Free Republic

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee started to show campaign commercials yesterday that attack United States Representative John E. Sweeney, an upstate Republican in a competitive re-election battle. Mr. Sweeney, who was first elected in 1998, is facing his first significant challenge since taking office, from Kirsten Gillibrand, a lawyer and political novice who has turned out to be a strong campaigner. The 30-second commercial is being shown on stations in Albany. The 20th Congressional District is a largely rural and suburban area that includes all or parts of 10 counties and stretches from Poughkeepsie to Lake Placid, going west toward...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — Only a few years ago, John E. Sweeney was a rising star in New York Republican circles, a streetwise political operative who helped engineer the 1994 victory of a little-known state senator, George E. Pataki, over Gov. Mario M. Cuomo before going on to take a seat in Congress. There, his combative brand of politics made him a favorite of national Republican leaders, including President Bush. But these days, with Congressional elections just six months away, Mr. Sweeney finds himself in the political battle of his life, as he faces his first significant electoral challenge since...

WASHINGTON, April 28 — A congressman from upstate New York found himself on the defensive Friday over a series of photographs that surfaced showing him at a college fraternity party a week earlier. Democrats seized on the photographs in an attempt to embarrass the congressman, John E. Sweeney, a Republican from the Albany region who attended a party on April 21 at the Alpha Delta Phi house at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y. His visit was initially reported by the Union College student newspaper, the Concordiensis, which said that witnesses described the congressman as being "inquisitive and engaging" and "acting...