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raycarey

on november 3rd there will be several significant elections taking place....

governor of virgnia
governor of NJ
US rep in upstate NY....district 23.

traditionally, these off year elections are viewed as a indicator of whether or not the public is satisfied with the policies of the occupant of the white house.

conventional wisdom has the republican mcdonnel winning handily in VA, and a toss-up in NJ...with perhaps a slight lead to dem incumbent corzine.

for me (and many others), the most intersting race is NY-23.

located up near the canadian border, this is nothing if not a solidly republican district. in fact, a republican has held the seat since the civil war. but that streak is in considerable jeopardy on the 3rd.

the current republican rep retired (to join the obama administration!), and a woman named scozzafava was chosen to be the republican nominee. however, the teabagging crowd wasn't happy about this and they decided to put up a guy named hoffman as the 'conservative' party nominee.

in recent weeks, many national republican figures have weighed in and put their support behind either hoffman or scozzafava.

most of big name republicans are going against the party and supporting hoffman...
the biggest name scozzafava has is newt gingrich.....and presumably the nominal head of the GOP, michael steele.


this is being viewed by the national media as a test of the teabaggers power. but what's been lost in the shuffle, is that a dem could very well take the seat. a new poll has just been released, and it has a dem named owens five points in the lead.

owens: 35
scozzafav: 30
hoffman: 23

it bears noting that this poll was commisioned by a liberal blog, but it's interesting all the same.

if i had to guess, i think scozzafava will take the seat, but it will be close.


Top Republicans jump ship in NY-23 - Andy Barr - POLITICO.com
Poll: Owens 35, Scozzafava 30, Hoffman 23 - The Scorecard - POLITICO.com