Despite the wave of popular Democrats across our country, the Democratic candidates running in Clinton County lost really badly. All of them.

Our candidate for US House, Bob Jonhson, running in a rematch with incumbent John McHugh failed again. Our candidate for State Senate, Tim Merrick went down badly against incumbent State Senator Betty Little. Our candidate for Assembly, Andy Brockway was similarly crushed by Janet Duprey who was running in Chris Ortloff's old seat. And our mayoral candidate, Kevin Duniho, went down to, Donald Kasprazk, as a real surprise to many of us Democrats.

Why did this happen in a year when Democrats did so well across the country? There are many reasons such as:

• Strong coattails on national and state races did not apply to local races
• Our candidates were not good candidates and had lots of personal shortfalls
• Our campaign volunteers were divided between too many campaigns and patronage jobs
• We misjudged the strength of the local Republican machine that lives on after Senator Stafford

Let's investigate further.

The Problem with Coattails

When you have a powerful candidate running for office or a powerful issue, it can often sweep candidates up in the race that you never expect to be swept up. Republicans of significant stature just disappeared from Congress overnight. We saw this in New York's 19th Congressional Race with John Hall beating the incumbent Republican Sue Kelley, despite not having a particularly well organized or nimble campaign.

Democrats wanted to believe there would be coattails for all of their candidates. While they didn't have a particular grand hope for Bob Johnson defeating long standing Congressman John McHugh, they knew if things were bad enough he also could be swept in the same wave that booted out people like John Sweeney in NY-20 or Rich Pomblo in CA-11. Yet, those candidates had created a certain amount of passionate dislike that McHugh did not have.

Moreover, local races did not enjoy coattails from statewide races or national races. Not a single Republican State Senator was defeated this year except for Nick Spano who in a re-match this year lost to Andrea Stewart-Cousins. That particular race is not surpising as Nick Spano only one by a court decision that put him 18 votes ahead in 2004. This year, Stewart-Cousins worked hard to get a few more votes out of her base and was 2,700 votes ahead of Spano.

Likewise, Democrats picked up almost no seats in the State Assembly nor did they lose any in races. Like the Senate, there was a notable exception in the Albany area with the seat that Republican Assemblyman Pat Casale vacated this year. With no clear incumbent, Republican Martin Reid lost to the popular Independence Party member, Tom Gordon who ran on the Democratic line with a Wilkes-Barre. He won largely based on the fusion ticket that got a large number of Independence Party votes, in district where he turned the Independence Party into a powerful machine.

One might have hoped that our candidate for Mayor, Kevin Duniho, with his proud association with Eliot Spitzer could have rode into the mayoralship. Yet, it seems voters had a hard time associating him with Albany or the national scene in any way. Kevin Duniho tried to sell himself as a Spitzer Democrat, and kept emphasizing the importance of Albany and Washington to city policy, but that seemed like a stretch to a lot of voters.

Our Candidates Were Not Good Candidates

When your running for political office, particularly as an unknown challenger, the first impression you don't want people to get of you is as eccentric, young, and inexperienced. You want to be a dominating character who has a resume that impresses even your opponent. Unfortunately that wasn't the characteristics of many of our candidates.

Bob Johnson was eccentric to say the least. You saw his picture and instantly thought egg-head. He might know the issues, but people want somebody they can feel comfortable inviting into their kitchens. He came across as very liberal, even if his positions were more moderate. He ran two years ago and lost, making him less attractive to some people. In contrast, his opponent, John McHugh was both a very stylish dresser, and looked incredibly mature.

Tim Merrick suffered from a similar problem. Betty Little was the standard bearer for the region, and she seemed just less eccentric then Tim Merrick. Merrick seemed like a far left-wing candidate, coming from the college town of Plattsburgh. People outside of the Plattsburgh simply didn't understand his message. Most people just assumed Betty Little was good, and brought good things to the North Country—even if she was in practice a very right-wing candidate.

Andy Brockway was young. That was his greatest strength and greatest disadvantage. He could have been talking about the great change that he was going to bring to the North Country as a man with a fresh perceptive, but instead allowed his opponent to brand him as inexperienced. This was despite working for many years in Albany. He could have been dreaming big and not talking about little things like North Country jobs. If he had talked more like Martin Luther King or Lyndon Johnson, people would have listened to him.

Kevin Duniho probably was the best candidate of the bunch. Yet, he was a party boss in the city and an unabashed liberal. People like liberal candidates, but when they sometimes feel they go too far. Like it or not, Plattsburgh has had a tax crisis where rates have gone up rapidly in the past few years. Duniho didn't emphasize tax cutting enough, and his ideology assured voters that a vote for him was a vote for higher taxes.

Volunteers Were Too Divided

There were many important races this year for Democrats up in Clinton County to get involved in. There quite literally were too many races and too little volunteers. While a few people spent a lot of time in the headquarters, preparing for the upcoming elections, most of these people were paid staffers. A few were very dedicated people, but until election day you could have counted them on your left hand.

I was deeply involved in the Kirsten Gillibrand for Congress campaign, so I couldn't give my all to getting people elected. Other people were paid staff for the Tim Merrick for Senate campaign, and had to spend the vast majority of their time on that race. Others, like myself, worked in general to promote Democrats in this county, but without a focus on getting a specific candidate elected.

At the headquarters, we couldn't individually help out candidates as that would be considered an illegal in-kind donation. That was a problem as relatively few people vote party line, particularly in a county like Clinton, where Democrats only win when a good number of independents vote for the Democrat. Democrats may have a slight numerical advantage, but it's not that great.

We can overcome this in the future by emphasizing volunteering in specific campaigns and not focusing on getting Democrats elected. If we had more people behind Andy Brockway, canvasing and calling specifically for him we probably could have won that race. Likewise, Tim Merrick could have done better had he had more grassroots support in the lower part of his district and not just party activists supporting his campaign, he could have possibly won.

Too make matters worst, many of our volunteers took patronage jobs on election day such as being elections inspectors. While I and others enjoyed the $145 dollars we got paid for the day, it also meant we couldn't spend much time phone banking or other get out the vote activities. If we had more of a base of volunteers, we could be giving these jobs instead away to people who were unable because of age or other disability to be helping in the get out the vote effort. It's good to pay off volunteers for their hard-work, but election day is truly not the day to do that.

Misjudging the Republican Machine

Republicans still hold a lot of power in Clinton County. They have a majority in the legislature, and continue to have our State Senate and Assembly seats. These people should not be underestimated, and despite having fewer enrolled voters in their party still have a lot of ability to turn elections their way.

It's clear they must still have a good get out the vote effort, even thought partisan greats like the late State Senator Stafford is not around to push their party forward. Moreover, they have a good ability to get the independent vote to vote Republican. Maybe it's just the nature of the people up here to be more inclined to vote Republican, regardless of their actual party identification.

Conclusions

The key in the future is to make sure our candidates have a superior get out the vote effort to the Republicans. We must also work to get local people elected with deep roots to the community through grassroots support to those candidates. We must also work to fundraise more, and spend more money on radio and telvision advertisement. Lawn signs might help reinforce our message, but first we must get our candidates known and also what the opposition stands for when they run.