NY-20 race for Kirsten Gillibrand's House seat has no meaningful symbolism

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by Chad Rubel

The MSM Beltway pundits love putting huge stakes on individual Congressional races. You can already hear the cries: "What will the results of NY-20 prove about feedback to Obama's economic program?"

Probably not a whole lot. NY-20 is the 20th Congressional District in New York, the seat needing to be filled when Kirsten Gillibrand went to the U.S. Senate.

In today's election, the major party candidates are Scott Murphy (D) and Jim Tedisco (R). Libertarian candidate Eric Sundwall was on the ballot, but he was challenged by Republicans and is endorsing Murphy.

Tedisco is experienced while Murphy is the fresh face. As we have found out, Gillibrand is more of a moderate Democrat, so don't expect too much progressive talk in the campaign. Murphy is a Harvard-educated venture capitalist who says he'll join the moderate Blue Dog Democrats if elected.

Gillibrand is definitely taking sides in the race, producing robocalls for Murphy.

Symbolically, both the Democrats and the Republicans will try to paint this race in the best light for them, depending on who wins. The 5th Congressional District race in Illinois isn't likely to be as close, with Mike Quigley (D) the likely new representative. So this might be the Republicans' best chance for a long time.

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