A special election is special indeed

One of the last remaining House seats to be filled from the 2008 election is the seat of Kirsten Gillibrand, a representative who was appointed to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate after she was appointed Secretary of State. The special election, however, is being billed as a preview of the 2010 midterm elections. Because of this, the Democrat candidate has had advertisements with both Barack Obama and Joe Biden, while the Republican candidate got a lot of attention from the Republican National Committee. The race will not shift the balance of power in the House, or have much impact on American politics at all-- at least on paper. Instead, the race is getting so much attention because one candidate supported the Obama stimulus package, while the other one did not. Therefore, it is almost a referendum on the stimulus package, in a traditionally red district that swung to Obama in the last election to boot. Also, the Democratic candidate was a venture capitalist, while the Republican one is strongly against the controversial AIG bailouts. Although I like the way the author supported the blog (it was written more of as an article instead of a blog entry, except that it was opinionated), I disagree with his opinion that it should not receive all of the attention that it is getting. It will not change our landscape, but it will be a test to see how Obama and the Democrats are doing in their first hundred days. It will be interesting to see how this election turns out.

(Note: As of 4/1, the election is too close to call, and the absentee ballots, which have not been counted, will likely decide this election. Although it's a political drama, it's also a draw.)