On the ground

After an exhaustive process that didn’t involve any closed doors, back rooms or cigar smoke, the Democratic Committee chairs from the ten upstate counties in the NY20th Congressional District have selected Scott Murphy as the Democratic candidate for the congressional seat vacated by our former Congresswoman, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.

Murphy is an outstanding candidate, combining political and business background into exactly the sort of experience we need representing us in Washington right now. He grew up in the Midwest and, after college, served as aide, deputy chief of staff and chief fundraiser for two governors of Missouri, Democrats Mel Carnahan (who will always be fondly remembered as the man who defeated John Ashcroft for U.S. Senate, even though he died before Election Day) and Roger Wilson.

After a brief stint on Wall Street with Bankers Trust, Scott became an entrepreneur, founding two different Internet-related businesses: Small World Sports, a pioneer in providing fantasy sports games that was sold to Vulcan Ventures/The Sporting News and is now the engine that runs The Sporting News fantasy games; and a web consultancy that was sold to IXL, which went public and later merged with Scient.

For the last eight years, he has been with Advantage Capital investing in job-creating new companies located in areas that don’t usually have access to equity capital. His job is to find promising companies, close investment deals for them and help them grow. Advantage Capital itself invests in companies that offer both excellent investor returns and significant community impact.

In light of the current state of the economy in New York and in the nation, we couldn’t choose a better person to send to Washington on our behalf.

We’re excited about Scott Murphy and look forward to having him as our next Congressman from the 20th Congressional District of New York!