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10/24/2012 08:52 PM

Different outlooks on upcoming elections

By: Bill Carey

Less than two weeks to go before Election Day and top politicians in both parties are, predictably, optimistic. In Syracuse Wednesday, a top democrat and a top republican were making appearances. YNN's Bill Carey says there were two very different views of what lies ahead.

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SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- They were separated by just a few city blocks, but the divide in their outlook on the potential outcome for races for President, House and Senate two weeks from now could not be bigger.

The state's GOP chairman saying democrats will lose big because they failed to meet promises made in 2008.

“We're really more in a parliamentary mode now, because America is in crisis. 2008, the American people said, all right, we're going to give everything to one party, the Democratic Party. They had the presidency. They had a huge majority in the House. And they had 60 members in the Senate. They could do anything they wanted. They didn't pay attention to what the American people wanted,” said New York State Republican Party Chairman Ed Cox.

Touring a high tech research center, the state's junior U.S. Senator says it is the republicans who have reneged on promises, focusing on a conservative social agenda, instead of seek bi-partisan solutions to problems.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said, “No one hired them to focus on that. They hired them to focus on jobs. And when it came to issues like dealing with the debt and the deficit and trying to create economic opportunity, they weren't able to pass anything. So I think a lot of them are going to be held accountable and a lot of them will not be elected on this Election Day.”

The different outlook extends to the race for President. Republican chairman Cox saying debates have helped the American people warm to Mitt Romney, enough to raise his chances of a win in November.

Back at the Center of Excellence, Senator Gillibrand says it is the President's message that has reached voters in the final weeks of the campaign.

Gillibrand said, “Middle class families understand that democrats are fighting for them. And elections are always about who you're fighting for.”

But Cox says voters who expressed unhappiness with democrats in 2010 haven't changed their minds.

Cox said, “The tsunami that created that, the political tsunami, which really was a reaction to President Obama wanting to be the transformational president rather than the jobs president, that tsunami is continuing.”

Just a handful of blocks dividing two different viewpoints and just a handful of days until one of the two is proven right or wrong.

The Syracuse appearance by Senator Gillibrand comes in the midst of her re-election race against republican challenger Wendy Long. Most polls give her a comfortable lead in that contest.