Campaign Diaries

From the early days of the NY-20 special election, the stimulus bill became a focal point of the campaign and Republican nominee Jim Tedisco’s drop in the polls can partially be attributed to his reluctance to take a position on the bill. Over the past week, however, Republicans have tried to turn the table and make the contest into a testing ground of their latest national strategy: Blame all Democrats who supported the stimulus for causing the mess over the AIG bonuses.

The GOP’s argument is that previously contracted bonuses were exempted from the pay restrictions of the stimulus bill’s final version. (I’ve explained how Chris Dodd’s retroactivity provision was taken out at Treasury’s urging.) Thus, say Republicans, Democrats own the AIG mess since only they voted for the stimulus. Tedisco, who was not so long ago worried that his opposition to the stimulus would cost him votes in a district that voted for Barack Obama, is thus hoping that he can make himself look good in light of the AIG revelations.

Last week, Tedisco went after Murphy for “endors[ing] this particular piece of legislation which had this language in there to provide bonuses for those individuals who ruined our economy and the question is Scott, did you read this 780 billion dollar bill?” The same point is made in an ad released late last week and entitled “One of them.” “Murphy supports the law giving bonuses to AIG executives,” reads the text on the screen:

Needless to say, this argument makes very little sense. For one, the law did not “give bonuses” to any executive, nor did it “provide bonuses” to any individual. What congressional Democrats ended up supporting was a provision that established pay restrictions but did not make them retroactive. House Republicans voted against the stimulus, so does that mean they oppose the provision that was put in the bill, that they oppose bonus restrictions on future contracts, that they oppose any attempt to cap bonuses?

Politically, however, this line of attack could resonate because it ties in to Murphy’s main weakness: His profile as an executive with extensive ties to Wall Street and who has participated in some business practices that are being denounced today. The ad above makes the point that Murphy’s company delivered bonuses as well, a charge taken up in Tedisco’s newest ad, released this week:

Apart from these economic-centered attacks, the GOP is attempting to drum up outrage over Murphy’s statement last week that he opposed the death penalty, including for terrorists. Most journalists are somewhat lazily reporting that Murphy fell in a trap, but I doubt that this will have much resonance with voters. Given the country’s economic condition, non-issues like the death penalty (particularly a federal congressman’s position on it) will not have much of a role in voters’ decision-making - not to mention that the state that has not applied capital punishment since 1963.

(The last time we checked in NY-20, Tedisco had just pledged to hold himself to positive campaigning and was openly suggesting that the NRCC’s attack ads on his opponent had backfired, clouded voters’ perception of Tedisco and allowed Democrat Scott Murphy to rise in the polls. As you can see, Tedisco’s commitment to positive campaigning did not last very long. Frankly, I am confused as to why he would make such a show of announcing that he will abandon attack ads if he is not going to stay true to his word more than a few days; he is certainly getting criticized in the local press for the content of his advertising.)

While Republicans are busy attacking Murphy’s ties to disgraced businessmen and his support for the stimulus bill, Democrats are attacking… Tedisco’s ties to disgraced businessmen and his opposition to the stimulus bill! Which certainly makes for an interesting symmetry.

A recent statement by the Democrat’s campaign tied in Limbaugh with the stimulus: “While Career Albany politician Jim Tedisco has apologized to Rush Limbaugh who openly called for our President to fail, he has refused to apologize to voters for saying ‘No’ to saving or creating 76,000 jobs Upstate, and ‘No’ to the largest middle class tax cut in history.”

And last week, Democrats unveiled a particularly hard-hitting ad accusing Tedisco of intervening in favor of a convicted felon. “Tedisco did help a wealthy mortgage executive convicted of millions in fraud — asking the judge to go easy on him,” the ad says. “Then the convicted felon’s company became one of Tedisco’s top campaign contributors.” (Note that Murphy never pledged to hold himself to positive ads.)

In other news related to NY-20: There is a small chance that a judge might order the election to be postponed because of concern that military personnel do not have enough time to return their ballots; the more likely outcome would be for the election to remain on March 31st but for overseas voters to have a longer time to return absentee ballots.