State Political Profile: New York
Governor
After 12 years of Republican control, the New York governor's job is up for grabs and one of the nation's Democratic stars is leading the pack. Republican incumbent George Pataki announced in July 2005 that he would not seek re-election to a fourth, four-year term. Pataki is considering a 2008 presidential run.
In the race to replace Pataki, state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, called the "Sheriff of Wall Street" by international business magazines for his reform of the securities industries, holds wide leads in early polls of possible opponents.
Spitzer, the two-term attorney general, faces a Sept. 12 Democratic primary against Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi. Suozzi, running as an outsider critic of state government, trails badly in the polls and in fundraising. Waiting on the Republican side is former state Assembly Minority Leader John Faso, who narrowly lost a race for state comptroller in 2002. Faso became the GOP standard-bearer after former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld gave up his quest for the Republican nomination in his native New York following a disappointing showing at the state party convention in early June.
Billionaire B. Thomas Golisano, the Forbes 400 member and savior-owner of the NHL's Buffalo Sabres who ran three times for governor on the Independence Party ticket, isn't running this time around. Spitzer got the third-party endorsement.
Pataki had given the GOP the governor's office after 12 years of Democratic rule by Mario Cuomo, in the state where Democrats still outnumber Republicans 5:3.
U.S. Senate
The two dominant themes early in New York's race for the U.S. Senate are a state Republican Party still unable to agree on anything and the "will she or won't she" questions swirling around New York's junior senator, Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Clinton is seeking a second term this year that many say could be a prelude to a run for the White House in 2008. Top New York Republicans, including Gov. George Pataki, had hoped the former first lady would be challenged by Jeanine Pirro, a high-profile former district attorney from Westchester County who, like Clinton, is an abortion rights supporter. But Pirro pulled the plug on her stumbling, four-month-old campaign in December. She had been unable to raise money or interest. That left the GOP with former Yonkers Mayor John Spencer, little known statewide, as the apparent Clinton challenger. But, in March, Kathleen Troia "KT" McFarland, a political novice and Reagan-era Pentagon official, entered the race for the GOP nomination. Spencer and McFarland are scheduled to face each other in a Sept. 12 GOP primary. Polls show the race for the nomination about even with a large chunk of undecided voters.
McFarland has faced reports that she padded her resume and has been in a battle with her parents and a brother over her charges that she and her siblings were abused by their father when they were children.
Spencer has had trouble raising the vast sums of money that Rudolph Giuliani and then Rick Lazio did when Clinton first ran in 2000. He also has come under attack from McFarland strategist Ed Rollins for having children with his mayoral chief of staff (now his wife) while still married to his first wife.
Independent polls showed the well-funded Clinton far ahead of her potential challengers. As of the end of June, she had $22 million on hand; Spencer had $646,000 and McFarland had $282,000. National polls have Clinton as the front-runner for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, although she consistently says she is focused only on winning re-election in 2006. Clinton does face a Sept. 12 primary challenge from anti-Iraq war activist Jonathan Tasini, a former president of the National Writers Union.
U.S. House
In the House of Representatives, where New York Democrats outnumber Republicans 20-9, at least five districts are up for grabs, including some first-termers, a powerful veteran and an incumbent who hopes to pass the seat on to his son.
Retiring after 11 terms in the 11th Congressional District, Rep. Major Owens hopes his son and campaign manager Chris will win the Democratic primary in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. It's an overwhelmingly Democratic area where success in the primary essentially guarantees victory in the general election. Partly in preparation for Owens' retirement, Yvette Clarke and Tracy Boyland ran against Owens in 2004. The younger Owens has a primary this year against Clarke, a city councilwoman; state Sen. Carl Andrews; and David Yassky, a city councilman. The race has attracted extra attention because Yassky is white and the district is predominantly black. Owens, Clarke and Andrews are black. As a result, some black leaders have been openly critical of Yassky's candidacy.
Republican Sherwood Boehlert's decision to not seek re-election to the central New York sent he has held for 24 years has touched off a spirited campaign between Republican state Sen. Ray Meier and Democrat Michael Arcuri, the Oneida County district attorney. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is tapping her vast contributor network to help Arcuri and Vice President Dick Cheney flew into Utica in mid-July headline a fundraiser for Meier. Bush barely won the district in 2000 and but did slightly better in 2004.
One of the rules of congressional elections is that every one-term House member is vulnerable, so by that measure, Republican Rep. John "Randy" Kuhl may have a race in the 29th District. Kuhl won with 51 percent of the vote in 2004 against an under-30 candidate. This time, a one-time aide to retired Gen. Wesley Clark is seeking the Democratic nomination. Eric Massa is a former Navy commander and has garnered notice as national Democrats seek to counter a perceived weakness within the party on national security issues. The district, in the section of upstate New York known as the Southern Tier, running along the northern edge of the Pennsylvania border, is solidly Republican, but Democrats are hopeful a combination of Kuhl's freshman status, concerns about the war in Iraq and the local economy may give them a needed boost.
Democratic Rep. Brian Higgins is another one-termer who may be vulnerable in the Buffalo-area 27th Congressional District. Despite a voter registration advantage of 209,000-125,100, Higgins won by a slim margin in 2004, so close that the final result wasn't made official until weeks after election day. Republican governor George Pataki had sought to lure ex-Buffalo Bills quarterback Jim Kelly to run, but, as in 2004, Kelly declined. Higgins will face Republican Michael McHale, an assistant district attorney, in November.
Rep. Thomas Reynolds, in the 26th District, is a member of GOP leadership and, as leader of the national House campaign effort, is in the business of winning elections. The one potential threat to a fifth term for Reynolds is economic worry, highlighted by the bankruptcy of auto parts maker Delphi Corp., the largest employer in Niagara County. Reynolds is being challenged for a second time by ex-Republican millionaire Jack Davis, who surprised many in 2004 by winning 44 percent of the vote in a district with a Republican registration advantage of 186,000-142,000. Democrat Davis is rabidly anti-free trade.
Republican congressman John Sweeney's relationship with his one-time political patron, Gov. George Pataki, completely soured in 2005, with the congressman complaining that the state GOP had grown weak due to lack of leadership. The 20th District, stretching from the Albany suburbs to the north, voted 2-1 for Sweeney in 2004, but he is being challenged this time by Kirsten Gillibrand, granddaughter of an iconic figure in Albany politics. She is also a lawyer for a politically well-connected law firm and worked as counsel to Andrew Cuomo when he was Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Clinton administration.
Other State Races
The quest to succeed Spitzer in the attorney general's office he reinvented features some top national and New York City Democrats. Andrew Cuomo, the son of former Gov. Cuomo, is in a competitive race for the Democratic nomination. Cuomo, a former federal housing secretary in the Clinton administration, faces Mark Green, the former New York City Public Advocate; former Clinton administration housing official Charlie King; and former Clinton White House aide Sean Patrick Maloney in a Sept. 12 primary.
Pirro, after dropping out of the Senate race, has become the GOP candidate for attorney general. Polls show her trailing both Cuomo and Green.
State Comptroller Alan Hevesi, a Democrat, is seeking a second, four-year term. The Republican challenger is Christopher Callaghan, a former Saratoga County treasurer.
Legislature
While Assembly Democrats have a commanding 104-45 majority in the state Assembly (there is one vacancy), their fellow Democrats in the state Senate don't think this is the year for them to win control of that chamber for the first time since 1965.
In 2004, Senate Democrats took three seats and came within 18 votes of gaining a fourth, cutting the Republican majority to 35-27. This year, Senate Minority Leader David Paterson said his conference wants to pick up another one or two seats. But Paterson, running for lieutenant governor on the Spitzer-led state ticket, admits it's unlikely his party will take the majority this year. Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno says a resurgent GOP will gain seats this fall.
Senate Republicans have about $16 million in their campaign accounts, compared to $2 million for the Democrats
The Senate Republicans are in charge of drawing district lines, just as the Democrats do for the Assembly. The ruling parties also controls millions of state budget dollars used for pet projects in the districts of favored lawmakers.
Democrats are hoping Westchester County Legislator Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the Democrat who fell 18 votes short in her bid to knock off state Sen. Nicholas Spano in 2004, can win this time around.
Meanwhile, Republicans are looking to take back the seat Sen. David Valesky won two years ago from incumbent Republican Nancy Larraine Hoffmann after Conservative-Independence candidate Tom Dadey took 12,000 votes in a race decided by just a few hundred ballots. State Assemblyman Jeff Brown of Syracuse is running for the GOP this time around and won't have Dadey splitting the race.
-- Associated Press
