You Almost Have To Feel Bad For Jim Tedisco

As you may know, there's a special election campaign going on in the 20th Congressional District in NY. Jim Tedisco is the Republican candidate for the seat. He's running against a Democrat named Scott Murphy. Initially, Tedisco was considered to be the strong favorite for the seat. The Representative who vacated the seat, Kirsten Gillibrand, is a Democrat, but the district is quite conservative, and Tedisco has much greater name recognition in the area than Murphy.

At the moment, polling suggests that Tedisco's once formidable lead has been cut to four percent. His problem, apparently, is his party.

Tedisco seems to be trying to run away from the Republican Party:

GOP Assemblyman Jim Tedisco started the race with a 21-point lead, according to a Republican poll, but he was also far better known than his opponent, and his campaign insists it always expected the race to close within the margin of error.

Tedisco has taken steps over the last two days to separate himself from the national party, saying he will wrest control of his campaign's message from the National Republican Congressional Committee.

...

Tedisco spokesman Joshua Fitzpatrick downplayed the role of the national parties.

"I know that Jim appreciates their assistance and support," Fitzpatrick said. He then added that "this is not about political parties."

Unfortunately for Tedisco - who actually has a sense how people feel in his district - his party is not letting him run away from them.

The National Republican Congressional Committee certainly isn't bailing on Tedisco. The Party of No has a responsibility to remind voters of just how bad Democrats are, whether their candidate wants them to or not:

The NRCC has rebuffed their candidate, saying it won't change anything about the way it's approaching the race.

Momentum is certainly on the Democratic side, but national Republicans believe they can drive up Murphy's negatives enough in the next two weeks to thwart his rise in the polls.

"The NRCC has an obligation to hold Scott Murphy accountable for the past he is trying to hide as a Wall Street executive whose actions represent everything that has gone wrong with our economy," said a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), Paul Lindsay. "We have no plans to shirk our responsibilities."

Even worse, for Tedisco, there are other groups who aren't staying out of the race. The hard core of the right wing, apparently confident in their ability to appeal to New York voters, are trying to help him out:

Strategists for two independent groups that are running controversial anti-Murphy ads in NY-20 say they're doing what conservatives want as the mealy-mouthed national party falters. The two PACs weighing in for Tedisco - the National Republican Trust and Our Country Deserves Better PAC - allow conservative donors to fund red meat attacks from less-experienced political operators.

"We don't talk to the Tedisco campaign," said Scott Wheeler, the executive director of the National Republican Trust PAC. "It's our job to expose Scott Murphy. He is the poster boy for Democrat Party hypocrisy that has, for far too long, been allowed to go unchecked."

"I believe what I say," Wheeler said. "That's why some political insiders describe me as a wingnut."

I don't know about you, and I definitely don't know about Tedisco, but I'm kind of glad he's got friends like these.