This post is a follow up to mine from last night (which unfortunately, I posted too late, and Dkos shut down temporarily shortly after I posted it. Therefore, I'll repost it:
http://www.dailykos.com/... )
In my post from last night, I expressed my frustration of how having too many candidates can be a bad thing in NYS, where the winner of the September 12th primary has a whopping eight weeks to campaign against Sue Kelly. I posted that I feel that the field should be cleared for only Aydelott and Hall.
As I am writing this, two things have influenced/influencing my mind in how we can make up for the crowded field if we cannot change it (and I still wish it would narrow) Watching the YearlyKos panel talk about the SD blogs role in taking out Daschle, plus discussion in the NY-20 thread a few spots below this one have gotten me to believe that WE are the ones who can make a difference right now. While we don't know who our nominee is yet, we can expose Sue Kelly to the public before the dust is settled on our side. I believe that Take19, and our local blogs and PACs should start an ad war against Kelly and expose her to her consitutuents. I know that tv ads cost a pretty penny in the NYC media market, but we can target shows that cater to local news, such as News 12 (we should also ask for bloggers to be invited on for political discussion segments.) We should also run radio ads, especially on local radio stations like WHUD. Taking out full-page newspaper ads in papers like the Journal News and the Poughkeepsie Journal are also good plans.
This strategy would do the following:
1. Fill a avoid that Aydelott, Hall, Shuldiner, Rigger, etc. are not yet able to fill.
2. Get the word out on how Sue Kelly is NOT a grandmotherly moderate figure, but an ally of Tom DeLay and George W. Bush. Talk about how she voted to cut student loans, and how she flip flopped on port security. Talk about how she voted to change the ethics rules for DeLay in 2004, and about how she has taken money from his PAC.
3. Counter the "good news" about Kelly. Right now she is getting puff pieces in the local papers, ranging from how she got funding to rennovate the Delaware-Hudson Canal, to how she is co-sponsering a bill to increase alternative fuel availability (when in fact her enviromental record is less than steller.)These local articles are going unchallenged and we need to counter this with an ad campaign.