NY-25: The Grand Illusion
Walsh won because he managed to dupe the media — and thus, to some extent, the voters — into thinking (1) he has some kind of clout in Washington (which I don’t think is true) and (2) that he’s some kind of a moderate (definitley not true). Walsh is by far the biggest jerk of the local Congressmen and is also, I suspect, the least effective — while he likely brought home more bacon than Kuhl, that is primarily because of his seniority. As a rubberstamper, he is Kuhl’s equal and unlike Kuhl, he does not have the excuse of being a powerless first-termer.
My believe is that Maffei came on strong at the end. I don’t know how widely the debates were viewed, but those who watch almost surely got a good impression of Maffei and a bad one of Walsh. The advertisements for Maffei were very good, particulalry the hard-hitting stem cell advertisement produced by Marjority Action (view it here), which used just the kind of jugular-cutting rhetoric progressives too often eschew.
In his efforts to portray himself as a moderate, Walsh leans heavily on his days in the Peace Corps and his dubious involvement in the Northern Ireland peace accord. That was all long ago — Walsh is now one of the more conservative members of right-wing members of Congress (his 88% voting record with Bush is higher than that of Kuhl’s). Walsh claims to understand the central New York economy, but ultimately seems to think it is so far gone that the best the district can hope for is government hand-outs, not a government-supported plan for growth.
My prediction: more members of the media and more voters will get wise to Walsh’s ways, and he’ll get voted out of this Democratic-leaning district in 2008 or 2010. Let’s hope it’s Maffei who replaces him.
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