Chris Lee resigns creating an Opening in Ny-26

Lee resigned pretty quickly today once it became apparent he could not lie about the hacking bit.

http://politicalwire.com/archi…

Our shot at this seat was botched when Kryzan somehow got the nomination.  What is our bench like in the area?  Would Powers be a good candidate?

Obviously Lee crushed in 2010, but perhaps we have a shot here ala Foley 2006?

Thoughts?

By what margin will Bob Shamansky win?

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39 thoughts on “Chris Lee resigns creating an Opening in Ny-26”

  1. That seems pretty stupid of him. He probably could have gotten reelected even with this. He didn’t doing anything too bad. Maybe his wife was pissed and he needed to work that out. IDK, but anyway, what is our bench like here? Anybody with better knowledge of upstate NY care to fill me in?

  2. I mean, hard to get someone decent to run with redistricting implications, but I would hope at least some effort is made here.

  3. Something tells me he could have worked through this, and gotten reelected, albeit by a slightly smaller margin, but reelected nonetheless. Still, this is a major shocker. It really came out of left field.

  4. It is a Republican district, but not in the same league as the deep red seats you find in hard core Republican areas. Democrat Jack Davis (a deeply flawed candidate who spent tons of his own money) got 48% for Congress here in 2006, so it isn’t necessarily out of reach for a Democrat.

    I don’t think Powers is a viable option here — he and Jack Davis did a pretty nasty negative number on each other in 2008 – that’s the reason that Kryzan slipped through in the primary, she was the candidate without mud on her. Her campaign suffered from iffy fundraising, the late primary, and the fact that Jon Powers remained on the ballot as the Working Families Party candidate.

    Since then Powers has gotten some bad press about the money he gets from the charity he started, and I think he is generally not viewed as having a promising political career. (Although not being from the area, I could be wrong…)

    The right Democrat could make this a competitive race, but not sure what either party’s bench in the district loooks like.  

  5. whatever happened to the tearful press conference with your wife where you acknowledge having caused pain in your marriage and disappointment to your constituents and then request that your family be given appropriate time to work this out in private?

    Any competent political speechwriter could put that together in five minutes.

  6. I saw this story on Political Wire like an hour ago and go out to get dinner, and come back and the guy resigns! I remember a few years ago on my birthday I was sick and lying in bed when the Elliot Spitzer story broke and was amazed he wasn’t gone by the end of the day – this guy didn’t even wait that long.

    I hope people don’t start jumping to conclusions about “there must be something more to this” – this story made Lee look pretty adolescent and reckless, but I kind of felt a little bad for him (at least until he started covering his tracks by saying his e-mail was hacked into – come on!).

  7. Tekzilla I have to disagree with you here. (Though I love your optimistic about this.) We have no chance. And Democrats shouldn’t even contest the district. Instead Cuomo, Skelos, and Silver should come to an agreement that NY-26 will be the upstate seat that will be vaporized. Which I think will happen.

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