For those who insist that Barack Obama should get more aggressive with John McCain, I’d say that the NY26 Democratic race is instructive.  As we’ve been discussing here in the studios, Jack Davis and Jon Powers sniping at one another probably allowed Kryzan to win this district.

Well, maybe her process works for the general as well, we can hope.  I note that since 1945, NY26 has only had three Democratic Representatives.

We’re in the studios at 13WHAM, streaming live on CW-16.  Come check us out.

So far, things are looking surprisingly bad for Jon Powers.  With a plurality of districts reportings reporting, Jon is running a distant third behind what initially seemed the dark horse, Alice Kryzan.  The general consensus among the bloggers here is that a less-than-stellar performance on the media end.  We’re continuing to watch as things develop, but this looks pretty cut and dried.

Great news for Jon Powers (whom I was supposed to meet with last night, which didn’t happen for personal reasons). The embattled NRCC Chairman and scandal-monger Tom Reynolds has announced he will be retiring. That leaves the seat wide open, no incumbency issues for Jon Powers to deal with, in a political environment which has thus far swung in the direction of Democrats.

The Daily Politics - NY Daily News

But the recent NRCC fraud scandal - some of which took place on his watch - has made his re-election effort that much more difficult in an already tough year (increasingly Democratic state, presidential election etc).

Were he to run, this would be the second election-year scandal in a row for Reynolds. The first, of course, was the Mark Foley page debacle.