With Big War Chest, New York Dem Maffei's Prospects Brighten

By Marie Horrigan, CQ Staff Wed Jul 9, 12:02 AM ET

A big and expensive television ad campaign began Tuesday for Democratic congressional hopeful Dan Maffei in his bid for the seat of retiring Republican Rep. James T. Walsh of New York's upstate 25th District.

Maffei's campaign said it would run television spots through Election Day, giving him a leg up over his Republican opponent, former Onondaga County legislator Dale Sweetland, who has been in the race for only three months. By contrast, Maffei barely paused after losing to Walsh by less than 2 percentage points in 2006 before gearing up for a rematch in 2008.

Walsh easily won his re-election bids until the near-upset in 2006, but demographics in the 25th mean Republicans do not have a stranglehold over the seat. They hold a slight registration advantage over Democrats, 36 percent to 32 percent, but a quarter of the district's voters are independent and the district favored Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry by 1 percentage point in 2004.

Maffei's fundraising advantage and exposure has led CQ Politics to change its rating on the race to Leans Democrat from No Clear Favorite.

Maffei Campaign Manager Dan Krupnick eagerly announced the second quarter fundraising totals on Tuesday, a week before the federal deadline. Maffei had raised more than $470,000 for the second quarter of 2008 and closed out the quarter with more than $950,000 in cash on hand. As of March 31 Maffei had raised nearly $854,000, bringing his total raised to $1.3 million as of July 1, more than he pulled in throughout the entire 2006 election cycle.

The ad, posted at Maffei's campaign Web site, will run on both broadcast and cable and the buy cost "a few hundred thousand dollars," Krupnick said. It will run for several weeks in the Syracuse and the Rochester media markets before the campaign replaces it with a new ad, he said.

The ad plays up Maffei's Syracuse background, showing a picture from his 1986 year book from Nottingham High School. Many of his classmates have moved away from Syracuse to find jobs, Maffei says in the ad, but he and his fiance decided to settle in his hometown. "Now I'm running for Congress because I know if we stay and fight together, we can make upstate New York great again," he said.

Sweetland entered the race in early April after consensus candidate Peter Cappuccilli dropped out, citing health issues, but he did not secure support from the four county Republican committees until early May. New York's primary is scheduled for Sept. 9 but New York Republicans tend to support the candidate hand-picked by the county committees.

Sweetland recently picked direct mail guru Bill Rapp to head his campaign. Rapp told CQ Politics that Sweetland's late entry put him at the disadvantage, but that his superiority as a candidate would help balance that out.

"We have a mountain to climb, we have four months to make this happen. ... [But] fortunately what we have with Dale Sweetland is he has a proven record of public service. When you meet Dale Sweetland you would ask yourself, why can't all of our candidates give me this feel of honor and integrity and hard work?" he asked, rhetorically.

Rapp asserted that Sweetland's high-profile race for the Republican nomination for Onondaga County executive in 2007, which he lost by fewer than two dozen votes, has raised his name identification and that the campaign had strong grass-roots support and numerous volunteers. "We're setting up events and just getting Dale Sweetland in front of the people," Rapp said. Nearly seven out of 10 district voters are from Onondaga County.

He said the campaign was "extremely aggressive in fundraising" and was focused on garnering earned media and direct mail.

Rapp estimated that Sweetland had raised nearly $130,000 in the past month, but did not have a number for the campaign's total fundraising.

The filing deadline for the second quarter, which runs from April through June, is July 15.

"We don't have some Washington firm doing all our filing data for us ... so we don't have all of our final numbers just yet," said Sweetland spokesman Travis Glazier.

Both candidates have made energy prices and job losses in upstate New York key issues for their campaigns. Maffei has called for an energy strategy that would tax oil companies on their profits and reinvest the money into alternative and renewable fuels while Sweetland has called for a four-part plan based on renewable energy, conservation, domestic drilling and lower taxes.

Democrats added Maffei to their "Red to Blue" program of competitive challenges to Republican-held seats after Walsh's retirement announcement in January.

Rapp said that the national Republican Party was focused on the presidential race, but predicted "we're going to see some positive activity out of Washington" after the campaign posted its fundraising results over the next month or so.

"They want to see a good effort put up here," he said.