Chalk it up to a lack of coffee after a late night of football watching that I initially didn’t see this morning the big deal in the state United Teachers betting at least $750,000 on the Senate Democrats this fall.

But Ken Lovett’s scoop in his column today is significant for a few reasons.

1. The battle lines are now drawn, officially: It is no secret that Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the Senate Democratic conference do not get along. Ditto for the governor and NYSUT, who declined to endorse him in 2010. Cuomo is not endorsing a full Democratic take over of the chamber and is instead making his endorsements on a “case-by-case” basis. Cuomo nearly wound up backing GOP Sen. Roy McDonald, one of the four Republican lawmakers to support his same-sex marriage effort, but the Saratoga County lawmaker ultimately decided not to go forward with an Independence Party campaign.

The big question is whether the Democrats’ relationship with Cuomo will get worse. Cuomo’s signature economic measures — the 2 percent property tax cap and the new Tier Six retirement level — were not exactly received enthusiastically by NYSUT. The governor and Senate Democrats, should they win the majority, would certainly have to adjust their goals accordingly.

2. The money disadvantage remains tough: Senate Republicans still have a large financial advantage over the Democratic minority. That partly comes with the trappings of incumbency and benefactors like Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who donated $1 million to their Senate GOP’s housekeeping effort. Democrats are getting help in the Big 3 battleground districts: Queens and Westcehster (seats the Democrats control) and in Monroe County, which is being vacated by Sen. Jim Alesi, a social moderate in a Democratic-heavy district.

3. Senate Democrats, NYSUT betting on issues: At the end, Democrats can push popular issues in a Democratic-dominated state. They are for gun control, ambivalent about hydrofracking, in favor of a minimum-wage increase and back womens reproductive rights measures. These measures poll well and, with the possible exception of hydrofracking, are ones that Cuomo himself backs. Democrats will point out that it is Republicans — some of whom are more conservative than ever before — that have blocked these from getting done.

All of those are raised in this ad, paid for by NYSUT’s political action committee, in a spot aimed at Sean Hanna, the Republican assemblyman running for Alesi’s seat against Democrat Ted O’Brien.

Share|