Despite Dean Skelos' little upstate tour last week, it appears that he is still primarily focused on defending his home turf. Skelos has been saying that he and the GOP were coming after freshman Senator Craig Johnson since before he actually took the oath last year. This year that challenge to Johnson seemed to become something of a long shot when they recruited the mayor of Plandome Manor, a village of roughly 800 souls, one Barbara Donno. But, apparently, Skelos is not be deterred from burning precious SRCC resources in the state's most expensive media market in his Ahab-like quest to bring down Johnson.
The SRCC is launching this ad for Donno in which she claims she's not a "typical politician" and in which she says she's running against Albany. She makes no mention of party ID, a wise move this year when the GOP brand is essentially in the toilet, nor that she's running to maintain a GOP majority in the Senate, a major part of the Albany that, in her words, "isn't listening."
The ad itself is pretty unremarkable, but what is interesting is the choice of targets by Skelos and the hapless state GOP chair, the much endangered Joe Mondello, also a Long Islander. With as many as a half dozen GOP Senators in jeapordy, if not more, playing offense in Long Island with a long shot candidate like Donno seems an odd choice, one that may upset many of those threatened incumbents in other parts of the state. Everyone knows that both Skelos and Mondello took it rather personally when they lost the SD-7 special election in February of 2007. It was race they were supposed to win, a race they poured a ton of money into and it happened in their own back yard. Now it would seem that they are willing to spend serious cash to win that seat back with a less than credible candidate. That can't be sitting well with those upstate senators who are genuinely feeling the heat, especially after Skelos was glad handing them in their districts just last week.
