NY-20: The Last Days Of Tedisco

I don't know much about Scott Murphy, the Democratic candidate in NY-20, other than that he said he'd join the Blue Dogs and that's enough for me to know that I won't endorse him or give him a dime. We have enough Democrats in the House, and the major problem over there is the power and influence of that corporate whore caucus, so I have little interest in seeing it grow.

At the same time, I understand that Republicans failing to pick up a seat in a heavily Republican district would be kind of an embarrassment and may signal the end of Michael Steele's tenuous hold on the RNC. So it's with a sense of bemusement that I see Jim Tedisco, the Republican candidate, freaking out because he's sinking in the polls (by the way, James L. wins the award for title of the year for "Panic! At Tedisco")

Reacting to his Democratic opponent's surge in the polls, Tedisco said Thursday he's taking control of the content of his advertising from the National Republican Congressional Committee.
"I'm taking over and we're going to run a campaign that relates to the people of the 20th Congressional District," he said.

The first depiction of "the real Jim" will air in a new television commercial set to debut this evening, he said. [...]

Tedisco blamed his drop in the poll on an advertising strategy that has focussed heavily on attacking his Democratic opponent.

Tedisco said going forward the content of his ads will be more positive with him making the decisions instead of the national party.

Even more amusingly, the NRCC, the Republican campaign arm in the House, will run their ads anyway despite Tedisco's demands for them to stop. Hilarious.

The rub here is that the NRCC ads may be hurting Tedisco. A recent Siena College poll found that Tedisco commercials made 12% more likely to back him, and 28% less likely.

While it’s unclear whether the ads that are backfiring are the Tedesco campaign’s or the NRCC’s, it’s very possible that the national GOP’s spots are doing the damage, Siena pollster Steven Greenberg tells me. “It is certainly plausible that the NRCC commercials are the ones that are turning off voters,” Greenberg says.

This was Kirsten Gillibrand's seat that she vacated to go to the Senate, and now she has an ad up for Murphy. By contrast, there's this free-for-all on the right.

I really don't care who wins, but it has a certain train-wreck quality to it.