On the day that IBM reportedly issued pink slips to 600 U.S. workers, candidates running for office in a district where IBM is one of the largest employers never mentioned technology in their final debate on Thursday night.
IBM is expected to shed as many as 5,000 U.S. jobs, and a big chunk of the cuts could come from Big Blue’s plants in Dutchess County in the southern sector of the contested district.
The lack of a substantial debate on the tech industry is surprising because New York’s 20th congressional district includes much of Tech Valley, a region of upstate New York with a burgeoning tech presence.
Tech Valley includes IBM and its satellite companies in Duchess County and the capital district to the north where a number of nanotech startups fueled by area universities and VCs have taken root.
It is even more perplexing because one of the two leading candidates, Democrat Scott Murphy, is a venture capitalist who founded two Internet startups and heads an upstate venture association. Part of the explanation for the lack of a robust discussion on the pending loss of large numbers of high tech jobs in the area could be the brevity of the campaign.
The campaign is about two months long. It began January 23, when Gov. David Paterson named Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand to fill Secretary of State Clinton’s Senate seat and ends Tuesday.
“Tech has come up in an ancillary way, in the context of an overarching need for jobs, particularly high tech jobs, but for the most part they ran a red meat campaign,” said Steven Greenberg, spokesman for the Siena College Poll.
Tech did come up in a negative way when Jim Tedisco, Mr. Murphy’s Republican opponent, ran a volley of ads calling Mr. Murphy a “venture capitalist Wall Street insider.” (VC Faces Street Backlash in Congress Run)
The ads sought to tie Mr. Murphy to unpopular bonuses paid to executives at failing insurance giant AIG. The Tedisco campaign also ran ads that charged Mr. Murphy with creating jobs in India rather than in Tech Valley.
The strategy apparently has not resonated because Mr. Murphy has managed to turn a 12 point deficit into a 4 point lead, according to a poll released Friday by Siena College.
“This is a down-and-dirty campaign that has taken very broad strokes. There has been little in the way of nuance,” Mr. Greenberg said.