NY--23 McHugh to be named Sec of the Army

Politico is reporting that Obama is naming Rep. John McHugh (R-NY) from New York's 23d Congressional District to be Secretary of the Army. (http://www.politico.com/politico44/)
The 23d district is often discussed in the many redistricting diaries for New York. The district barely voted for Obama but as far as I know is traditionally Republican, so I think there would be some obviously parallels to a special election in McHugh's district with the one in NY-20 a few months back.

My hunch would be a Republican would be slightly favored, but that was the conventional wisdon in NY-20 initially as well. Here's hoping we can find another Scott Murphy!

Anyone know what the Dem bench is like in the 23d? The Republican bench?

*MSNBC just announced it as well

http://www.swingstateproject.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=5035

I haven't heard of anyone calling NY-23 a lean-Democratic district.

For instance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cook_Partisan_Voting_Index (look at NY-23)

But their is not much difference between R+1 and D+2

make up a large part of the district -

"The district, which includes all of Oswego and Jefferson counties and part of St. Lawrence County, is a Republican stronghold and has been represented by Republican senators for generations. One of those Republicans was H. Douglas Barclay, Will Barclay's father"

http://blog.syracuse.com/news/2008/02/will_barclay_republican_had_hi.html

here. I suspect the family is old money, possibly going back to the Dutch poltroons. H. Douglas Barclay was real big in the New York State Republican Party and New York State Senate. When he retired from that, George H.W. Bush rewarded him by appointing him ambassador to El Salvador.

This was for years an overwhelmingly republican district. McHugh and James Wright both have some connection to Barclay- so McHugh was awarded the Congressional Seat and Wright became State Senator. Barclay's son was given the State Assembly seat. (The Republican committee nominated whoever Barclay told them to nominate and for years, the Republican candidate automatically won.)

When Jim Wright retired, Barclay's son was nominated to take the seat. He was defeated by a dairy farmer, Daniel Aubertine, partly on the basis of Aubertine's ad reminding people that Barclay had gotten a state supreme court ruling giving him ownership & control over the section of the Salmon River that runs through his property. Legally, you are not allowed to set anchor to fish along that section of river without Barclay's permission. Should I mention that one of Barclay's projects when he was in the State Senate was to get the state to build and operate the Salmon River fish hatchery? In other words, the taxpayers stock the river and BArclay charges people for catching the fish!

Well, Young Barclay losing to Aubertine in a special election was a real shocker. It gave the Democrats the 1 vote they needed to gain control of the State Senate. Unfortunately, about six Democrats decided that they will sell their votes to the highest bidder, Republican or Democrat, so the Albany dead lock goes on.

The Republicans were determined to take back the seat in 2008. Aubertine won again. The Democrats didn't even run anyone against Mchugh in 2000, but they've manage to pull 30-35% of the vote the last 3 times. I saw a lot more money spent on the campaign here the last time around.

Democrats pick Darrel J. Aubertine the District could go Democrat.

But, I doubt the Republicans will pick Barclay after the trouncing he recieved. Aubertine would be a good bet for the Democrats.

sorry, couldn't resist

:rofl: