Saturday, August 2, 2008

No Pundit Love for Shulman

Dennis Shulman keeps getting positive press both locally and nationally. However, after the Chuck Todd comments earlier, I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise to see Stuart Rothenberg not showing any love for Shulman in his race against Representative Scott Garrett:
Can Shulman, a blind rabbi and psychologist, upset conservative Rep. Scott Garrett (R)? The challenger’s June 30 cash-on-hand of $258,000 is not encouraging. Nor are the district’s recent election results: John Kerry drew 43 percent in the district in the 2004 White House election, ’06 Democratic challenger Paul Aronsohn drew 43.8 percent and ’04 Democratic challenger Anne Wolfe drew 41.1 percent. Looks like a trend, doesn’t it?

It also doesn't help that the DCCC, with all of their money, isn't committing to help Shulman. Part of this has to come from the description Garrett uses to describe himself:
''My opponents every single year I've been in office will always try to label me with a broad brush and say I'm just part of the party and go along. But the reality is that on many of the major issues that we're working on down there, I've been willing to buck the trend,'' Garrett said.

Garrett's being honest with that sentiment. However, most folks aren't going to realize that part of his bucking the trend in the last year is often being one of less than 50 or 30 Representatives voting (among other things) against 10 years of tax cuts for small business; against rural home ownership; against grants and scholarships in the sciences and vocational education; and against improving programs like Head Start.

The tricky part for Shulman's campaign is explaining this to voters. Maybe if Shulman starts getting some traction on these issues the pundits will come around.

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