Voters Starting To Get Sick Of Tedisco...And His Ads

Despite the short period of time for the NY-20 special election, a well known somewhat-local politician has gone from being the strong favorite to the race being a toss-up. Jim Tedisco wanted to break free from his Minority Leader status in Albany and join the dwindling ranks of the minority party down in Congress but now things aren't looking so good for him. With less than two months to campaign Tedisco should have wrapped up the race easily, especially against a challenger who started out with zero name recognition. Then the non-answer answer to the stimulus bill happened and it all went south from there.

Oh and those ads he's running aren't helping either:

ALBANY—Way down in the data in today's poll on the 20th Congressional race is an indication that Republican candidate Jim Tedisco's advertising is actually hurting him.

Of those people who had seen ads "on behalf" of Tedisco, the survey finds, 28 percent were less likely to vote for him as a result, compared to 12 who became more likely. For Murphy, 28 percent became more likely as opposed to 20 percent who were less likely. (For both candidates, the majority of those surveyed said the ads had no effect.)[...]

I asked one elected Republican from the district why this was the case. The person noted that Tedisco has always been a better foil than a person out front.

"It was over when he went negative," the elected Republican said. "When you get negative, it shows you've got nothing left."

What that anonymous elected Republican left out was that there was nothing there for Tedisco to start with. He's just another ethically-challenged Albany politician that enjoys the perks of office without offering anything of substance to the people that elect him. Perhaps that's why when it comes to replacing Kristen Gillibrand, the 20th District is beginning to realize that Scott Murphy is the one who will represent them, as opposed to Tedisco who would merely represent himself.