Check out Sen Gillibrand's pathetic challenger, Bruce Blakeman

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NY-Sen: Blakeman bombs before Conservatives
by: devtob
Tue Feb 02, 2010 at 14:47:41 PM EST

Bruce Blakeman, the only announced Republican challenger to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, joined other ambitious Republicans in speaking before the Conservative Party's annual conference Sunday and Monday in Albany.
Evidently, only one newspaper covered his speech, and unfortunately it's stupid-paywall Newsday, who presumably only cared because Blakeman is from Long Island.

The few sentences you can read at Newsday are a straight-forward report, but another attendee, former Schenectady Gazette reporter Bob Conner of Planet Albany, was more critical.

A lot more critical, as you'll see below.

devtob :: NY-Sen: Blakeman bombs before Conservatives
Conner, who is sympathetic to the Conservatives on social issues, compared Blakeman to three high-profile upstate county executives (Chris Collins of Erie, Maggie Brooks of Monroe, and Joanie Mahoney of Onondaga) who also spoke Sunday, and found Blakeman wanting.
When an actual potential statewide candidate, Long Island Republican Bruce Blakeman (who aims to take on Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand) started speaking, he was so bad he drove me out of the room.
One thundering cliche followed another, about "out of control spending" and how the Democrats say they'll just tax the rich but there aren't enough rich people to pay for their programs so they'll tax the middle class, too, and "We don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem."

Every stale line was presented as if we'd never heard it before, and he was promising to "focus laser-like" on something or other when I made it through the door.

Ouch!

Though others in the room presumably applauded Blakeman's "thundering cliches" and "stale lines."

Blakeman has been traveling the state and scooping up GOP county chair endorsements (Monroe and Onondaga this week), but his campaign has been as underwhelming as Conner found his speech. He has raised no money to speak of, and in the latest Marist poll, he loses even to Harold Ford 39-36.

And his website is pathetic.

Based on name recognition but little reflection on his record, former Gov. George Pataki does well in the polls, but has shown little interest in running for Senate.

There is another former Republican pol, Joe DioGuardi, sniffing around the Senate race, according to an official comment on the Conservatives' Facebook page.

DioGuardi attended the Conservatives' confab, and "said he's looking at the Gillibrand Senate seat, and would make a formal announcement in a couple of weeks."

According to the wiki, DioGuardi served two terms in Congress in the late 1980s, representing a Westchester district. He wanted to run in NY-19 in 2008, but was third in the endorsement vote by county Republican delegates.

Maybe he hopes to glom some name recognition from his daughter Kara, who is a judge on American Idol.

But he is as unknown outside Westchester as Blakeman is outside Nassau.

And, as yet, the teabaggers have not put up one of their own, or jumped on the Blakeman bandwagon.

So, for now, Blakeman is the best the Republicans and Conservatives can come up with to challenge Gillibrand.

And that's not much.