Free Republic

Gay advocates will push to replace freshman Sen. Joseph Addabbo. Gay advocates are on the warpath after the state Senate killed same-sex marriage last week, and few Democratic senators who voted against the bill are safe from their wrath.After spending more than $1 million to help the Democrats retake the chamber for the first time in decades, powerful gay activists and donors say they'll support challengers against anti-gay-marriage senators in 2010. "It's going to be a bloodbath," one gay operative predicted. "We're going to use every single weapon in our quiver to take these people out. We either need to...

There will be a show of Democratic unity this afternoon in an effort to topple a longtime Republican state senator from Queens. One of the Democratic candidates, Albert J. Baldeo, will be withdrawing from the race and endorsing City Councilman Joseph P. Addabbo Jr. Two years ago, Mr. Baldeo was a little-known lawyer in Queens who came within 2 percentage points, about 900 votes, of defeating the longtime Republican incumbent, State Senator Serphin R. Maltese. And Mr. Baldeo achieved that with no support from the party organization in Queens and largely with his own money. But this year, Mr. Baldeo’s...