Another election, another debacle for New York Republicans. While GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava's abrupt withdrawal Saturday from the Nov. 3 House election in upstate New York came as a surprise, it shouldn't have -- over the past decade or so the New York Republican Party has emerged as the political gang that couldn't shoot straight, an operation so inept that it's sometimes hard to believe it exists in the nation's third-largest state.
The collapse of Scozzafava's campaign--and the quick rise of the national conservative revolt sparked by her nomination--is simply the latest calamity to befall the New York GOP and an illustration of the utter ruin into which the state party has fallen. In just a few short years, the party's presence in state politics has dwindled to the point of extinction-or irrelevance.
Little more than a decade ago, Republicans controlled the governor's mansion, the state Senate, one of two U.S. Senate seats, 13 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and the New York City mayor's office.
Since then, though, the GOP has declined at a steady and accelerating pace. Today, the party has virtually no presence in the congressional delegation-it controls just two of the state's 29 House seats at the moment. It lacks a single statewide elected officer and represents only a minority in both chambers of the state Legislature-the first time since the New Deal that New York has had a Democratic governor and legislature. In 2006, in an open governor's race, the Republican nominee failed to win even 30 percent of the vote.
Last April, Republicans botched another upstate House special election despite starting with a 70,000 Republican voter registration advantage. In that contest, a high-ranking state Republican, Assemblyman Jim Tedisco, cemented the GOP's Keystone Kops reputation by blowing a lead against an unknown businessman with no experience running for office, despite benefiting from heavy national Republican spending that far outpaced Democratic spending.
"I think the state of the New York Republican Party is at its lowest ebb we've seen and I've been watching this since the early '70s," said former Rep. Tom Reynolds, a former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee who also served as the GOP leader in the state Assembly during the 1990s. "When we look at 2010, it's hard to imagine us going any lower than we are."
Making matters worse, Reynolds said, there's little sign Republicans are prepared to start clawing their way back in 2010 with a strong statewide slate. While Republicans are hopeful that former Gov. George Pataki or former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani will run statewide, neither has made serious moves toward launching a campaign and the GOP bench is painfully thin.
"We have six statewide offices and one announced candidate, and that is [former Long Island Congressman] Rick Lazio, who has announced for governor," Reynolds said. "Many believe and want to believe that there's an opportunity. And I think that remains to be seen."