Republican Matt Doheny, a "significantly flawed candidate," has a good shot at beating Rep. Bill Owens, D-Plattsburgh, on Nov. 6, Roll Call's Josh Miller writes in an analysis today.

"This is going to be a tough seat for Democrats to keep," he writes.

Working in Mr. Doheny's favor, according to the analysis, is an expected money advantage in the race, plus a lackluster economy and ObamaCare, which remains unpopular and that Mr. Owens voted to approve.

But the image game works better in favor of Mr. Owens, the analysis concludes — a Main Street Owens vs. a Wall Street Doheny.

The photographs taken of Mr. Doheny kissing a woman who is not his fiancee in a Washington, D.C. bar — snapshots that the campaign says was taken out of context — won't help.

"But if there is enough money supporting Doheny, it will probably make up for what one Republican called his “frat boy” image," the analysis concludes.

Actually, Mr. Owens has a money advantage right now — $700K+ to $400K+ for Mr. Doheny — but Mr. Doheny has yet to dip into his own pockets. He lent his campaign about $2.3 million in 2010, and has signaled a willingness to do so again this year.

Several political watchers have asked me how serious the Gawker photo situation was for Mr. Doheny. I find a lot of political punditry to be self-reinforcing, so I'm going to resist broad, sweeping conclusions, but I'll point out two things here: Roll Call mentions it pretty prominently in their analysis, and Google results bring back several mentions.

It's not as bad a Google problem as Rick Santorum's was. Mr. Doheny's website is still the first to come up. But the No. 2 result is about the photographs, as are several subsequent results.

In a race in which the candidates will be introducing themselves to more than 200,000 new voters, having bad stuff prominently on Google search results can't be good for the campaign.

Thousands of readers like you have made Northern New York Newspapers the number one ranked website* for local news and sports coverage in the north country.

You can continue on to this article in a few seconds, or you can visit one of our websites:

• Watertown Daily Times
• The Ogdensburg Journal
• Daily Courier-Observer