We can win Kirsten Gillibrand's Seat

The House Democrat leadership is very unhappy with the appointment of 20th District Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand to the Senate by New York’s Governor David Paterson. Even Speaker Nancy Pelosi is making it known that Gillibrand’s seat in upstate New York will be very hard to hold. Republicans view the 20th District as a stronghold for their party that they lost in 2006 only because of scandals and the total ineptness of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Also, Kirsten Gillibrand was one of the few New York Democrats conservative enough to be backed by the NRA. She is an avid hunter and a fiscal conservative.

“This should be a Republican seat,” said Bob Bellafiore, a former press secretary to Gov. George Pataki (R). “Having hit rock bottom, this is the first step for Republicans in New York to start their comeback, by winning a seat that should be rightfully theirs.”

But the big question is whether the Republicans will run a conservative who fits the nature of the district or “go for the middle” with a anti-tax candidate who supports same sex marriage, or even worse, is pro-abortion. As Republicans moved away from social conservatives in the Northeast they lost more and more seats.

Within hours of Gillibrand being sworn into the Senate, Republican leaders met and picked Assembly Minority Leader Jim Tedisco as their candidate. It is unknown if the Conservative Party will back him as well. Tedisco was the 2006 candidate for governor on the GOP ticket. As you may recall, he lost to Elliot Spitzer who is best known nationally for hiring high dollar prostitutes. Tedisco has received at times a 100% rating from the NY Right to Life Committee and a zero rating from abortion group NARAL. He is also part of an Alliance Defense Fund lawsuit to stop Gov. Paterson from allowing homosexual marriage.

If Jim Tedisco wins this special election it will show that the Republican party does not lie cold in the grave. But Jim Tedisco is not the kind of candidate the big money guys in the Republican Party want. Wall Street favors anti-tax candidates who also favor same-sex marriage and the whole homosexual agenda. Walls Street and the big corporations see big bucks in the “gay agenda” and favor going back to the days of Richard Nixon, when social conservatives were not welcome in the Republican Party at all. Wall Street and particularly the editors of the Wall Street Journal just do not understand that without social conservatives the Republican Party can’t win elections.