Dog and pony show

Jasper Nolan looked like an aged cousin of Quasimodo as he skulked around the periphery of a packed crowd of Republicans. The scowl on his face was too tight to allow in the free-flow of booze, which was preventing the rest of the crowd gathered at the Holiday Inn from grasping the stinging reality of what was happening; the feeling of looking up to see a metric ton of elephant dung mysteriously whistling down overhead. The tired look in his eyes said it all: The party’s over.

Nolan eventually crossed into the confluence of bright lights and video feeds to join an equally tired-looking Jim Tedisco, who soberly emerged from seclusion shortly after 10 p.m. He also looked exhausted after a solid 45 days of political buggering. He tried to stay on point and upbeat. He tried to bring the ‘Disco Jim’ charm that kept his re-election bids in the Assembly rolling in remarkable succession. But there was no denying the fact he lost the race for the 20th district; or if he won, that it wouldn’t make much of a difference anyway.

Just a few miles down Route 9, Scott Murphy and his supporters regaled at the Gideon Putnam. His upright posture and his beaming smile –everything about him –seemed to suggest victory. Even with more than 10,000 absentee ballots outstanding, the Democrats were clearly placing a bold checkmark by Murphy’s name in the win column. Flanked by Gov. David Paterson and freshman Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Murphy seemed to exude confidence as he boldly proclaimed the race had swung in his favor.

And it has. Anything less than a resounding defeat is a victory for Murphy and the Democrats, considering the remarkably Republican district was hand-picked by former Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno. Tedisco, who was more or less Bruno’s understudy in the state Legislature, had behind him the once omnipotent GOP machines of Rensselaer and Saratoga counties. Those areas delivered heavily for Tedisco, who was previously viewed as the great white hope of the party in the Capital Region and perhaps the state.

But now Tedisco is the guy who blew a race that no clear-minded pundit ever thought he could lose. Just two months ago, most political junkies didn’t even think Murphy would be able to give the Assembly minority leader a run for his money. Murphy was viewed as a candidate picked by his party because of his money and ability to self-finance a race in which the Democrats were serious underdogs. Yet with each passing week, he seemed to gain ground on the back-peddling Tedisco campaign, which failed to grasp the evolving political demographic in New York.

Tedisco’s desperation became blisteringly apparent two weeks ago, when his campaign henchmen decided to blast Eric Sundwall off the ticket, a miscalculated move that will forever haunt him if Murphy ultimately wins. Sundwall naturally turned around and endorsed Murphy after being royally screwed out of his democratic right to run for office by a Republican stacked Supreme Court in Duchess County.

That’s right. All three justices on the bench in Duchess are card-carrying Republicans of the Pataki genre. And they’ve all made a practice of ensuring their fellow party members are victorious in close elections. Combined with state Republican Committee chairman Joseph Mondello and former state Board of Elections Counsel John Ciampoli, they are among the dying vestiges of the Pataki-Bruno era.

And they’re the last hope Tedisco has for victory, albeit a Pyrrhic one. Justice James Brand –the same judge that ruled against Sundwall two weeks ago –will oversee a hand recount of all 10,055 paper ballots issued in the race. In his county, Brand is known as being sympathetic to the Republican cause, which is precisely why Ciampoli has relied on him throughout the race.

The recount process will undoubtedly take months, leaving the 20th district empty and primed for redistricting in 2010. It also means Tedisco can save some face from the Sundwall error, which clearly worked in favor of Murphy’s campaign. Keep in mind Sundwall’s name is on the absentee and military ballots and any votes in his favor will be disqualified. Under the theory Sundwall’s handful of supporters went to Murphy, Tedisco may be able to chisel himself into the lead.

Either way the election swings, the key now is the Democrats’ ability to maintain a majority in the state Senate. Provided they do, they’ll probably gerrymander the powerful Albany machine into a new composite district that will easily be won by any candidate they choose.

So what does this all mean? First of all, Tedisco’s career in politics has taken an abrupt turn for the worse. His run for congress could have certainly been viewed as a litmus test for higher aspirations, such as governor or maybe even Gillibrand’s senate seat. But given the closeness of the race, the party will think twice about placing him on the ballot for anything other than his assembly seat even if he squeaks out a victory.

More importantly, Tuesday’s election is yet another benchmark signifying the end of the stalwart party Alfonse D’Amato built and Bruno kept in power for nearly two decades. On the other side of the isle, the Democrats are riding a golden-crested wave churned from the depths of the Republican’s abject political failure.