it is really doubtful that Tedisco could convincingly get that Big Lie across in the 16 days remaining until Election Day.
Though Conner is clearly sympathetic to Tedisco, he continues to point out the obvious -- Tedisco, his Assembly staff, and the NRCC "pros" are running a lousy, stupid campaign.
Please do what you can to help Scott Murphy here.