Tuesday, March 31, 2009

NY Special Congressional Election Too Close To Call

With all the ballots counted tonight, Scott Murphy has come out on top by a mere 65 votes out of more than 159,000 cast. However, this thing is far from over as nearly 6,000 absentee ballots have yet to be counted and are under lock and key until at least early next week. So while we'll have to wait to see who the winner is, one thing is for sure, Tedisco blew his overwhelming lead in the beginning and is caught in a dead heat. Now Jimmy realized this thing would be close, so he's already got his legal challenges ready to go.

From FireDogLake:

Republican Jim Tedisco may be running for the House in a district where Republicans outnumber Democratic voters by some 70,000, but with the polls closing in a matter of hours, Tedisco’s campaign is prepping for a loss.

An electoral loss, anyway.

The Dutchess County Clerk’s Office has confirmed to FDL that Tedisco’s people have filed an ex parte motion in order, the effect of which would be to investigate and overturn today’s election results, should the outcome not be to Republicans’ liking.

FDL is trying to obtain a copy of the motion and will post when available. We now have a sloppy copy (PDF), and are poring over it.

Yeah, so even with the choices of several thousand of Tedisco's potential constituents still up in the air, he chose to go the legal route if this thing doesn't go his way. It is almost if he ripped a page right out of Norm Coleman's handbook. Unfortunately for Jimmy, his fellow Republicans in Albany are none too happy about this, and everything that has happened in the campaign to date. They're so pissed that they just might go and strip him of his Minority Leader status.

So if he ends up losing this election (which is quite probable) then he'll have his hat in hand going back to Albany and will become just another ordinary Assembly member in the minority. That means as for power, he'll have absolutely none.