Former CNN political analyst John Avalon hopes his nice guy persona could flip a New York congressional seat. New York Magazine writer Shawn McCreesh summed it up like this in a recent profile on Avalon: He is running in the Democratic primary on June 25, positioning himself as the best hope to flip this district, currently held by a first-term Republican named Nick LaLota. Avlon’s (earnest) pitch is essentially this: After years of our politics being warped by polarization and showboat extremism, it’s time for a return to something like “the third way” of the 1990s, when President Clinton was…