If there is a big wave, its crest could be in upstate New York

CORTLAND, N.Y. – If there is a Democratic wave today, it will start with people like Max Sammons in places like this.

CORTLAND, N.Y. – If there is a Democratic wave today, it will start with people like Max Sammons in places like this.

Sammons, a bear of a guy who directs an energy program for low-income residents here, has supported Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, a centrist Republican who is retiring.

But over a beer at the Dark Horse Tavern in this city’s downtown, Sammons describes his current political philosophy in blunt terms: “I think we have to flush the toilet.”

Sammons epitomizes one of the Republican Party’s worst fears: an angry independent in what has been a reliable GOP stronghold. The Iraq war “carries a lot of weight” with Sammons, as does what he sees as the dominance of conservatives in the Republican-led Congress.

“I’m staying up all Tuesday night. Drinking and hoping there is a switch,” he says.

Sammons may not have to stay up as late as he thinks. With Democrats challenging six seats now held by Republicans here, including a few that until recently were thought to be safe, observers believe New York, along with other Northeastern states like Pennsylvania and Connecticut, will be an early sign of GOP danger.

In New York, the Democratic wave could stretch from Buffalo to the Hudson River, traveling roughly along the path of the Erie Canal.

Five Republicans in upstate and central parts of the state, including National Republican Campaign Committee Chairman Tom Reynolds, are facing strong and in some cases unexpected challenges from Democrats, either because of personal missteps or because of national issues such as the president’s unpopularity or the war in Iraq. Republicans John Sweeney, Randy Kuhl and James Walsh all also face strong Democratic challenges, as does Rep. Sue Kelly in her suburban New York City district.

“This is the frontline,” said Dan Maffei, a former congressional aide who is taking on Walsh, a nine-term incumbent, for the 25th District, which includes Syracuse.

In 2004, Walsh won with more than 90 percent of the vote against nominal opposition. But this year is “a very negative environment,” he says. “I’ve never seen it like this before.”  Despite the national trends, however, Walsh said he is confident he can defeat the challenger. Polls have shown him ahead of Maffei, although the Democrat has made gains in recent weeks.

Republicans hold registration advantages in each district that is up for grabs in New York. But Democrats believe those GOP numbers are vestiges of an earlier era when moderate Republicans like Nelson Rockefeller dominated state politics.

Now the Democratic Party’s top-line candidates, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is seeking reelection, and Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who is running for governor, are expected to win in landslides.

Democrats hope 2006 proves to be the reverse of 1994, when Southern Democrats who had been hanging on in conservative-leaning districts finally yielded to Republican challengers. Seven Democratic incumbents lost that year.

“By 1994, those Democrats had run out of fumes,” said Steve Israel, who visited Cortland recently to help Michael Arcuri, the Democratic candidate for Boehlert’s 24th District seat. Israel represents New York’s 2nd District in Long Island.

Political experts say the once-solid-GOP upstate New York isn’t as red as it used to be.

“Republican registration has been declining for the past 30 years,” said Jeff Stonecash, a pollster at Syracuse University who is working for the Walsh campaign.

In Boehlert’s district, Republicans still outnumber Democrats by 40,000 votes, and no Democratic candidate for Congress here has won in more than 30 years. But polls show Arcuri ahead of Ray Meier, a Republican state senator.

Arcuri is in some ways the model of a Democratic challenger this year in that he’s running as a centrist. Arcuri has campaigned on a phased withdrawal from Iraq and says he would oppose free trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement. But he also has taken positions not normally associated with the national Democratic Party. He doesn’t support additional gun control laws, for example.

“We need more money to enforce the laws we have,” Arcuri says.

But if New York is the front for a Democratic advance, Republicans aren’t retreating yet. The NRCC has spent more than $2 million on the Arcuri-Meier race, including on a controversial ad that accused Arcuri of charging a phone-sex call to the state. An aide had misdialed a number, and even Meier has called the advertisement “ludicrous.” The House Democratic campaign committee, meanwhile, has spent more than $1.7 million.

“In any other year, the registration edge makes this an easier race for Republican candidates,” Meier said. “The national atmospherics, if you will, play a role.”

But Meier said Republicans are “coming home” in the remaining days of the campaign as each side mounts massive get-out-the-vote efforts.

Bush won in every district that is now up for grabs, with the exception of Walsh’s, which Sen. John Kerry carried.

Stonecash said it is too earlier to judge whether this year’s trends will last: “I don’t know how much of this is short-term because of Bush, or long-term down the road.”

Candidates say economic issues carry a lot of weight upstate, an area where voters can tick off closed manufacturing plants as easily as they would list dearly departed relatives.

For Republicans, the economy means lower taxes. Republican-funded TV ads have accused the Democratic candidates of wanting higher taxes on middle-class voters, a charge based on opposition to the Bush tax cuts. Democrats say they oppose the tax cuts targeted at the wealthy but support tax breaks targeted at the middle class. Maffei calls the RNC advertisement a “fabrication.”

But taxes are one reason Fred Saracene, who runs Nordic Sports in Cortland, is sticking with the Republicans. The high taxes New Yorkers pay make it “tough for small business people,” says Saracene, who supports Meier.

Incumbents have also stressed what government funds they’ve brought back to the area.

Kuhl, a first-termer whose district stretches from Rochester on Lake Ontario through New York’s southern tier, claims in one commercial to have brought $250 million worth of projects back to the district.

“And there’s more on the way,” he says.

Kuhl hopes to fend off a charge by Eric Massa, a retired Navy commander who has hammered Kuhl for a rosy assessment of the war he gave after a recent Iraq visit.

David Savlov, a 47-year-old Syracuse attorney, says he’s sticking with Walsh because of his ability to attain federal money for the district.

“He’ll be able to do stuff that Maffei won’t be able to,” Savlov said.

Democrats have hit back on the war and President Bush. Maffei’s campaign notes that Walsh has voted with the president more than 90 percent of the time.