The long and winding road: a compendium of quotes from NY-20

Wednesday afternoon, April 8.
More than a week has passed since Election Night and there is no end in sight.

Long, tedious and mired in the minutiae of political challenges, the counting of paper ballots has begun in a process to decide the next representative of the 20th Congressional District.

The counting could take as long as two to three weeks, said Diane Wade, the Republican Board of Election commissioner in Saratoga County.


Election Night, 6 p.m. Tuesday, March 31.
Tedisco makes an unplanned visit to the Holiday Inn ballroom in Saratoga Springs. He is noticeably weary, no doubt from hours of campaigning and sleeplensness. Nonetheless, he answers a few questions about all the money spent on the campaign and the flurry of negative ads.

“They’ve been very effective at distorting our record. There’s been a lot of contrast ads – you can call them negative – but we like to call them contrast ads, and we try to get as much positive through there,” Tedisco said.
“When they’re spending millions of dollars to hit you with negative you kind of got to respond in a contrast way to them. ”

I asked him whether he felt as though he was campaigning not only against Scott Murphy, but against President Obama’s popularity — who Murphy has consistently supported – in this particular race.

“They’ve thrown everything at me. You’ve got The President, you’ve got Mr. Biden, you’ve got Kirsten Gillibrand, you’ve got Schumer, you’ve got Tonko,” Tedisco said, venturing dangerously close to a Howard Dean-like screed, before pulling back.

To clarify his point (I think), Tedisco offered up a stream of words that was pure post-beat surrealism.

“I was walking in to ring a door bell today and the kitchen sink fell out of a tree,” he said.

I’m still not sure what to make out of that one.

Thursday night, March 26.
It is 90 minutes before the third and final debate gets underway, this one inside the Grand Ballroom of the Holiday Inn Express in Latham.
Inside the ballroom at this time, moderators Sherman Baldwin, of WROW, and Brian Taffe, of Capital News 9, are rehearsing procedures and getting proper sound levels for this evening’s debate.

A few yards away from the stage, a name card that reads ‘Eric Sundwall’ sits on a table, untouched. It will not be used on this night.

Outside the hotel, a half-dozen parking spots are sectioned off with yellow caution tape that reads: “CUIDADO,” which is Spanish for “caution,” and is presumably reserved for Mr. Murphy and Mr. Tedisco.

There are some rural counties in the 10-county, 20th Congressional District, but this isn’t one of them.
Outside, beneath a steely-gray sky, cars scream past the fast food joints and the auto dealerships, an endless blur of machinery streaming across a series of interconnecting byways that lead in all directions.

The ballroom seats approximately 200 and already the first person has shown up. She is Diane Jacko, of Bolton Landing and she has made the trip down the Northway to get a number of errands done.

“I got my car serviced. I got my taxes done. Now. I’m good to go,” she says.

Tuesday night, March 24.
WNYT-TV NewsChannel 13/ Post-Star debate number 2, this time in Menands.

James Tedisco has attempted to drive a wedge between Murphy's alignment with Obama by taking issue with the nearly $800 billion stimulus plan. While agreeing that some type of plan was needed, Tedisco said he would not have voted for the current package, saying the package contains about $300 billion in pork.

When asked by Murphy what he defined as pork, Tedisco cited $1.7 million that he said was earmarked to study the manure and pig smells in Iowa.

"I'm pretty sure it smells pretty bad in Iowa, because it smells pretty bad in New York state," Tedisco said.

Moderator Jim Kambrich asked the candidates vying for a seat in the 20th Congressional District to say something nice about one another.

Democrat Scott Murphy spoke of the warm stories he has heard along the campaign trail about Tedisco's mother.
"She's obviously a wonderful woman and I'd like to get the chance to meet her," Murphy said.

During his turn at the microphone, Republican James Tedisco sized up his lanky opponent.
"I'd put him on my basketball team," Tedisco said. "He's tall."

Tuesday afternoon, March 24.
James Tedisco at the counter of N. Fox Jewelers in Saratoga Springs

“How much is your most expensive Rolex?” the Assembly Minority Leader asked.

$20,000,” came the reply.

“My first house didn’t cost $20,000,” said Tedisco. “My whole town didn’t even cost $20,000.”

Tuesday afternoon, March 3.
Approximately 200 people attended the first debate of the 20th Congressional District race between Republican Assembly minority leader James Tedisco and Democratic candidate and venture capital manager Scott Murphy.

The 90-minute debate was held inside the Community Room of the Saratoga Springs Public Library in front of a capacity crowd of about 125 people. Separate rooms were set up with TV monitors to cater to the overflow crowd.

Murphy made at least a dozen references to President Obama and the recovery plan throughout.
"Well, we're talking a lot about the economy and President Obama is very much involved in trying to get the economy going, so it comes up a lot," Murphy explained to the media afterwards.

"If you put hundreds of millions of billions of dollars in there for things that you can only define as pork, which would create trichinosis for most of us in this room, that's not going to turn around the economy," Tedisco said.

During an interview following the debate, Tedisco focused on his thoughts of the stimulus plan.

"There's no question there is a need for a stimulus. We had to have a package," Tedisco said.
"I would have voted for the stimulus with the amendments that I put on the floor if I was there to remove the waste," he said. Tedisco identified that waste to be as much as 30 to 40 percent of the plan.

Thomas Dimopoulos, on the campaign trail in the 20th Congressional District, March- April, 2009.