By Marie Horrigan, CQ Staff

Faced with a possible turnover, Republicans have a new consensus candidate for the seat of retiring Republican Rep. James T. Walsh . Dale Sweetland will face Democrat Dan Maffei, who is running again after holding Walsh to the lowest take of his 10-term House career in 2006.

CQ Politics rates the race No Clear Favorite, the most competitive category.

Former Onondaga County Legislature Chairman Sweetland emerged as the party’s top candidate of weeks of negotiations between the district’s four county committees. There was a lot of interest in the race and Republicans had settled on former state fair director Peter Cappuccilli in mid-March but he dropped out less that two weeks later citing health concerns.

Several candidates were again vying for the seat in the aftermath of Cappuccilli’s withdrawal and the leaders of the four county Republican committees — Onondaga, Walsh, Cayuga and Monroe counties — negotiated to find a candidate.

On May 1, Sweetland prevailed at the Onondaga County Republican Party’s nominating convention with 94 percent of the vote over four other candidates, including state Rep. Bob Oaks.

Oaks was a potential spoiler for Sweetland. He is deputy minority leader of the state Assembly and had strong support in Wayne County, which he represents. But on Monday Oaks announced he was dropping his bid and throwing his support behind Sweetland.

“Now is the time to unify around one candidate and make sure Dale wins this race,” he said in a written statement. Walsh joined Oaks on Monday in endorsing Sweetland. “I am confident he will represent our party well and keep this district in good hands,” he said at the press conference in downtown Syracuse.

One potential problem for Sweetland, considering his late entry, is fundraising. Maffei barely broke between his campaign in 2006 and his run for 2008. As of March 31, Maffei already had raised $854,000, nearly 90 percent of his total in 2006. During that election cycle Maffei and Walsh jointly spent $2.7 million on the race.

Sweetland enters the race at with no money, but said he expects to catch up on fundraising. “I’ve been encouraged ever since last Thursday night when the Onondaga County Committee voted because the response has been so good,” he said.

Sweetland is broadly defining the voters’ interests in the Syracuse-based district. He named foreign policy and domestic issues including the economy, health care, education and taxes as top issues. He said he believes U.S. troops should remain in Iraq until military experts decided the work was done.

“The war in Iraq is a front in the war on terrorism, and I would love to have that be over and end tomorrow but I do believe that the military experts will provide information and tell us when the job is done,” he said.

Sweetland said that he thought developing a comprehensive energy policy was a key step in addressing jobs and the economy and that he was a proponent of alternative energy. “Technology needs to be encouraged but as the same time we need to look at the short-term as well as the long-term goals of energy policy to try to compete in the world market for oil, try to keep our prices down and make sure we can reduce our dependence on foreign oil,” he said.

Republicans argue Sweetland is well situated to run against Maffei. The Sweetland campaign released a poll Monday that indicated he was virtually tied with Maffei, 36.5 percent to 36.2 percent for Sweetland. Twenty-seven percent were undecided.