Kirsten Gillibrand will fill Hillary Clinton’s now-vacant Senate seat. At least, that’s what the current reports are. As we know, anything can happen with this one, but it looks pretty definite.
For all the (entirely unnecessary) drama around filling the vacancy, this strikes me as a solid choice. Gillibrand — whose district encompasses the entire western border of Massachusetts, and whom we are therefore pleased to deem an honorary Bay Stater — has already proven that she’s a tough, formidable campaigner and fundraiser. There are reports that her relatively conservative stance on gun control will draw a primary challenge in 2010. That’s just fine — exactly as it should be. All the recent evidence suggests (at least to me) that a contested primary strengthens, rather than weakens, the ultimate primary winner for the general election. So bring ’em on.
Congratulations to soon-to-be Senator Gillibrand.
on key lgbt issues, since she recently stated that she supports marriage equality. this is in contrast to her historical votes against the repeal of dadt, etc.
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p>a true evolution of a thoughtful soul, or a slimy politician available to the highest bidder? she needs to demonstrate her sincerity on these issues through hard work and pro-equality votes. her re-election will hinge on it.
I remember a hearing on DADT in the last session of Congress, but was there a vote?
HR 1246. Last action was being referred to committee, but I can’t find any votes on it, even in committee. Maybe I’m just not using the system correctly…
There was no vote on DADT — she just didn’t cosponsor the bill that never came to a vote. Saying that she voted against it is a lie. Maybe she lacked the courage to put her name on it, but she didn’t vote against it. From Human Rights Campaign:
sorry, my mistake. “lie” impoit is almost impossible for me to get web pages to load today (including ‘preview’ of my comments here). don’t know if it’s my ancient computer dying, a virus, or something else. anyway, because of my technical problems i still can’t check up on the source i quoted, which is usually quite reliable. my apologies.
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p>but doesn’t the fact remain that she was against marriage equality before being against it? she still needs to be watched very carefully, lobbied hard and held to high standards. empty lip service wins enemies these days, not hopeful little supplicants. mark my words.
I had to follow through a link chain four or five deep before I got to the source of that misinformation. It was politickerNY that mischaracterized the HRC position. Sorry if you got caught in the crossfire.
PolitickerNY was basing their article off of this PDF scorecard from HRC. House members start on page 15. The repeal of DADT is represented by column H (which is summarized on page 13).
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p>The scorecard provides three symbols for each column: Supported HRC’s position, Did not support HRC’s position, and Did not vote. In column H you will notice that all the entries are either “supported” or “did not support”*. I don’t think that failing to co-sponsor a bill should be equated to voting against it. It’s more akin to “did not vote”, IMHO. There’s no real way to know how she would have voted (or if she would have voted).
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p>I think PolitickerNY’s mischaracterization was an honest one based on what had to be a somewhat hasty reading of this chart, assuming that all the columns were based on votes and not on the hazier concept of sponsorship.
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p>*Except for Nancy Pelosi who gets an “N/A” in this column. Anybody know why that might be? Is the Speaker not allowed to co-sponsor bills?
but her words are surely welcome.
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p>This, by the way, is hilarious:
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p>Hard to argue with that. As I said, at the end of the day I think the pick is a good one. But the day was a long, painful, and embarrassing one, and it revealed that the accidental governor of New York may not be ready for prime time after all.
I suspect that the presence or absence of sincerity is unknowable — unless and until someone interviews her and those personally close to her. But do we even care? Don’t we just need her to vote right?
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p>I think what we’re seeing is that an increase in blueness makes centrist politicians less afraid of embracing progressive positions. I say that with all sincerity.
So she may have been as liberal as she thought her district would allow. Now that her district (NY) is much more liberal, she may move to the left because she doesn’t have to fear losing an election for being too liberal.
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p>Or, maybe she’s just a Blue Dog to the core. Then again, maybe she’ll leave her Blue Dog brethren on social issues to ensure that she keeps her senate seat.
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p>Time will tell if she votes like Mary Landreau or like Hillary Clinton.
The situation continues to evolve. It’s unclear, at this point, what, or who, wins. I don’t think Patterson handled the whole thing all that well and thus, at best, he goes into the election cycle a couple of strikes down.
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p>Gillibrand seems to want to give the impression that she’s sortaa liberal representing a sorta conservative district but that doesn’t explain her strong anti-immigrations stance as well as common cause with other “Blue Dog” Dems and her (initial) TARP vote (NO). She seems to come from a politically connected family (fathers a lawyer/lobbyist and mothers a lawyer) and has the patronage of Chuck Shumer, so arguments used against Caroline Kennedy might be apropos here as well. Al Giordano is not pleased with the netroots on this… and thinks it’s a train wreck in the making. We shall see.
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p>I think Gillibrand will show us what she’s made of within 6 months, at least, that’s the time frame which, I think, will decide a lot of what the election will turn upon. I honestly don’t know what that is… it could be good, it could be bad… we shall see. I continue to think that C Kennedy would have been the optimal progressive choice, but Gillibrand will have a shot at proving me wrong.
Gillibrand has taken public stances on political issues in the past few years, and has demonstrated the ability to raise money and to win elections.
because we’ll never know how kennedy would have acted in office. a timid progressive is little better than a conservative, and we have no idea whether kennedy would have been timid or bold, a tool or a trailblazer. all we will learn in the coming months is what gillibrand is made of. no inferences can ever be drawn to kennedy based on gillibrand’s performance. time to leave the kennedy debate behind, as kennedy herself has done.
Just a quick run-down of her Wiki page reveals she was a former Big Tobacco lawyer and was a fan of the Bush Tax Cuts.
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p>Sounds like the kind of person who will be calling for more tax cuts in the stimulus plan- even if said tax cuts weaken it– and will then say the plan is too big (where were the budget hawks in 01 and 03??).
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p>Politically, this is a stupid pick. It sounds like she is a relative unknown in NY and has little time to build a state-wide profile. A primary challenge by a fellow Congresswoman ain’t gonna help either.
Good grief. So much for more and better Democrats. Paterson has revealed himself to devoid of tact, leadership, and good common sense. As this NYT story describes, he’s created a wholly unnecessary mess.
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p>Personally, I’ll be watching Rep. McCarthy’s challenge closely. I’ll throw her so bucks if she decides to give Gillibrand a run for it.
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p>Cuomo should also give Paterson a run. He’s a dolt.