That Long Island sleeper race, with a young, fresh-faced mother (and attorney) running against encrusted incumbent Kemp Hannon? It's waking up. Here's Kristen McElroy's first (and final) TV spot, going into heavy rotation right now (video courtesy of The Albany Project)

Is this going to be the surprise of the night on Tuesday? Time will tell.

We're seeing something happen these days that's a welcome change from cycles past: Democrats reaching out to our contenders for legislative seats and putting their muscle, and their name, behind the young blood.

For example, Hillary Clinton, not a woman with a particularly open schedule these days, has endorsed - and campaigned for Eric Massa, Dan Maffei, Brian Foley, Kristen McElroy, Don Barber, and others up and down the food chain. Similarly, Governor Paterson - the subject of much grumbling in the political class in the summer due to his attempts to play nice with Skelos - has raised money for Dollinger, Foley, Addabbo, and others. All of this is announced in a daily stream of email releases.

What could bring our normally fractious Democrats together like that? Bright red oozing billows of blood in the water, for one thing; the other side has never had a weaker bench or a worse environment. This is the endgame, the final battle for New York; and I think we're going to win.

Over in SD-6, Democratic candidate Kristen McElroy, a newcomer to politics who just entered that race a few weeks ago, is making her case to replace ancient, crusty incumbent Kemp Hannon. Here's the literature currently being spread in the district.

The map for the State Senate is broadening, it sometimes seems, by the day. It's still too early to tell, but that district - centered on Garden City - has a Democratic registration advantage, several colleges, and in a change election, could become a top target.

On the web: Kristen McElroy on ActBlue

I love Facebook, I really truly do. People send you requests asking to be your friend, which tickles the hell out of me every time; you keep abreast of the large and small developments in the lives of said friends; you get emails about and invitations to stuff that's nearly always somehow relevant. It's dangerously addictive in the networked life.

I logged on yesterday morning, and noticed that someone in my network had become a supporter of Kristen McElroy, running for State Senate in SD-6 against Kemp Hannon.

Compare the two web pages, and you can see this year's fight in a nutshell. On the one hand, you have a young mother - McElroy has three kids under four - on the other, another decades-long incumbent whose bio doesn't even give a date of birth. To quote her Facebook page,

As a mother of three young children Kristen knows how hard it has become to raise a family in Long Island, NY. With the rising property taxes, soaring fuel prices and rapid increase of healthcare and prescription drugs costs; Kristen wants to hold the line on taxes, funnel education money back into the classroom rather than high administrative costs and bring the people’s voice back to Albany rather than lobbyists and special interest groups.

I suspect you'll be hearing a lot more about Kristen McElroy.