Is there a candidate prepared to take on "the biggest douchebag 'Democrat' in New York"? Maybe so!

Yes, that's him in the nearest foreground: the biggest douchebag "Democrat" in New York, NYS Senate Majority Co-Leader and President Pro Tempore Jeff Klein. (Our Jeff is chatting with onetime -- one very brief time -- Senate Majority Sort-of-Leader Malcolm Smith.)

"What's good for General Motors is good for the U.S.A."

-- now-obsolete old saying

"What's good for New York State Sen. Jeff Klein is good for New York State Sen. Jeff Klein."

-- new saying

"What Jeff Klein has done is traitorous. It's betrayal not only of the Democratic Party, it's betrayal of the Democratic philosophy, of the Democratic objectives."

-- former NYS Assemblyman and NYC Councilman G. Oliver Koppell

schli·ma·zel. noun. An inept, bungling person who suffers from unremitting bad luck -- e.g., Democratic members of the New York State Senate

by Ken

The listing on the "Daily Kos Recommended" list got my attention: "Meet the biggest douchebag 'Democrat' in New York." "The biggest douchebag 'Democrat' in New York? When a title like that is thrown out in the form of a challenge, and who could resist? You figure it's bound to lead to squabbles -- could there really be a single uncontested claimant to the title?

Then you click through and find the Daily Kos's David Nir has it nailed as he invites us to "Meet the biggest douchebag 'Democrat' in New York -- and the fearless progressive who can unseat him."

You don't automatically think of the NYS Senate as the home of the state's most-anything Democrat. It's hard to think of a time when Democratic state senators had any actual legislative work to do. Mostly their job was to avoid making waves so as to keep the small stream of cash that was reserved for the minority coming their way, since the much larger streams reserved for the near-permanent Republican Senate majority were beyond even their dreams. (Just to be clear: There have always been some distinguished public servants among the NYS Senate Dems. They just didn't in general have much impact on legislative business, and usually were on their way somewhere else.) And on the couple of occasions when circumstances conspired to put Senate Democrats in the majority, they've managed to screw it up until the opportunity was safely passed.

Most recently it happened, you may recall, when the state Republican Party had decayed to the point where it couldn't even hold onto a Senate that was, following the custom of recent decades, custom-gerrymandered to assure their permanent control, while the opposite situation assured permanent Democratic control of the Assembly.

What happened is wonderfully told by David Nir in his Daily Kos post from a couple of days ago (links onsite):

The day after the Nov. 2012 elections, New York Democrats woke up to find they'd won a majority of seats in the 63-member state Senate—enough to take it back from Republicans, who themselves had regained the chamber in the 2010 wave.
But despite what basic math and common sense would dictate, the GOP retained control of the Senate, and still holds it to this day. So how did such an utterly nonsensical turn of events come to pass?

Two words, and remember them well: Jeff Klein.

Klein is a state senator—and a self-described "progressive" Democrat—who represents parts of the Bronx and Westchester County, including the well-to-do neighborhood of Riverdale. Klein served as deputy majority leader during the brief period from 2009-10 when Democrats ran the Senate, the first time they'd done so since the 1950s. It was a chaotic time, marred by dysfunction, and while there was plenty of blame to go around, Klein, as the party's second in command, bore a considerable share of responsibility.

But when the going got tough after Republicans recaptured the Senate in 2010, Klein didn't stick around to help rebuild his party from the inside. Along with three other alleged Democrats (David Valesky, David Carlucci, and Diane Savino), Klein broke away from his caucus to create the so-called Independent Democratic Conference, a group whose sole purpose was to suck up to the GOP.

Klein, who'd always been interested in power for its own sake, was never going to be named leader of his own party after the debacles of the prior two years, so instead, he went over to the Republicans to further his own political ambitions. In exchange, he received (among other things) a custom-carved district—just check out the remarkable lines on that thing—in the hopes of protecting himself from a primary challenge.

But abandonment was just Klein's first step into darkness. The true betrayal came next. As Barack Obama convincingly won re-election and carried New York handily, Democrats captured 33 seats in the state Senate; the GOP, meanwhile, held on to just 30, despite a map they'd gerrymandered for their own advantage. One conservative Democrat (Simcha Felder, who represents one of the reddest districts in the chamber) sided with the Republicans with little hesitation, but that still left Democrats with a 32-31 majority.

Until Klein and his IDC cut a deal with the devil, handing the minority Republicans control of the chamber in exchange for personal perks, committee chairmanships, and for Klein himself, the lofty title of "Co-Leader and President Pro Tempore" of the Senate, which he shares with Republican head honcho Dean Skelos. (The two quickly earned an epithet worthy of Brangelina: Skleinos.)

Stunningly, Klein claimed that he was "not empowering a Republican majority," even though he'd done exactly that. He further insisted that his buddies in the GOP were "committed to seeing major pieces of progressive legislation pass the Senate."

Klein wasn't laughing when he uttered those words, though everyone else was—archly.

And David proceeds to provide a short list of some of the more pungent legislative misdeeds, followed by an eerily similar list of depredations of the new "Skleinos" "bipartisan" Senate leadership, which David describes as "a progressive agenda to make Tom DeLay proud!" "And yet," writes David, "Klein, in a tragicomic bit of self-deception, still considers himself 'a very good Democrat.' "

Of course, no one else on planet reality does, and fortunately, someone who is well positioned to do something about this sordid state of affairs agrees.

That would be former New York City Councilman Oliver Koppell, a lifelong public servant who hails from Klein's backyard, and whose progressive bona fides are without question. And just like any sane Democrat ought to be, he's white-hot furious at Klein:

"I want to run against Jeff Klein not because I want to be state senator—I had 23 years in Albany in the state legislature; it's not that something I hunger for—but what Jeff Klein has done is traitorous, it's betrayal not only of the Democratic Party, it's betrayal of the Democratic philosophy, of the Democratic objectives."

Koppell hasn't yet committed to challenging Klein in the September primary, though it certainly sounds like he wants to. But it will take Koppell a lot of money, and don't forget about Klein's bespoke Senate district, designed to carefully Tetris together his political base. (The good news: It's safely blue.) There are also many union leaders who are steamed at Klein but fear his wrath; they'll need to be convinced that Koppell can truly put an end to Klein's self-serving rebellion.

"Koppell will also need serious support from grassroots progressives," says David, "from folks like us, in other words."

We need to send a message not just to Klein and the IDC, but to wayward Democrats everywhere: If you betray your values and lie down with Republicans for personal gain, you'll pay the ultimate price. We can work together to get rid of Klein, and make sure no one follows in his footsteps.

And to Oliver Koppell, our message is also simple: If you're ready, we've got your back. Let's do this thing.

The continued existence of Jeff Klein is an ongoing embarrassment to, well, everyone -- including, perhaps especially, self-styled "progressive" Jeff Klein. If something can be done about it, I say let's do it.

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