Democrats' wave may swamp New York GOP

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — On a drizzly day last week, former President Clinton attracted more than 400 activists, seven television cameras and reporters from across New York's southern tier to a rally for Democratic congressional and state legislative candidates here.

On the same day, John Spencer, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate seat held by Hillary Rodham Clinton, slipped into and out of the city with little notice.

After a company barred Spencer from using its grounds for a news conference about the economy, he was reduced to talking to the few reporters "beneath the canopy of an abandoned gas station," The Syracuse Post-Standard said.

So it goes for the two major parties in the nation's third most populous state.

In an election season that seems certain to produce Democratic gains nationwide, New York may provide the party with the most resounding victories of all.

The Democratic incumbent senator and Eliot Spitzer, the state attorney general running for governor, are cruising over little-known Republicans whom the state and national GOP have virtually abandoned.

"I think it's going to be a mirror image of [the Republican landslide] in 1994, where the Democrats basically sweep the state," said Rob Ryan, Spencer's communications director and a veteran GOP operative.

With little doubt about the top of the ticket, the question is whether the tide will be strong enough to help Dan Maffei, who is running against GOP Rep. James Walsh in Syracuse, and other challengers capture any of the six GOP House seats across upstate New York that Democrats are contesting aggressively.

"The opportunity is there for us," Hillary Clinton said after she spoke at a fundraising lunch for Maffei, a former Capitol Hill aide.

Converting that opportunity won't be easy against incumbents who have entrenched themselves by diligent constituent service. But Republicans Walsh, John Sweeney and Tom Reynolds might need every bit of that goodwill to survive in a year when political trends are converging against them.

"There is no cover being offered by the president, the war or the top of the ticket in New York," said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Poll at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. "There is no cover for any of these people. They are out there on their own."

The state once produced titans of Republican moderation such as Gov. Nelson Rockefeller and Sen. Jacob Javits; it has held the majority in the state Senate since 1966.

In 1994, Republican George Pataki was elected to the first of his three terms as governor; he is retiring this year.

But forces both internal and external have corroded the party's foundations. Many critics say Pataki, and GOP Sen. Alfonse D'Amato before him, focused more on rewarding supporters than on building a strong organization.

"There was no sense of a state party," said historian Fred Siegel. "It was a party for people who were connected."

Pataki is leaving office with a weak approval rating, grumbling by conservatives over rising spending and a sense among many New Yorkers that the state is drifting.

Spitzer has seized on that sentiment with a campaign slogan that dramatizes both his confidence and the expectations he'll confront if he wins: "Day One: Everything Changes."

Looming over these local factors is the regional realignment of the GOP, which has lost strength across the Northeast as it has become more closely identified with Southern-flavored social conservatism.

With their own campaigns secure, Clinton and Spitzer will use the final days for a joint unity tour through several contested districts, helping Democratic House candidates raise money and attract attention.

Democrats, who hold 20 of the state's 29 House seats, are most optimistic about snagging the seat of retiring Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, a Republican moderate who since 1983 has represented the district centered on the economically struggling city of Utica.

Central New York is Republican country, but Democrats believe their candidate, Oneida County District Attorney Michael Arcuri, has an edge over GOP state Sen. Ray Meier.

The National Republican Congressional Committee has battered Arcuri with ads criticizing his record as district attorney, but he has run a populist race, calling for a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq and tariffs on imports from low-wage competitors such as China.

"I get a feeling this is going to be one of those watershed years where you see things change," Arcuri said.