Timothy Stampfler to Challange Matt Doheny for NY-23 Republican Primary

Another bumpy ride ahead in NY-23? Watertown Daily Times reports that Timothy Stampfler will be challenging Matt Doheny for the Republican nomination in 2012.

Timothy Stampfler is a corrections officer in Dannemora, the paper reports.

Mr. Stampfler has not responded to my requests for comment, but I spoke with Don Lee, the Clinton County GOP chair, two days ago. Mr. Lee told me that Mr. Stampfler had previously spoken to him about a run, but at the time, Mr. Stampfler had not made up his mind.

This complicates much for Matt Doheny, who is already looking at another possible two challengers in Doug Hoffman and possibly Kellie Greene. I'll have more on Stampfler in follow up posts, once I have a change to look more into his candidacy.

Of course, redistricting may drastically change the map for NY-23.One thing is for sure, the more the committee chairmen in NY-23 like a candidate, the more resistance that candidate seems to attract from the party's base. Republicans may want to take notice.

NRO Poll: Gibson, Buerkle and Doheny in striking distance for an incumbent upset

By Sam Foster
Via NRO

It's about time for the Political Reports to start flipping some of the Upstate NY races to "Toss Up" status. A recent NRO poll shows three Republican challengers gaining ground in blue NY congressional districts.

Jim Geraghty reports:

New York 20: Despite challenger Chris Gibson having just 37 percent name recognition compared to Rep. Scott Murphy’s 91 percent name recognition, Murphy leads by a slim 45 to 40 percent margin.

New York 23: While challenger Matt Doheny has just 48 percent name recognition compared to Rep. Bill Owens’s 87 percent name recognition, Owens manages just a split of the vote with 41 percent to 39 percent for Doheny.

New York 25: Despite challenger Ann Marie Buerkle having just 50 percent name recognition compared to Rep. Dan Maffei’s 90 percent name recognition, Maffei leads by a slim 44 to 41 percent margin.

All three Democrat incumbents are under 50%, which is a very dangerous place for Democrats in this election cycle. Also note the Democrat name recognition percentages. This means that the three incumbent Democrats will have little room to improve their favorability.

Details of Matt Doheny’s BUI emerge

By Sam Foster
Via Adirondack Daily Enterprise

The curious race for NY's 23^rd congressional district has not been short on drama.  I reported last week that Republican candidate Matt Doheny had been detained for BWI in 2004.  The details turn out to be far more damaging.

First, Doheny's two incidents were within two weeks of each other.

Second, Mr. Doheny had become belligerent during his first incident and had to be handcuffed.  

Statements from the Coast Guard officers who boarded the vessel on July 10 say Doheny yelled at them and made threatening movements, questioned their authority to board the boat, refused to say whether he had been drinking but was stumbling and had slurred speech. He pulled away as they tried to handcuff him and was still combative when state police arrived on the scene. Doheny failed three of the seven field sobriety tests and then failed to take the breathalyzer correctly after several tries, not blowing enough air into it.

The second time, Doheny admitted to having drunk five beers and one vodka with Red Bull earlier, according to the officers' statements. Both boarding officers said he was cooperative. They brought Doheny onto the Coast Guard boat and docked Doheny's boat to allow his guests to disembark before conducting the field sobriety tests. Doheny also failed to blow into the breathalyzer hard enough after numerous tries, but ended up doing it and registering a blood alcohol content of .096.

Matt Doheny's past is going to be hard to swallow for voters sensitive about candidate misconduct as a result of ethics investigations of well-known NY congressman Charlie Rangel.