Moe Lane

There’s a rumor going around that she’s being tapped to replace Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket (no link, sorry: I’m getting this one via email).  Supposedly it’s at the point where certain NY Republicans are quietly exploring the possibility of doing a run for the seat, after all; I’ve heard that at least one downstate Republican elected official is seriously considering going for it.

I’m not all that convinced that this rumor is credible, but I have to admit that my reasons for discounting it are as follows:

• It’s a bad idea for New York Democrats (win or lose, they’ll be removing a potential candidate for Governor down the line);
• It’s a bad idea for national Democrats (they can ill-afford to put yet another Senate seat in play for 2012);
• It’s an embarrassment for everybody who dutifully insisted that Biden would be a net positive for the Obama administration.

Which is to say, none of the reasons would have any effect on Barack Obama – even the last one; he can always claim that choosing Biden wasn’t really entirely voluntary on his part* – and God knows that the man is narcissistic enough to think that he could get away with it.

So, there’s that.

Moe Lane

*It’d be easy, really.  Party leadership wanting to add the voice of experience to the ticket, blah blah, no wish to hurt the party further after the primary, yadda yadda, Obama now realizes that he should have trusted his own judgement more, etc, etc, etc…

Today in the Wall Street Journal we have a fairly caustic editorial about the EPA and its determination to make the city of New York pay for a 1.6 billion dollar cover for a Yonkers water reservoir, whether NYC wants to or not.  Which the city of NYC does not want to do, partially because they don’t have the money, and partially because the specific problem that the EPA is demanding that NYC address isn’t actually a problem for the reservoir.  And what is this specific problem?

Why, it’s the scourge of cryptosporidium (or ‘crypto’), of course.

Cryptosporidium.

Cryptosporidium. (more…)

You’ve come a long way, baby.

(Via Hot Air Headlines) If you were wondering whether or not current Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV) is snapping under the strain of facing Sharron Angle, well, stop wondering.  If he was not snapping, Reid almost certainly would not have made such a strong contrast between Chuckie Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand at a recent NYC fundraiser thrown for Reid by Mayor Bloomberg.  To sum up the difference in the tenor of Reid’s remarks (subtext added):

• Schumer: Chuckie Schumer is so smart and so good at politics!  He was great as DSCC  Chair, too – unlike that idiot we have now who can’t even get rid of one single, troublesome, inconvenient woman…
• Gillibrand: …she’s HOT!  …And, oh, yeah, she knows something about securities law.

(more…)

(H/T: Instapundit) Very cognizant of the plight of the working class:

…the notoriously chatty New York Democrat referred to a flight attendant as a “b[*]tch” after she ordered him to turn off his phone before takeoff.

Schumer and his seatmate, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), were chatting on their phones before takeoff when an announcement indicated that it was time to turn off the phones.

[snip]

“The senator made an off-the-cuff comment under his breath that he shouldn’t have made, and he regrets it,” Schumer spokesman Brian Fallon told Shenanigans.

Just not enough to do so himself. Then again, the flight attendant was merely a woman who wakes up every day wondering Is today the day that they try to use my workspace as a bomb again? – and it’s an open question, of course, which half of that description is more instinctively scorned by Senator Chuck Schumer (D, NY).  And if you think I’m being unfair… well.  I suppose that if you’re likewise in the habit of muttering gender-based epithets to your female coworkers, you might have a different opinion than mine…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

[UPDATE] Welcome, Instapundit readers. And Big Government readers, too.

(Via Atlas Shrugs) For the next time somebody tells you that Democrat/ACORN/WFP election registration fraud does not equal election fraud, feel free to point this story coming from Troy, New York, where the one led seamlessly to the other.  Feel free to also point out that it doesn’t take all that much to flip some races:

Thirty-eight forged or fraudulent ballots have been thrown out — enough votes, an election official admits, to likely have tipped the city council and county elections in November to the Democrats. Candidates would have been able to run both on the Democratic and Working Families Party lines in two weeks, and that could have given the Democrats the general election.

A special prosecutor is investigating the case and criminal charges are possible. New York State Supreme Court Judge Michael Lynch ruled that there were “significant election law violations that have compromised the rights of numerous voters and the integrity of the election process.”

[Bolding mine.]

(more…)

Via Jen Rubin:

Wall Street money rains on Schumer

Wall Street has showered nearly $11 million on the Senate since the beginning of the year, and more than 15 percent of it has gone to a single senator: Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York.

[snip]

Of the $10.6 million the industry has given to sitting senators this year, more than $7.7 million has gone to Democrats. Schumer got his $1.65 million; his New York colleague Kirsten Gillibrand took in $886,000; Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada received $814,000; Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd of Connecticut scored $603,000; Colorado freshman Michael Bennet got $401,000; and Agriculture Committee Chairman Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas— who will have a big say on the derivatives portion of regulatory reform — got $336,000.

Mind you, it’s a perfectly rational decision on Wall Street’s part: paying protection money often is. Despite Yahoo/Politico’s somewhat disingenuous suggestion of ‘Stockholm Syndrome,’ what actually is happening here is a trade. Wall Street gives Schumer – and his new junior partner Gillibrand* – money, and Schumer makes sure that all those potentially fatal regulations and restrictions and investigations that Schumer says and talks about never happen. Remember, this is the guy who declared that the American people don’t care about “little porky amendments:” he’s about as populist as T. Coddington Van Voorhees VII. (more…)

(Via RCP) I’m still trying to reconcile a 46/38 result among registered voters (which represents a flip since January 2009) with Siena’s statement that half of NY voters can want Giuliani to run for neither Governor nor Senator, unless a large proportion of those voters don’t want him to run because he could actually win. Absent a look at the actual questions, I’m not sure whether I can reconcile.  Giuliani in the Senate would be… interesting.  And an improvement over the current incumbent, of course.  Lots of stuff in that poll, by the way: the general thing that you’ll take away from it is that Andrew Cuomo has an almost-lock on the gubernatorial nomination and election, and that New Yorkers loathe their current state government.

It’s going to be an interesting primary there next year.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

RCP has the basic poll details:

…the link itself is broken. However, looking at the trends Sen. Gillibrand is as having as fun an August as just about every other Democrat: in other words, a rotten one.  I don’t know if this means that Pataki will actually run, but it certainly won’t hurt.  And I find that I approve of the Democrats having to spend money defending seats that they assumed would be theirs for forever, and a day…

Crossposted to RedState.

Tsk, tsk, Senator.

This only encourages them.

On the other hand, her party does have a problem with this sort of thing, and I guess that she may need the campaign contributions for next year after all – so now would be a good time to reach out to the base.

But really, madam: Infowars?

Moe Lane

PS: The New York Observer: “The video is already in wide circulation on 9/11 conspiracy web sites.”

I imagine that it must be.

Crossposted to RedState.

The White House decided to make personally certain that an unelected New York Senator with publicly-stated views on gun control and immigration contrary to the rest of her party was not challenged in the primary by a solidly-liberal Representative who is well respected in his caucus. This has caused a good deal of tension in the rest of the New York delegation:

Confusion, conflict mar Gillibrand’s run

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama’s effort to squelch plans by a New York congressman to run in next year’s Democratic primary against Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand apparently succeeded.

In fact, the president’s call to Rep. Steve Israel asking him not to run may rank as a pivotal moment in Gillibrand’s effort to hang onto her seat.

But Obama’s phone call also has angered members of the state’s congressional delegation, who see it as heavy-handed intrusion reminiscent of Tammany Hall party machine politics.

The behind-the-scenes maneuvering has the makings of a political soap opera with some lawmakers feeling pressured to endorse early, some dissatisfied with Gillibrand’s views on key liberal issues, and some too upset to even break bread together.

To begin with, this isn’t ‘Tammany Hall Machine politics.’ Your standard Tammany Hall machine politician would have sneered at the way that the internal conflict between the state and federal power structures ended up in the local papers. As a practical hint: you don’t start this sort of thing by telling a politician not to run. You start by seducing his supporters away, then have them tell him not to run. Sure, it costs more – but it also avoids newspaper articles with headlines like ‘Confusion, conflict mar Gillibrand’s run.’
(more…)

This is funny for two reasons:

Three Potential Challengers Jointly Rap Gillibrand on Guns

The three House Democrats who are talking openly of challenging Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) next year joined together Wednesday to tout gun control legislation that they said highlights the appointed Senator’s shaky record on the issue.

Reps. Carolyn McCarthy, Carolyn Maloney and Steve Israel teamed up for a Capitol Hill news conference on the No Fly, No Buy Act, which would bar people from buying guns if their names are on the Transportation Security Administration’s “no fly list” of suspected terrorists.

While none would confirm that they are running for Senate, their willingness to appear together and tweak Gillibrand suggested that they could put together a potent coalition if one decides to run against her and the others endorse the challenger.

The first reason is, Gillibrand’s getting a really quick lesson in the field of Just How Much Heresy Is Acceptable For A Democratic Senator. Answer? Not all that much. Certainly not when it comes to the field of gun rights, which should be a comfort to whichever GOP candidates we run next year*. As for the second reason… imagine how these three particular Musketeers are going to act towards each other next year if it ends up that Gillibrand is as vulnerable as Murtha or Dodd. They’ll make Kilkenny Cats look like symbiotes.

That’d be dumb of them?  So would accidentally sending your primary opponent an inadvertent notification that you’re going to be an obstructionist.  So what’s your point?

Moe Lane

*Two Senate elections in NY, thanks to the replacement. I can’t imagine that the NRA’s going to be so chintzy as give to one and not the other. Even if the other is facing “Do what you have to do” Schumer.

Crossposted to RedState.

I mention this not so much because she’s unique – she isn’t, especially among Democrats – but because she has her eye on higher office these days.

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) has made it clear that she may launch a primary challenge against Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), whom McCarthy deems too conservative to represent one of the most liberal states in the country.

But McCarthy may have a problem of her own to clear up before she sets her sights on higher office. McCarthy’s top contributor this cycle is the now-defunct PMA Group.

Via Instapundit. The article goes on to note that McCarthy helped block an ethics probe into PMA’s shenanigans (presumably, the one of the ones initiated by Republican Jeff Flake). Say what you like about now-Senator Gillibrand, but her name is conspicuously absent from this list…

Crossposted to RedState.