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Ranchers.net

With New York Republican Rep. Jim Walsh’s retirement announcement last week, Republicans in the state are in danger of extinction in Congress.

Republicans currently hold just six of New York’s 29 House seats and are shut out of the state’s two Senate seats.

Walsh’s decision not to seek an 11th term in the competitive 25th District puts the seat at risk against former House Ways and Means Committee spokesman Dan Maffei, who came within 3,400 votes of unseating him in 2006 and never stopped running after the loss.

Walsh’s Syracuse-based district isn’t the only Republican-held seat in danger of changing hands in November.

In the Southern Tier-based 29th District, Rep. John R. Kuhl (R-N.Y.) faces a competitive rematch against Eric Massa, a retired naval officer who held Kuhl to 51 percent in 2006.

While some Democrats privately speculate that 2006 might have been Massa’s high-water mark, Republicans have been concerned about Kuhl’s lackluster fundraising so far.

New York’s Republican erosion dates back more than a decade, but much of it has come under President Bush’s watch.

The party lost the Long Island-based 1st District in 2002 and the Buffalo-based 27th District in 2004 before hemorrhaging three more seats in the disastrous 2006 election cycle.

In 2006, Democrats picked up the central New York-based 24th District, left vacant by the retirement of veteran Sherwood Boehlert and knocked off GOP Reps. Sue Kelly and John Sweeney.

Since 1996, Republicans have lost a Senate seat and seven House seats in New York — without picking up a single Democratic district in an election.

Walsh, a veteran appropriator who had delivered millions in federal dollars to the district, very nearly became the third New York Republican incumbent to lose in 2006.

Maffei, a first-time candidate, was able to gain considerable traction by focusing on the unpopularity of both President Bush and the Iraq war.

Maffei also sought to tie Walsh to his national party, which proved no asset in upstate New York, where voters prefer a more moderate brand of Republicanism.

Republicans have also received a share of the blame for the economic downturn in upstate New York, which has been hit harder with job losses than has the rest of the state.

“Locally, we have had our own recession here for the last 20 years,” said Maffei spokesman Daniel Krupnick. “Party registration matters here a lot less than in other parts of the country — you’re talking about a lot of Rockefeller Republicans.”


All of this makes Walsh’s district one of the best Democratic pickup opportunities this year — it was one of only eight GOP-held House districts in the nation to vote for John F. Kerry in the 2004 presidential campaign.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee offered Maffei a de facto endorsement last Friday by adding him to the Red to Blue list, which will provide him with fundraising and organizational assistance.

That committee endorsement suggests that other Democratic challengers who are eyeing the race, including Syracuse Mayor Matt Driscoll, will have to overcome a lack of support from Washington if they run.

National Republicans have a long list of prospective candidates but consider Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick, state Sen. John DeFrancisco, former Syracuse Mayor Roy Bernardi and state Assemblyman Robert Oaks to be among their strongest candidates.

Upstate New York’s Democratic trend is not all the eventual GOP nominee will have to contend with. The prospect of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) at the top of her party’s presidential ticket is also cause for concern.

“On the whole, it’s going to be a very difficult year again. If you lose another retirement here and there, how much more can the base take?” said a veteran Hill staffer who works for a New York Republican.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0108/8159.html
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