Here's the full list, again with a tip to James at Swing State Project.
* Andy Bisselle (Essex County): A local YMCA executive director who was recently rebuffed by GOP leaders after he sought the Republican nomination.
* Stu Brody (Essex County): Attorney, former Essex Co. Democratic Chair, and head of the Democratic Rural Conference from 2002 to 2008. He played a round of golf with Bill Clinton in 2000.
* Steve Burke (St. Lawrence County): A new name; not much information about him is publicly available right now. Presumably, he is the same Stephen Burke who is the town Democratic chairman of Macomb.
* Danny Francis (Jefferson County): Vietnam veteran, '94 nominee against McHugh.
* Bob Johnson (Jefferson County): Surgeon, '06 nominee against McHugh.
* Rudolph Johnson (Franklin County): Some dude.
* Brian McGrath (Lewis County): NYC attorney, willing to "drop six figures" on a campaign. He's put $200K into his campaign already and says that he can raise $700K more through his contacts. Sounds like he wants to present himself as the next Scott Murphy.
* David Ryan (Franklin County): Another dude.
* John Sullivan, Jr. (Oswego County): The former head of the state Attorney General's Watertown office and ex-Oswego mayor.
* Michael Oot (Madison County): Attorney, '08 nominee against McHugh.
* Bill Owens (Clinton County): A Plattsburgh attorney and registered independent. A "national Democratic source" recently told the New York Daily News' Elizabeth Benjamin that "everybody is talking about this guy Owens, saying he's the best of what's left".
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Yikes. A quick look through the list and you'll notice a few trends. First, it's quite disheartening to see two "some dudes" on this list of potential candidates. It's also a little disheartening to see three individuals who all went up against and lost to McHugh. This is not a group with a track record of success, for the most part. Even worse is seeing an individual who sought the Republican nomination on this list. It would be extremely disheartening to progressives to have a Democratic nominee to the right of the Republican nominee.
Two candidates stand out in this list:
John Sullivan- This might be my personal top choice. Sullivan is a former mayor of Oswego, highly connected to the Cuomo family, and the head of the Watertown AG's office. Oswego is an important population source to be had in the district and Sullivan could probably run a strong law and order campaign in the mold of Michael Arcuri. I'm a little hesitant to give full-throated backing without knowing more of his economic views. One negative is that Sullivan is in his early 60's, so he's a little on the older side to make his debut bid for Congress.
Brian McGrath- If Sullivan ends up as a lukewarm option, McGrath is the definite choice. He's young, a native son of the region, from a family of milk farmers, and seems to be a full-throated populist on trade. He'd probably be attacked as a New York City resident and there's also some concerned in that he was a registered Republican until a few years ago. He does have the option of self-funding.
On the other hand, I'm quite concerned about Bill Owens. He is a life-long independent that could very well be to the right of Scozzafava. There's some word that Democrats in Washington prefer Owens to the other choices. As with many people on this list, he would be a very uninspired choice. |
