An Insider's Look to the New York Republican State Primary on Feb 5

As a native New Yorker, I think that I know about as much as anyone about New York State politics, especially because I am a political junkie and just can't seem to get enough of this exciting presidential race. As a viewer, it was frustrating watching the pundits and so called political experts all but write off Senator Obama several months ago, saying he could never challenge Hillary Clinton for the party's nominee. It was even more frustrating seeing the experts once again say that Hillary Clinton was going to lose the New Hampshire primary by ten percentage points according to polls, only to watch her on primary night beat Senator Obama by 3 percentage points. Therefore, you'll have to excuse me if I think that I might know a little more than the political analysts on New York State politics. On the Republican side, John McCain was left for dead by pundits a few weeks, only to see him win the Granite state over Mitt Romney.

The political geographic for New York is as follows: New York City is liberal and vote's Democratic while upstate New York is on the conservative side. Many people outside of the New York area believe that former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani will win the state of New York. However, that's not necessarily true. Let me explain.

New York City and New York State don't particularly care about political parties when it comes to local or even state politics. However, when it comes to national elections, particularly the presidential election, New York votes almost always for the Democratic candidate. This helps explain why New York had a 3 term Governor in George Pataki, elected Republican Mayor Giuliani for 2 terms, and elected Michael Bloomberg for 2 terms as a Republican after Bloomberg had switched parties. Now Bloomberg is an independent.