Paterson to choose Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand to replace Hillary Clinton
Now that the nanny and taxes have convinced Carolyn Kennedy of dropping her ridiculous bid for Hillary Clinton's Senate seat, PIX News is confirming that Governor Patterson's choice to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate is Kirsten Gillibrand, Congresswoman to New York's 20th District.
She is what I call a right-wingish Democrat for her opposition to gun-control. It's because of her support of the NRA that Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy has vowed to primary Gillibrand in 2010 if Paterson appoints her to the Senate.
Yet it's Wayne Barrett who plunges the knife and kills the Congresswoman's "fairy tale" political ascent, which is often times used to explain her political currency :
The irony is that Paterson may be swinging from the nation's most prominent Democratic family to one with strong Republican ties. Gillibrand's father, Doug Rutnik, is an Albany insider and lobbyist whose ties to former GOP powerhouses Joe Bruno, George Pataki and Al D'Amato are legendary. In fact, Gillibrand won her seat when a state police domestic violence report about the GOP incumbent, John Sweeney, was mysteriously leaked, ostensibly with the acquiescence of the Pataki administration, which had its own reasons to oppose Sweeney. Bruno is under federal investigation now, and some of the subpoenas in the case involved a real estate deal that partnered Rutnik with Bruno and another lobbyist. Rutnik dated, and eventually lived with, a top Pataki and D'Amato aide for many years, until he broke up with her in 2006 to marry a cousin of his, Gwen Lee, who'd worked in high-paying state jobs secured by the same aide. Rutnik and D'Amato have been registered lobbyists for some of the same clients.
Yet my favorite bit of trivia about the woman is that, if indeed she will be appointed, she would have beaten her former boss, Andrew Cuomo, for the open seat. A low blow for a guy that should have had it in the basket with his solid Democratic "political dynasty" pedigree vis-a-vis her Republican background.
That has got to hurt.
Carolyn Kennedy's bid was nepotistically stupid while the "informal" opposition to Congresswoman's Nydia Velazquez' appointment is thisclose to racist. Then you have Congresswomen McCarthy, Carolyn Maloney and Nita Lowey as good choices but ageism always wins out.
If Cuomo weren't such a douche, he probably would have been appointed a long time ago. So Gillibrand is like sloppy seconds : Blonde, young and from a (minor) political dynasty albeit a Republican one.
That's how petty and provincial New York politics are. No, let me correct myself : New York Democrats.
[ Nota Bene : This first appeared at the Daily Gotham.]
but, but Nat
isn't that nepotistically crass?
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Perhaps--though seeing how
Perhaps--though seeing how Cuomo is only Attorney General because Robert Kennedy, Jr. agreed not to run against him in the Democratic Primary (because RFK didn't want to make his sister's divorce an issue), turnabout may be fair play.
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I disagree with you about
I disagree with you about the nature of the Kennedy candidacy, but that's not worth debating considering her withdrawal...what I will say, though, is that from the day that Caroline Kennedy expressed her interest, Andrew Cuomo's shot at the seat was dead in the water. Paterson couldn't have picked him.
Caroline may not have been loved by a lot of folks (though, from a purely issue-based perspective, she probably looks a lot better today than she did yesterday) but she did have strong backing from some elite folks, including the sitting President. It's one thing not to pick Caroline, it's another to not pick Caroline and instead pick the guy who went through an awful divorce with her cousin--it would've been salt in the wound of Kennedy backers and Paterson would've faced some retribution.