There's been a lot of noise about this for a few weeks but apparently today is the day he makes it official.

Rudy Giuliani is expected to announce today that he won't run for the US Senate next year, sources said last night.

That's good news for appointed Democrat Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.

Even though former Gov. George Pataki has not ruled out challenging Gillibrand, he is not expected to do so, and there are no other prominent GOP candidates who are likely to take her on.

Giuliani's decision likely marks the end of his own electoral career.

He's expected to support Republican Rick Lazio for governor.

But Giuliani plans to continue to be a force within the party, helping to expand its base as well as speaking out on issues important to him.

I'm not surprised. Next year's Senate race is a special election to fill the last two year's of Hillary Clinton's term, that means the winner will have to run again in 2012 for a full six year term. I honestly didn't see any reason to believe that Rudy wants to essentially spend the next 3 years running for office. Add to that the fact he's not exactly a legislator by temperament and it never made sense.

I am a little surprised that the feeling is Pataki is out of the race. I spoke to a few local political types at the Hoffman election night event back in November and who said Pataki had spoken to them and that he sounded like a guy who was planning on running. The fact that he even got involved in the Hoffman/Scazafava fight (and on Hoffman's side) seemed like a sign he was going to get in the race.

As annoying as Pataki was in his later years as Governor, he was the best chance for picking up the seat with Rudy out of the picture. For a Republican to win in NY it will likely have to be someone with some name recognition to overcome the inertia of voters to pull the lever for a Democrat, any Democrat. Now it seems like a chance to steal a "blue" seat next year is gone.

And no, no matter how much you may like Rick Lazio (and let's face it, if you've even heard of him you are either a political junkie or a member of his family), he has zero shot to beat Andrew Cuomo.

Unless Pataki gets in the race, NY poised to stay Blue...not exactly breaking news but still disappointing.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:27 AM | Comments (11)
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