Here's what Andrew Rudnick, head of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, has to say about a new PAC he's helping to set up:

It’s not really a Democrat or Republican thing; it’s an upstate-downstate thing

That must be why this PAC is dedicated only to electing Republicans to the state Senate and little else. It also must be why the PAC has teamed up with similar chambers of commerce from such upstate locales as Long Island, Westchester County, and the mid-Hudson Valley.

Rudnick said the realities of one-party rule in Albany force the Partnership and other groups across upstate and the metropolitan suburbs to consider Republican candidates. “The object is to turn enough of those contested races back to Republicans,” he said. “That’s because of where the majority party is at this moment and what they’ve done.” He pointed to the last state budget and projections of continuing deficits as evidence that the Legislature — under complete Democratic rule for the first time since the 1930s — is ignoring upstate’s economic plight. “If everyone is Democrat and downstate, we’re now screwed more than we have been,” he said. “We’re all about trying to change that.”

I know that everyone pines for the days of a Republican senate majority, when taxes were low, businesses unencumbered, population and economic growth were the rule, when Bruno was one of the three in a room, and great names like "Volker" had an infinitesimally larger volume of clout than they do now. And that's the point - that it doesn't matter what party an Albany politician belongs to. It doesn't matter which party controls the Governor's Mansion or a particular legislative chamber. No matter what happens, money trumps all, and the vast majority of the population gets screwed. For an Andrew Rudnick to suggest that flipping the Senate so that Skelos is in the room with the next embattled ethical mess of a governor will make a stitch of difference is epically ridiculous. After all, these are the people who gave us the facile and self-contradicting Unshackle Upstate. At least we can laugh at it all. There's a wonderful and hilarious postscript to this story.

State Sen. Antoine M. Thompson, D-Buffalo, who coordinates the campaign efforts of Western New York Senate Democrats, did not return a call seeking comment.

(Cross post from Buffalopundit at WNYMedia.net).