At this point, I think that NYS is safe in some areas. Hillary's opponent(s) are split along the Republican and Conservative Party lines. John Spencer, the more right-wing of the two, has recently received the Conservative Party's endorsement at their convention. KT McFarland, the little-known former Reagan advisor who thinks that Hillary is spying on her: (
http://www.newsday.com/...) may have to battle Spencer in the primary, especially if she gets the Republican nomination. Meanwhile, former Massachusetts Governor, William Weld, may face a primary against former State Assemblyman, John Faso, who himself received the Conservative nod.
What could go wrong in 2006 for New York Democrats? Several things that you might not yet imagine.
One serious problem is that the party's anticipated takeover of the NYS Senate may not happen. If anything, it is possible that we may LOSE a seat:
http://www.nytimes.com/...
Among the party's problems include funding and a lack of unity, especially in that some labor unions are backing moderate Republicans. Another problem is that Senate Minority leader and Lieutenant Governor candidate David A. Paterson, might be having trouble multi-tasking, in being both Spitzer's runningmate and Senate Democratic Leader. The Senate seat that might very well be vulnerable is held by David J. Valesky, a Syracuse-area Democrat who only narrowly won his first election bid two years ago because of a Conservative Party challenger who pealed off 11% of the popular vote from the Republican Candidate.
In addition, here's another race that you might think would be safe, and while it looks that way, our potential nominee is just weak enough to hand it over to a certain former Westchester County D.A. who couldn't find page 10 of her Senate entrance speech.
Since Jeanine Pirro dropped out of the Senate bid in December, she has since switched her campaign to one going after State Attorney General. While she is a utter dud in Senate elections, since law is more of her specialty, she will be better quipped for this race. In fact, she has received the Conservative Party endorsement, something that she would not have received were she still running in her Senatorial race.
Now, while ordinarily, Pirro would be considered a weak candidate (and not to mention a corrupt one at that, due to the problems of both her and her husband) her two likely Democratic opponents are not so strong in their own right. Andrew Cuomo, the son of the former Governor who unsucessfully ran for Governor in 2002, is the "strongest" of those running in the primary. Former NYC Public Advocate (and unsucessful loser to Bloomberg in the 2001 Mayoral Election, a result not just due to 9/11, but due to his nasty primarty with Fernando Ferrer) Mark Green is the second "strongest" candidate based on polling. I should also note that he ran against former Senator Al D'Amato in 1986 and lost. Cuomo is currently beating Green 37% to 23% in a poll for the Democratic primary. Unfortunately, two of the better candidates in the field, Denise O'Donnell (former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York under Clinton), and Sean Maloney (a former West Wing advisor to Clinton) are not doing as well in the polls, partly because they lack the name recognition, and because they don't have a much money. Nevertheless, if O'Donnell or Maloney are the nominee, then the AG race will be much less competitive, and we won't have to face the horrid prospect of Jeanine ("my husband served time in jail for tax evasion and has ties to the mafia, while I was aware of some of the fraud" Pirro as Attorney General.
...Also, I don't think that this will make much of a difference for the Republicans in the Gubernatorial election, but Republican (and Conservative candidate) Faso has selected Rockland County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef as his runningmate. I'm not sure how much effect this will have on the overall ticket, but having a moderate suburban Liuetenant Governor candidate can't hurt for Faso statewide.
http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20060524/4047986.asp
(NOTE: I intended to make a separate paragraph beginning with Maloney's site, but the software that enables us to post won't let me do that!)
http://www.seanmaloney.com
http://www.odonnell2006.com
http://www.nyssenate49.com/ (Valesky's page)
If any Kossacks want to help out, go to the links above: