State Senate GOP Hires Luntz
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- February
- 29
Here’s something we reported in today’s papers:
Senate Republicans are looking for an image makeover after the loss earlier this week of a seat the party has held for more than a century.
In the first sign of a shakeup, the party plans to hire national Republican consultant Frank Luntz to look at how Senate Republicans can redefine themselves as they seek to retain their slim majority.
“I’m taking a look at everybody and everything,” Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, R-Brunswick, Rensselaer County, told an Albany radio station Thursday. “We are going to do a self-inspection.”
The hiring of Luntz, also a Fox News pollster and focus-group guru who has worked with Senate Republicans in the past, may be the beginning of several changes within Republican ranks. Republicans said they are considering hiring other high-profile national strategists.With Democrat Darrel Aubertine’s victory in the race for an open North Country Senate seat Tuesday over GOP opponent Will Barclay, some Republican operatives and leaders said the party needs a new message.
Aubertine’s win lowered the Republican majority to just 32-30 in the Senate. But the majority is just one because Lt. Gov. David Paterson, a Democrat, owns any tie-breaking vote. Republicans have controlled the Senate for every year but one (1965) since 1938.
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on Friday, February 29th, 2008 at 9:26 am by Joseph Spector.
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Jay Gallagher has covered Albany for Gannett News Service since 1984 and has been Albany Bureau chief since 1989. He`s a native of the Boston area and likes to point out that in this millennium, the score is Red Sox 1 championship, the Yankees 0. 
Cara Matthews has been a statehouse correspondent in the Albany Bureau since August 2005. Prior to that, she covered Putnam County government and politics at The Journal News for nearly five years. Before that, she worked at newspapers in Connecticut and covered the state Legislature for one of them. 
