It’s damn tough to be a Republican in New York these days. 
First the party lost a slew of Congressional seats in 2006. Then they surrendered control of the State Senate for the first time in two generations. This past winter they failed to regain the “most Republican” House seat in the state. And now this: President Obama has picked one of New York’s last three Republican Congressmen to be Secretary of the Army.
John McHugh has represented much of the northern third of the state since 1992 but has accepted Obama’s …

The daily dribble of news upstate in the 20th district recount “drama” brings two interesting posts. Nate Silver at 538 does one of his masterful number-crunching jobs to predict that Democrat Scott Murphy will eventually prevail by about 540 votes over Republican Jim Tedisco. What’s really interesting there though is Nate’s take on the Republican’s jaw-dropping challenge of Kirsten Gillibrand’s absentee ballot. He thinks it will make it harder for Tedisco to mount a rematch if Murphy wins. Maybe but Nate may be getting ahead of himself on this one.
You’ll …

There a few things more certain in life than this: Hyper-partisans (left and right) will twist everything and anything to fit their worldview. Today’s case in point comes courtesy of Red State and a contributor who speculates that the Somali pirates who have attacked and apparently captured an American-flagged cargo vessel did so because they know Barack Obama is a wuss.
While the author is correct no U.S. flagged vessel has been successfully attacked by pirates to this point it’s worth noting how few American-flagged vessels there are any more. The …

What happens this coming Tuesday in towns like Claverack and Surprise and Truthville is going to set insider Washington abuzz. That’s when voters in those and a few hundred other towns and villages in the 20th Congressional district of New York decide whether a Republican or Democrat replaces Kirsten Gillibrand as their Congressperson.
Special elections always give Beltway insiders something to talk about outside the proper campaign season and this one is especially rich, coming just 10 weeks (really!) after Barack Obama took office with sky-high public approval ratings. Everybody is …

From the moment she was appointed Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has been discounted. The papers — especially the New York Post but others as well — have consistently called into question her election prospects in 2010. But this morning’s New York Times has a piece that inadvertently makes the case that Gillibrand is on her way to winning in 2010 as the next Chuck Schumer.
The Times notes that many of Hillary Clinton’s inner and not-so-inner circle of advisers, fundraisers, and hangers-on have gone to work for Senator Gillibrand. The paper also …

Another poll — this one from Marist — proves an earlier point we’ve made here. New York’s new Senator, Kirsten Gillibrand is in an enviable position for a newbie.
Marist asked New York voters if they thought she was the right choice — remember this is after voters were led to believe top-shelf names like Caroline Kennedy or maybe Andrew Cuomo would get the nod. Marist says 46% say ‘yes’ to 24% who say ‘no.’ Note that 30% are ‘unsure.’
Next the poll asked about her favorability — 41% like her, 11% …

Oh how quickly the news has moved on from Kirsten Gillibrand the “accidental Senator” to David Paterson the “doomed Governor.” Newspapers across the state from Buffalo to Gotham wrote up Paterson’s big problems this morning after the botched selection process to replace Hillary Clinton.
Now two new polls, one from Quinnipiac and the other from Siena, make several things abundantly clear:
1. Pundits be damned, the public is NOT blaming Paterson for the Caroline Kennedy fiasco (despite Liz Benjamin’s excellent report this morning indicating the public might want to think again).
2. Paterson …

All the huffing and puffing about New York’s newest (almost) Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is as amusing as it is beside the point.
Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy threatens to run against Gillibrand in a Democratic primary because the new Senator has perfect record with the National Rifle Association. Assemblyman Peter Rivera lashed out, “I find no compelling reason for the Governor to select a conservative Democrat to carry on the progressive work of now Secretary of State Clinton.”

And then there is Caroline Kennedy supporter Lawrence O’Donnell who is quoted in Monday’s New Yoker …

While it’s a relief that the month-long drama over who New York Governor David Paterson would pick to fill Hillary Clinton’s US Senate seat, at lease one of his claims at a news conference in Albany Friday was absurd and impossible on it’s face.
In his lengthy explanation of how he arrived at upstate Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand as “the best choice”, Paterson said, “This was not based on gender, on geographic location, on race, religion or sexual orientation. This decision was made on who the best candidate would actually be.”

Not based …