Only hours after I chided her for being Hamlet on the Oswegatchie, reports surface that St. Lawrence County Clerk Patricia Ritchie is indeed running to unseat Senator Darrel Aubertine in the the pivotal 48th District.
Jude reports Ritchie is telling GOP insiders what was already obvious and that is she is taking on Aubertine is what could be another wing ding of a race.
Privately, Democrats are dismissive of Ritchie, claiming she is Palinesque in her grasp of the great issues of the day in Albany. Granted, her first run at state office in 2002 was hardly a civics lession in state government. (Granted, some of us don't think of 'Palinesque" as a perjorative.)
In that Assembly bid Ritchie lost a close race to Darrel Aubertine for the Assembly seat long held by H. Robert Nortz. Neither candidate was scintillating on the stump and Ritchie, while devasted by the loss, has since always been talked about when these races came up.
Certainly, Senator Aubertine has become more of the Albany politician while still maintaining that hometown flavor.....This year Albany is out and hometown is in and on that count Ritchie is competitive.
Her tune-up run this year was a successful bid to halt motorists from being forced to buy new license plates. In the couple of conversations I have had with her, she has improved her political appeal in eight years.
It will take an imaginative campaign for her to overtake Aubertine, and that's something missing from recent GOP efforts in the 48th.
One GOP type told me tonight Ritchie is popular running as county clerk, but that doesn't necessarily transfer to a race against an equally popular incumbent senator. In short, it's Aubertine's race to lose.
And while Republican state leaders have promised to fund her race dollar for dollar, it is unclear the GOP has that kind of cash, when there are several races they will need to fund in order to take back control of the body. One plus is that the 48th is a relatively inexpensive district to compete in.
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12 comments:
Run, Patty, run!
Good Lord .... what is everyone thinking?
She is a horrible choice for Senate candidate. She is nothing more than a 'secretary' at a county level.
She should start on a smaller position. Be a Town Councilman, then a County Legislator. She should 'get her feet wet' with small town politics before aspiring to jump into a Senate seat with plans to 'save the world'.
I have not seen much she has done as St Lawrence County Clerk except to open satellite DMV office and participate in the petition drives regarding the license plate ruling.
I would not vote for her if she was the only person running.
She won't do well in oswego co. With an inpopular gop chair pushing her
How about Tedra Cobb for Assembly?? She's always good on the real issues, nice to look at too.
Pattie Ritchie...Dede Scozzafava...they're all the same. When will the GOP wake up and run a candidate who we can actually get behind.
Nancy Martin, Dede Scozzafava, Pattie Ritchie, RINOs must go...
11:47,
Why do you assume Pattie is a rino? She'll be a good fiscal conservative.
That's the most over used phrase liberals try and gain power. "Oh, she'll be a good fiscal conservative," last time I check Dede tried that too...got her a long ride back to Gouverneur.
There's more to conservatism than cutting taxes and reigning in spending.
Pattie the Republican version of the Stepford wives. At least Palin isn't one. That should be a clue what a candidate needs to win.
Right on 2:11PM. Stepford wife she is. Pattie cake, Pattie cake. Let's hear what you think about ...well....anything. She couldn't articulate her stances on the issues when she lost the GOP primary to run agains Darrel for God's sake. Couldn't even win her own party's nomination - that's the kind of candidate the GOP continues to put up - and then wonder why they lose. I'm so sick and tired of this I'm changing my enrollment. Bye bye GOP.
2:11,
You're wrong. Pattie did win the GOP primary in her 2002 Assembly race. She did, however, narrowly lose the race. Why did she lose the race? Because Scott Gray remained on the ballot as the Conservative Party candidate. Had she gotten Gray's votes she would have won.
Patty should look at what happened to Dede. Mike Long and the conservatives no longer are willing to concede the line to Rinos. Without the conservative line, this race is over before it begins for the clerk.
This has nothing to do with Mike Long or the state Conservative party...this has to do with small "c" conservatives enrolled in the Republican party. We're the one's who are fed up with these milque-toast RINOs and finally are standing up for ourselves.
No more.
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