Kirsten Gillibrand Choice Exposes How Weak And Unqualified David Paterson Is To Be Governor... At Least Of A Big State

In 2006 Blue America helped Kirsten Gillibrand defeat bumbling reactionary incumbent John Sweeney and she beat him-- in a Republican-leaning district (PVI-R+3)-- 117,799 (53%) to 104,157 (47%). She presented herself to us as a grassroots progressive reformer but immediately upon taking her seat she joined the pro-business/anti-working family Blue Dogs and has amassed a sickeningly reactionary record since her election. Just looking at substantive issues that divided members of Congress along partisan lines, Gillibrand has been one of the members most likely to abandon the Democrats and vote with the GOP. Only 12 House Democrats have been worse than Gillibrand: Joe Donnelly (IN), Travis Childers (MS), Brad Ellsworth (IN), Heath Shuler (NC), Jason Altmire (PA), Chris Carney (PA), Dan Boren (OK), Harry Mitchell (AZ), Zack Space (OH), Gene Taylor (MS), Gabrielle Giffords (AZ), Collin Peterson (MN). Her record is actually worse than arch-reactionaries like Jim Marshall (GA), Henry Cuellar (TX), Mike McIntyre (NC), John Barrow (GA), Allen Boyd (FL) and Jim Matheson (UT), the Democrats who have done the most to help the Republican leadership build an effective conservative ruling coalition.

Pelosi has taken a dim view of Gillibrand's propensity to cross the aisle on key issues, even voting to keep the war in Iraq going and to allow Bush to put through his FISA policies, and for a moment it looked like Pelosi's antipathy would prevent Gillibrand from being able to push her bid for the New York Senate seat. Many of her colleagues have a low opinion of her as well. In the end it didn't mean anything and Gov. Paterson chose her.

Talking with Gillibrand on the phone, I found her intelligent and credible as a reformer. Her voting record as a member of the House, though, makes it clear that she is far more conservative than any of the other candidates Governor Paterson was said to be considering. She's actually a co-sponsor of Heath Shuler's anti-immigrant SAVE Act, something that should have eliminated her as a contender. Paterson's craven choice was about ticket balancing and her ability to take in massive contributions (bribes) from Big Business interests and he seems to have never seriously considered who would do the best job for New Yorkers. If that had been a consideration, we would have been hearing a lot more shatter about Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the most brilliant member of the New York delegation-- but "too Jewish, too liberal, too New York City."

I'm guessing that this pick will guarantee Paterson a primary opponent (Andrew Cuomo), as well as one against Gillibrand (probably gun control advocate Carolyn McCarthy, whose husband was murdered on the Long Island Railroad by a gun nut. "I'm extremely upset about this. I don't believe," said Rep. McCarthy, "New York should have a senator that has a 100 percent voting record with the NRA.") It is likely that NY-20, Gillibrand's House district, will be eliminated after the 2010 census but Republican Sandy Treadwell, who lost to Gillibrand last year (after spending over $7,000,000, $6,000,000 of it from his own pocket) wants to run again. So do Assembly Minority Leader Jim Tedisco and state senators Sens. Betty Little and Roy McDonald and former Assemblyman John Faso. The Democrats don't have much of a bench in the area although early faves look like Coxsackie Town Supervisor Alex Betke, Saratoga County Democratic chairman Larry Bulman, and Gillibrand's district director, Mike Russo, who ran for the state Senate and lost. Gillibrand is likely to moderate her positions now that she represents a progressive state rather than a backward district-- and she was always more progressive in her heart than in her voting habits-- and I expect that she'll probably tend to be a reliable Democratic vote and may even surprise us by rising to the occasion and becoming a real leader. Let's hope she sheds the Shuler-Tancredo style xenophobia real fast.

I would say that between Blagojevich and Paterson it is clear that the anti-democratic rules of governors picking senators have long outlived their usefulness and should be changed. Voters should pick senators, not governors with their own agendas.


UPDATE: DOES PATERSON KNOW WHO DOUG RUTNIK IS?

When I first interviewed candidate Gillibrand in 2006, she talked a great deal about her mother, Polly Noonan, an Albany Democratic Party big wig and founder of the Albany Democratic Women's Club. She never mentioned her father. I didn't think much of it at the time but after reading Wayne Barrett's story in the Village Voice I understand what Gillibrand wasn't eager to discuss.

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.

On the other hand, Gillibrand is very smart and very reform-minded and, unlike Caroline Kennedy, an elected official in her own right. To many of the Insiders all that seems to matter is who your parents are. Take Larry O'Donnell for example: "Paterson has no comprehension of upstate New York, absolutely none, and has chosen someone better at representing cows than people. What you have is the daughter of a lobbyist, instead of the daughter of a former President or the son of a former governor. This is the hack world producing the hack result that the hacks are happy with.” Sounds like there is at least one very high profile hack who isn't happy at all. Voters should choose senators, by universal suffrage, not governors or Insiders.

The Worst Democraps Who Want To Be President-- Part II, Kirsten Gillibrand

It's been two weeks since we kicked off the series with Tulsi Gabbard, an obscure congresswoman from Hawaii who wants to be president (of the United States). Gillibrand, the junior senator from New York, is slightly better-known. Unfortunately for her, outside of her own state, she is only known as the hateful, manipulative fanatic who got Al Franken's scalp for the #MeTooMovement. But long before people who have now labeled her a "man hater" ever heard of Kirsten Gillibrand, she had proven herself unqualified for any kind of leadership role. In other words, her disgraceful and now widely-recognized, shenanigans around the Franken episode have a context, which, alas, few voters are yet aware of.

When she first got swept into Congress in the 2006 anti-red wave-- she defeated rising GOP star John Sweeney-- who Gillibrand successfully portrayed as a drunken wife-beater, possibly the issue that led her to victory in an R+3 district with a huge GOP registration advantage. The district no longer exists as it did back then but it stretched along the eastern New York border with Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont from the Dutchess County suburbs of NYC up through Rensaeler County east of Albany to as far north as Lake Champlain in Essex County. Sweeney had never had a serious reelection challenge until Gillibrand, with the focused help of the Clintons, destroyed his career. She wound up beating him 125,168 (50.0%) to 110,554 (44.2%).

In 2009, the American Conservative painted a very different picture of Gillibrand than the one I had come to know during the 2006 campaign. She persuaded me-- despite having been the lead defense attorney for Philip Morris in both civil and criminal lawsuits-- that she was a heartfelt progressive. (She claimed she only helped Phillip Morris sell cancer and death so she could have enough money to defend abused women and their children for free. Using abused women and children to advance her career is her #1 trademark; it's what she's known for and what will be on her political tombstone one day.) I admit that I was taken in by her lawyerly guile. "Gillibrand," wrote Michael Dougherty for the American Conservative, "won her upstate New York district by running to the right: she campaigned against amnesty for illegal immigrants, promised to restore fiscal responsibility to Washington, and pledged to protect gun rights. After winning by six points, she joined the conservative-leaning Blue Dog Coalition... In her first term, she voted against McCain-hatched immigration reform, assailed Bush’s bailouts, and received a perfect 100 percent rating from the NRA. She crushed her Republican challenger by 24 points in 2008 and bragged that her voting record was 'one of the most conservative in the state.'" For Blue America she was a lesson learned and we began to reassess our policies of recruitment and candidate support. We had been all in on Gillibrand, even cutting this ad with Rickie Lee Jones and the Squirrel Nut Zippers for her:



In the House, she was a poster child for two things: the NRA and their toxic, murderous agenda, and a really vicious, racist xenophobic campaign against Hispanic-- and, to some extent, Asian-- immigrants. She made her bones among fellow conservatives by breaking theirs-- a real piece of work. An opportunist (they used to call her "Tracy Flick" on Capitol Hill) to her very core-- her goal was to build up her right-wing bona fides by denying drivers licenses to immigrants, by voting to withhold federal funds from sanctuary cities and by voting to make English the official language of the U.S.

When Obama appointed Hillary Clinton Secretary of State, Gillibrand was the choice of the corrupt conservative Democratic establishment-- especially the Clintons-- as the replacement. She immediately went back to pretending to be a progressive since she would soon have to win election statewide. Like I said, no moral core whatsoever. No one doubts she could flip back to her conservative self in an instant if it meant advancing her shameful career. Right now-- aside from trying to claw her way onto a national ticket-- she is a sudden big proponent of eschewing corporate PAC money. This from a bribe-taking machine who has sucked down $9,779,939 from the finance sector, more than any sitting senator who hasn't run for president other than Wall Street bagmen Rob Portman (R-OH) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

But what's made her a national figure has been her scurrilous role in the destruction of Al Franken, somewhat reminiscent of the way she utterly destroyed Sweeney-- with a possibly bogus wife-beating charge-- a decade earlier. For her, revving up a war against men has been a calculated stepping stone towards a White House bid. She maneuvered behind the scenes to force Al Franken to resign, something which now seems to have backfired on her.

This morning, reporting for Politico, Natasha Korecki and Laura Nahmias, wrote that the Franken scandal is haunting Gillibrand's (non-existent) 2020 chances. "Today," they wrote, "nearly a year after Gillibrand led the charge in calling for Franken’s resignation, the anger is fresh on the minds of major donors across the country. More than a dozen prominent West Coast, New York and national donors and bundlers-- many of them women-- said they would never again donate to or fundraise for Gillibrand or would only do so if she ended up as the Democratic presidential nominee. Gillibrand has defended her approach by insisting she placed deeply held personal values over party loyalty. But the still-burning resentment among the donor class now confronts Gillibrand as she explores a presidential bid, cutting her off from influential and deep-pocketed contributors and their networks at a time when an expansive 2020 field will compete for their dollars."

[A] major Manhattan-based donor said the episode raised suspicions that it was a craven political move by Gillibrand.

“I thought she was duplicitous,” the donor said. “Once the whole thing happened with Al Franken, it was confirmed 1 billion percent that she’s not to be trusted. I think that she hurt the Democratic Party. I think that she hurt the Senate. I think that what she did for women in politics was dreadful.”

The Franken accusations came in the weeks after a parade of powerful men were toppled by the movement; among them Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, Louis C.K. and Garrison Keillor. The wounds over Franken’s ouster were reopened, some Democrats say, during confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh, who faced sex misconduct allegations but still took a seat on the Supreme Court.

...Gillibrand has stood her ground, never publicly backing down from the criticism, even when it came from the Democratic Party’s most prolific donor, George Soros. In June, he told the Washington Post he blamed Gillibrand for cornering Franken into resigning, accusing her of doing so “in order to improve her chances,” in 2020.

In August, Gillibrand responded specifically to Soros, telling the Huffington Post in a statement: “If standing up for women who have been wronged makes George Soros mad, that’s on him.”

Gillibrand’s campaign pushed back against the criticism, asserting that the senator did the right thing by speaking up.

I suspect that Bernie wasn't thinking about Gillibrand when he told New York Magazine that he's "not one of those sons of multimillionaires whose parents told them they were going to become president of the United States. I don’t wake up in the morning with any burning desire that I have to be president. If there’s somebody else who appears who can, for whatever reason, do a better job than me, I’ll work my ass off to elect him or her. If it turns out that I am the best candidate to beat Donald Trump, then I will probably run."

Trump and the GOP will be spending hundreds of millions of dollars eviscerating anyone the Democrats run in 2020. But Gillibrand would be their easiest target to destroy, since she's laid so much of the groundwork herself. She is the ultimate opportunistic flip-flopper who, even as a VP nominee, would destroy any chance of making Trump a one-term president. This series is about the worst Democratic prospective candidates. I can't imagine one worse than Tracy Flick.

Gillibrand Is Better Off Polling Less Than 1%

Had someone asked me which presidential candidate has a political father who's in a crazy religionist cult, I would have said "Tulsi Gabbard," and I would have been correct... but not complete. Did you know that another candidate-- also who isn't going anywhere in this race-- has a father connected to a insane cult, an insane cult her step-mother is involved with too? Kirsten Gillibrand has mostly managed to avoid any public discussion of NXIVM (pronounced "nexium"). Unlike Tulsi, who was basically raised inside her father's crazy cult, Gillibrand seems to have succeeded in keeping away from her father's. Don't worry; neither is getting anywhere near the presidency or vice-presidency. Nationally, Tulsi is polling at 1.0% and Gillibrand is polling at 0.5%.

Presumably, if Gillibrand ever got beyond 1% the story of her father's cult-problem would make its way into the media. Investigative reporter Wayne Madsen wrote about the cult in terms of Gillibrand's anti-Franken rampage because... well, it's, among other things, a sex slave cult... and the sex slaves are all women.

Gillibrand is the daughter of longtime Albany lobbyist and political fixer Doug Rutnik... Rutnik, who divorced Gillibrand's mother, also served as the attorney for the NXIVM sex slave cult, which maintains its headquarters in Clifton Park, 20 miles north of Albany, and branded female sex slaves with cult leader [Keith] Raniere's initials. Raniere also required his female members to submit to photographs of their vaginas, "collateral" he would then make public in the event they failed to obey his orders.

For Gillibrand to have called for Franken's resignation over a few innocuous hand gestures and comments, which Gillibrand believed constituted serious sexual harassment unworthy of a senator, makes the junior senator from New York a paragon of hypocrisy.

Rutnik received $25,000 a month from NXIVM for his legal services... NXIVM also had Trump's close friend and adviser Roger Stone, a notorious Republican dirty tricks operative, on its payroll... It is not just Rutnik who has had a relationship with NXIVM. It turns out that his wife, Gwen Bellcourt, Gillibrand's stepmother, was deeply involved with NXIVM through its president, Nancy Salzman, a neuro-linguistic programming "nurse."

Big League Politics ran a piece about the scandal 3 months ago. (Since then, Raniere and Salzman were found guilty, about a month ago, on a wide array of charges, some horrific.)

Kirsten Gillibrand’s lobbyist father Doug Rutnik was employed by the NXIVM sex cult, according to court documents.

An eyewitness describes how Gillibrand sat at the NXIVM table at a Hillary Clinton fundraiser.

“The very first time I ever met Gillibrand she was at an event for Hillary Clinton in the Hall of Springs in the State Park. This was in 2006. I was at a table with a Russian friend and Mike Roohan and his wife. I was on the Democratic committee at the time and was given two comp tickets. Gillibrand came up to me introduced herself and said she was running against John Sweeney. This was before all the stories of his drunken behavior came out. He was still congressman kickass at that time. I promised my support and wished her well. i than commented to Mike that with her baby voice and demeanor that she was a lightweight. Boy was I wrong. But the kicker was when the mixing was over and Clinton went to speak. Gillibrand sat with one of the front tables. Yeah the three front VIP tables were all brought by NXIVM and she was sitting with Nancy Salzman. You can quote me on that,” said witness John Tighe.

Nancy Salzman has pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy while her daughter Lauren Salzman admitted to enslaving a woman, stating in court, “I knowingly and intentionally harbored Jane Doe 4, a woman whose identity is known to me, in a room in the home in the Northern District of New York” and “threatened to deport Jane Doe 4 back to Mexico if she did not complete labor requested by myself and others.”

Former NXIVM employee Frank Parlato provided Big League Politics with copies of the court documents in NXIM’s suit against Rutnik, which prove Rutnik’s employment by the group... “Her father Doug Rutnik came to work as a consultant for NXIVM…he was fired, they sued him, and he had to pay them $100,000,” Parlato said, referring Gillibrand’s father.

Parlato is the NXIVM whistleblower who blew the lid off the case, including the revelation that NXIVM leader Keith Raniere’s cult was branding women with his initials.

“Her father’s wife, her stepmother, was also a member of NXIVM... Doug got her into the cult, Gillibrand’s father got Gillibrand’s future stepmother into the cult. Doug left the cult because he was sued. Clare Bronfman after her father was sued donated money to Gillibrand. Gillibrand accepted it.”

“One is inclined to call her a liar,” Parlato says of Gillibrand.

Would Kirsten Gillibrand Be An Even More Catastrophic Candidate Than The Last One The Democrats Tried Shoving Down America's Throat?

I got to know Kirsten Gillibrand in 2006, when Blue America endorsed her in her race race against GOP drunkard and wife-beater John Sweeney. I found her very engaging and very smart, far smarter than the average first time congressional candidate. Her race was a major Blue America priority. She was one of the candidates we got Rickie Lee Jones and the Squirrel Nut Zippers to record an ad for-- an ad we got up on the radio in the Albany and Burlington media markets:



Back in those days, NY-20 was a pretty red district with a PVI of R+3. It took up most of New York's eastern border and most of the Hudson Valley, both mother and south of Albany (although it didn't include Albany itself. It went from Dutchess County in the south all the way up into Essex County up north. There were 197,473 registered Republicans and just 82,737 registered Democrats. Gillibrand ran as a progressive although with a few reservations. Both Hillary and Bill Clinton campaigned for her in the district and she was a DCCC priority. They spent $800,000 on the race, helping her close the fundraising gap with Sweeney, who spent $3,425,841 to Gillibrand's $2,595,659. In the end, she beat him 117,799 (53%) to 104,157 (47%), part of the big Democratic wave that year that netted the Democrats 31 seats-- and the House majority.

Anyway, she made it into the House and immediately joined the Blue Dogs and started voting very corporately and very conservatively, comfortably recalling her old days as an intern for crooked Republican Alfonse D’Amato. I was horrified to think how badly I had misread her, thinking that because she was smart and knowledgeable and friendly, she was also progressive. She was anything but. She didn't seek out a reputation as a crazy anti-Hispanic xenophobe (who cosponsored Heath Shuler's vicious and bigoted anti-immigrant SAVE Act), a gun nut, with an "A" from her pals at the NRA, and a reputation for always being happy as a lark to vote for the GOP on just about anything-- but that reputation fit her well.

When Hillary left her Senate seat in 2009 and Gov. David Paterson was pressured to give the seat to Gillibrand, I wrote that "only 12 House Democrats have been worse than Gillibrand: Joe Donnelly (IN), Travis Childers (MS), Brad Ellsworth (IN), Heath Shuler (NC), Jason Altmire (PA), Chris Carney (PA), Dan Boren (OK), Harry Mitchell (AZ), Zack Space (OH), Gene Taylor (MS), Gabrielle Giffords (AZ), Collin Peterson (MN). Her record is actually worse than arch-reactionaries like Jim Marshall (GA), Henry Cuellar (TX), Mike McIntyre (NC), John Barrow (GA), Allen Boyd (FL) and Jim Matheson (UT), the Democrats who have done the most to help the Republican leadership build an effective conservative ruling coalition. Pelosi has taken a dim view of Gillibrand's propensity to cross the aisle on key issues, even voting to keep the war in Iraq going and to allow Bush to put through his FISA policies, and for a moment it looked like Pelosi's antipathy would prevent Gillibrand from being able to push her bid for the New York Senate seat. Many of her colleagues have a low opinion of her as well. In the end it didn't mean anything and Gov. Paterson chose her.

As soon as she was appointed to the Senate, Gillibrand set about re-packaging herself as a "progressive," albeit one who has taken $7,706,930 from the Finance Sector, more than any current Democrat in the Senate other than Chuck Schumer. Morons believe the repackaging as gospel. Rebecca Traister isn't a moron, but yesterday, writing for New York did a puff piece on behalf of Gillibrand's crusader to occupy the White House. In the context of Trump Ascendant I suppose if you're open-minded enough almost anyone is also gullible enough to let someone like Gillibrand get away with putting herself over as a progressive, although even Traister admits she had a "reputation as a moderate upstate hack, an unremarkable product of New York’s political machine." She then makes the spurious and laughably transparent claim that "Gillibrand had staked out the most defiant position among her colleagues, casting the most 'no' votes against his Cabinet nominees of any senator... earning admiration from progressives frustrated by other Democrats’ initial willingness to 'work with' Republicans."

One of Gillibrand’s staffers describes her as “hair-on-fire excited” about the numbers of calls her colleagues are receiving from voters on any number of issues. “I’ve certainly never lived through an era like this,” Gillibrand says. “I’ve never lived through a moment in history where people are using their voices and becoming strong advocates for what they believe in.” [She's 50, but was a conservative until fairly recently, so, true, she never had lived through such a time.] The only comparable contemporary example is from the right: the tea-party wave that swept through Congress in 2010.

“The grassroots are doing this,” says Gillibrand. “I mean, nobody told them to do it. Nobody told women to march. Nobody told people to run to JFK after the immigration ban. The message isn’t coming from Washington; that’s the crux. The message is coming from regular people, and no one is telling them what to do.”

...For someone who has established a position as one of the most anti-Trump Democrats in the Senate, Gillibrand seems to have a lot of Republican friends. She has avidly sought out conservative support for her most ambitious endeavors, including the 9/11 health bill and sexual-assault legislation, and has regularly partnered with Republicans on smaller-beans measures like banning microbeads from personal-care products, which she did in 2015 with Ohio Republican Rob Portman. “A remarkable success in an era of never doing anything,” she tells me drily.

Tennessee Republican Bob Corker once called Gillibrand a “honey badger.” One of her staffers says what this means is “she will work over her Republican colleagues hard to find a place they can agree.” (Dems, too: “Kirsten will follow somebody down the hall to talk to them about an issue, follow them into their office,” says Elizabeth Warren.) One of her favorite Republican partners, Susan Collins, whose wedding shower Gillibrand helped to throw five years ago, described her as “very tenacious, and I mean that as a great compliment.”

In early March, Collins and Gillibrand filed legislation to protect seniors against fraud, and Gillibrand hopes to persuade Collins to become a Republican co-sponsor of the Family Act, Gillibrand’s big paid-family-leave bill. “I know Susan’s worldview is similar to my worldview,” says Gillibrand. “Which is that we’re here to help people, and if we’re not helping people, we should go the fuck home.”

Ooh... just like Susan Collins, but willing to say "fuck" on the record! She refused to join the Young Dems in college but no one seems to know if she actually joined the Young Republicans before going to work for D’Amato. People do recall, though, that she was a corporate attorney who defended tobacco giant Philip Morris in court. By 2000 though, she seemed to have decided to "be" a Democrat, a Clinton Democrat who believed in equality for herself (and other women).

[T]he gun-friendly, anti-immigration stances that Gillibrand espoused upstate became instantly toxic when she was appointed to fill Clinton’s Senate seat. Senior Assemblyman Peter Rivera released a statement calling her immigration positions, including her opposition to amnesty and support for a guest-worker program that he likened to “21st-century slavery,” as “border[ing] on xenophobia.”

“The press pool was taking bets on how many months I would last,” Gillibrand says. “There was nobody in the state who thought I had any shot at being a good senator.” She began a course correction immediately. Within weeks of her appointment, she was meeting with Representative Nydia Velázquez on immigration and visiting with the family of Nyasia Pryear-Yard, a Brooklyn teenager killed by a stray bullet at a party.

Gillibrand flinches the first couple times I bring up her flip-- evidence to many that she is at least as opportunistic as she is idealistic, maybe more so. “I never changed my values,” she says defensively. Eventually she explains that her shift wasn’t an evolution; it was an education... During the 2016 primary, Gillibrand used her own change of heart to level criticism at Bernie Sanders, her frequent Senate ally, for his record on gun control.

She claims she's changed. I don't believe it. I'm one of those won't-be-fooled-again critics who still sees her as another opportunistic phony, the prototypical EMILY's List fake liberal whose concerns don't go further than what she sees in the mirror. Like Hillary she's wrapped herself in a kind of mainstream political feminism for rich white women. It's her crusade. Traister writes that she "a bit of a gender essentialist." If the Democrats are foolish enough to ever nominate her for president, she lose even worse than Hillary did and for many of the same reasons. And the Democrats will deserve the defeat.

KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND: NY-20 MAKING THE MOVE TOWARDS A SERIOUS CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVE

Growing up in Brooklyn, I never could understand how a Jewish person, in this case, New York's senior Senator, Jacob Javits, could be a Republican (who, I was already convinced at a young age, were nothing but a bunch of authoritarian right wingers like Barry Goldwater, Strom Thurmond and Hitler). But Javits was a different kind of Republican-- a liberal; they don't have them anymore-- and so was my college housemate's uncle, Gerald Solomon. I was a political science major and I was excited that my housemate had a congressman, albeit a Republican one, for an uncle. He represented a gigantically sprawling upstate district, so long that people in the southern part, Dutchess County, commute to New York City while people in the middle, say Rensselaer County, work in Albany, and people way up in Essex County... well, they could work in Montreal if they wanted to.

When Gerald Solomon retired in 1998 after being a congressman basically forever, a whole slew of mainstream Republicans like himself lined up to take his place. In fact there were 9. Solomon said 8 of the 9 were well-qualified to represent the area and only one was unqualified: John Sweeney, a right wing imbecile and slavish hack to New York Governor George Pataki. Sweeney refused to join the debates and the other candidates split the mainstream vote, allowing Pataki's clone to waltz in to Congress in a heavily Republican district. About 55% rural and only 2% African-American, Bush beat Kerry here with 54% of the vote (and Sweeney took 66%, against Doris Kelly, a Democrat who spent just over $20,000 on the race, against Sweeney's $1.4 million). Well, in 2006 Sweeney may be tap-dancing but he sure isn't waltzing, and his current opponent, Kirsten Gillibrand, our special guest today at Firedoglake, has the resources to match Sweeney's corporate bribes.

Anyone interested in the nonstop foibles of one of the least competent members of Congress, can spend hour and hours reading the fascinating stories about Sweeney at 20TrueBlue, a blog dedicated to shining a bright light on Sweeney's ineptitude, buffoonery and faithlessness. And if you still want more, there's always the wonderfully-written Democracy In Albany blog. Or you could go out on the stump with Kirsten, a brilliant and charismatic attorney (and mom) who doesn't hesitate to tell it exactly like it is when it comes to the hapless, in-way-over-his-head Sweeney.

"John Sweeney," she told me a few weeks ago, "hasn't been a strong advocate for the needs of this district or for the needs of middle class families... He has been a supporter of Medicare Part D-- keeping people here from buying affordable drugs across the border and keeping the U.S. government from negotiating bulk rates for drugs..." And that isn't the only beef Kirsten has had with Sweeney.


"He's voted against almost every kind of veterans benefit you could vote against-- from health care, job training, and education to housing opportunities. He's voted 100% with George Bush on the Iraq war and has never once asked the tough questions it would take to start to hold the president accountable for his decisions... When Mr. Sweeney ran for office, he told voters he firmly opposed NAFTA-- and then immediately supported CAFTA, took a trip to the Dominican republic and watched 100,000 manufacturing jobs in New York State get shipped overseas."

Kirsten is ready for real leadership and will be on the team that is tasked with cleaning up the horrendous mess made by Bush and rubber stamp nitwits like Sweeney. She's running on middle-class taxcuts, like making college tuition tax deductible, rather than on the kinds of tax cuts for millionaires Sweeney has supported-- while he has consistently voted against raising the minimum wage (while voting to give himself 8 pay raises).

Kirsten sees the problem of energy independence as both a matter of national security and as a way to spur economic development and environmentalism. "Folks in our district are very concerned with the price of gas. They are also concerned that this Administration and Congressman Sweeney have refused to stand up to Big Oil. As a consequence people believe that the oil companies have been manipulating the market. No one will be surprised to see has below $2.50/gallon by election day and over $3/gallon a few days after. One of the first things I want to do when I'm elected to Congress is to investigate the oil industry for market manipulation."

Kirsten is also a self-described "hawk" when it comes to finance reform in politics. She's made a pledge to the voters-- a kind of IOU-- that outlines what her constituents can expect of her in terms of ethics.

Kirsten came to politics younger than most people, mostly because her grandmother had been a secretary in the New York legislature. "All the legislators were men and all the secretaries were women. My grandmother organized the Women's Democratic Club of Albany. She was a pioneer for women's rights in this area... When you care about something deeply, you have to stand up for it and you have to fight for it. And you have to put your whole heart and soul into it. I'm running because we need a new direction in this country and we need leaders who are willing to fight for our values and putting our families and our priorities first."

Can she win? Most polls show an even split. The last Democrat who went up against Sweeney spent, as I mentioned earlier, less than $24,000, while Sweeney spent $1.4 million. Kirsten has already raised well over that. I also mentioned it's a very Republican district. It is, but polls show that less than a third of the residents approve of the job Bush has been doing as president. Voter registration in NY-20 is not an insurmountable problem. The Republicans there are fiscally conservative, socially progressive and pro-environmental. Like Bush, Sweeney doesn't fit in with any of those precepts. They spend money like drunken sailors, allow Big Business despoil the environment for their bottom line and, of course, are completely reactionary and intolerant when it comes to social issues. In the recent past, Democrats have won in NY-20. Schumer took a whopping 57% of the vote, nearly as many Republicans as the Republican candidate! When Spitzer ran for Attorney General he won with 59% in NY-20. He's on the ballot and campaigning for Kirsten, as is Hillary Clinton who is also expected to win big in the district.

Like everywhere, people are fed up with the Bush Regime and its disastrous policies and fed up with the rubber stamp enablers like John Sweeney. Some say it looks like a perfect storm scenario and I'm buying in to that, especially for a candidate as strong as Kirsten. Please join me at the Blue America ActBlue page to let Kirsten know we appreciate her taking the stands she's taking and fighting an arrogant bully and Know-Nothing like Sweeney. The first 25 donors who add .05 to their contribution will get a copy of a great new CD, The Essential Donovan, his 14 greatest hits. And quite a few people have asked about the "Had Enough" Firedoglake clock that Ann made. Today we can give away a dozen to the first 12 people who donate at least $50 to Kirsten's campaign. Let's make sure Kirsten is with us in DC at the Blue America swearing in day party the first week in January.

Quote of the day: We're not surprised that Rep.-elect Kirsten Gillibrand is taking a radical step toward airing out the workings of government

Is this a great picture, or what? We couldn't resist reprinting this photo, first seen on DWT in October when Howie wrote a post titled "Kirsten Gillibrand: NY-20 Making the Move Towards a Serious Congressional Representative." He wrote then: "Kirsten is ready for real leadership, and will be on the team that is tasked with cleaning up the horrendous mess made by Bush and rubber-stamp nitwits like [Rep. John] Sweeney."

As we all know, Kirsten indeed went on to unseat the "rubber-stamp nitwit" Sweeney in November. And so far, she gives every evidence of taking her congressional responsibilities, well, seriously. Now, it appears, she's even leading a revolution:

"It is a quiet touch of revolution. The level of transparency pledged by [Rep.-elect Kirsten] Gillibrand, Democrat of New York--down to naming lobbyists and fund-raisers among those she might meet with--is simply unheard of in Congress. The secrecy that cloaks the dealings of lawmakers and deep-pocket special interests underpinned the corruption issue that Ms. Gillibrand invoked as voters turned Republicans from majority rule last month.
--from an editorial in today's New York Times

The New York Times
December 14, 2006
Editorial

Congress and the Benefits of Sunshine

At first, the innovation sounds simple enough: Representative-elect Kirsten Gillibrand has decided to post details of her work calendar on the Internet at the end of each day so constituents can tell what she is actually doing for their money.

In fact, it is a quiet touch of revolution. The level of transparency pledged by Ms. Gillibrand, Democrat of New York--down to naming lobbyists and fund-raisers among those she might meet with--is simply unheard of in Congress. The secrecy that cloaks the dealings of lawmakers and deep-pocket special interests underpinned the corruption issue that Ms. Gillibrand invoked as voters turned Republicans from majority rule last month.

For all the worthy proposals for ethics reform being hashed out by the incoming Congress, a heavy dose of Internet transparency should not be overlooked in the effort to repair lawmakers' tattered credibility. The technology is already there, along with the public's appetite for more disclosure about the byways of power in Congress.

The Web is increasingly wielded by both campaign donors and bloggers clicking and tapping as wannabe muckrakers. Politicians would be wise to catch up. Local citizens were enlisted to track pork-barrel abuses in the last campaign by a new watchdog organization, the Sunlight Foundation, which enlisted Ms. Gillibrand's disclosure pledge. It aims to have voters use the Internet as an engine of political information.

Much more than disclosure is needed to cure the Capitol's ills--particularly some sort of independent agency to prod Congress to fully investigate corruption allegations. But prompt, searchable postings of basic data--from lobbyists' itineraries and expenses to incumbents' donor ties and legislative labors--should be part of any corruption cure. In the information age, this amounts to a modest proposal for a Congress truly intent on reform.

If you're wondering where Representative-elect Gillibrand is getting these wild ideas, check out the Sunlight Foundation's website, where a short list of three proposals "achievable in the short term" is set out:

We have a long list of ideas we'd like to see Congress pursue along these lines: proposals like publishing their official calendar would be at the top of that list, so too would be applying FOIA to Congress. But we are realistic in what we think can be achieved at this point in time and so we have identified three specific priorities for the incoming Congress. They would all create meaningful change, and we believe they are achievable in the short term.

Hillary... Better Than Trump, Better Than Cruz

Tea and pastries are on Wall Street

Yesterday I was upstairs putting on my shoes and socks and MSNBC was on. Andrea Mitchell was in the middle of an interview with Kirsten Gillibrand, the upstate New York politician who was appointed to Hillary's Senate seat in 2009 when Obama gave Hillary the Secretary of State job. Wikipedia correctly defines her politics with this description: "A member of the Democratic Party's relatively conservative Blue Dog faction while in the House, Gillibrand has been seen as a progressive since her appointment to the Senate. In both cases, her views were significantly defined by the respective constituency she served at the time-- a conservative congressional district versus the generally liberal state of New York. For example, while quiet on the U.S. military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy when she was in the House, during her first 18 months in the Senate, Gillibrand was an important part of the successful campaign to repeal it." That's a nice way of explaining that she panders and isn't a values-driven leader.

In 2006, when she first ran, I got to know her pretty well. I liked her a lot and Blue America took an active role in helping her raise money and working out messaging against John Sweeney. We even got Rickie Lee Jones to record a little campaign jingle for her (below). And it certainly wasn't just Blue America backing her. She ran as a progressive and had the backing of the Working Families Party. Both Hillary and Bill Clinton campaigned for her in the very red district. She probably won because Sweeney was a drunkard and a wife-beater and his wife called the police on him during the campaign for battery.



As soon as Gillibrand entered Congress she joined the Blue Dogs and started voting with the Republicans on almost everything. By the time she was up for reelection there wasn't a trace of progressivism left in her and Blue America would have been more likely to back a primary opponent than to support Gillibrand for anything.

When I watched her on MSNBC I was chuckling at the irony of Hillary using her as a surrogate against Bernie. After all, the main thrust of Hillary's absurd and deceitful attacks on Bernie is that he's an NRA-shill. Bernie's NRA score is a D-minus. Gillibrand was an NRA heroine who was graded an "A" with a 100% perfect score on their issues. She's since flip-flopped into a vaguely anti-NRA stance. She's actually perfect for the job of Hillary surrogate-- a dishonest political hack speaking for another opportunistic careerist with no strong values beyond personal advancement. This morning Gillibrand claimed Hillary will be releasing the transcripts of the paid speeches she made to the Wall Street banksters that she's been hiding all through the campaign and insisted during last night's debate that no one will see them unless they're pried out of her cold, dead hands-- or if Ted Cruz releases his first.

Yesterday Nate Roberts shared some thoughts on a Bernie reddit page, A Hillary presidency will not be more progressive because of Bernie's primary challenge and watching Gillibrand on TV made me want to share it, especially with the DWT contingent from New York. "Bernie supporters," he wrote, "who keep repeating the comforting line that 'even if he loses he will have forced Hillary to take more progressive positions,' are in for a rude shock." Nate's got that right!

First, if she wins she'll be even more indebted to her corporate investors, who are the only ones sticking by her and keeping her campaign afloat in the face of a democratic revolution.

Second, the idea that Hillary is some kind of weather vane, who adopts whatever positions poll well is a complete myth. She tailors her public pronouncements to what focus group research is telling her, but her core values and inclinations are thoroughly elitist, militarist, and conservative (with only a few exceptions, like her being pro-choice).

Third, she is a HIGHLY vindictive person, who is known to nurture grudges for decades over far smaller affronts than progressives daring to thwart her lifetime ambition. Not only will she screw progressives over, she'll go out of her way to do so. She'll fuck them even when she doesn't need to. She'll make Rahm Emanuel's hippie punching look like kids stuff and she'll have the power to make it really hurt. And the first thing on her agenda will be killing net neutrality, because that is not only the source off all opposition but her personal Achilles heel.

If she is elected there will be very dark days ahead. This election really is a matter of life and death. Not just for the Clintons, but for any hope of a progressive future. Even Trump or Cruz, as bad as they are, do not represent the threat to progressivism that she does.

This is just some of the reasons it's truly "Bernie or bust."

But... she's better than Trump or Cruz. Neither of them, though, is in the Democratic primary.

Worst Senate Democrat of 2017-- It Was Not Joe Manchin

Kirsten Gillibrand is a real piece of crap-- the worst Democratic senator of the year-- worse than Joe Manchin, worse than Claire McCaskill, worse than Heidi Heitkamp, worse than Mark Warner, Joe Donnelly, Tom Carper, DiFi or Michael Bennet. All those senators score “F” from ProgressivePunch. Gillibrand was given an “A.” So why is she the worst Democrat in the Senate?

When Gillibrand first ran for Congress in 2006, Blue America endorsed her and I got to know her pretty well. She flat out lied to me for the whole campaign, pretending to be a progressive. As soon as she won, she revealed her true colors, joining the Blue Dogs, running up a reactionary voting record, being the poster child for the NRA (which graded her votes in Congress “A”) and, worst of all, leading an ugly, xenophobic, anti-Latino jihad in New York that sought to deny Hispanic immigrants drivers licenses. I realized immediately that she didn’t have any values at all and was strictly an opportunist with no core, just a craving for advancement. What a monster! I should have paid more attention when people warned me away from her because of her work as the lead attorney defending Phillip Morris when they were lying about tobacco’s relationship to cancer and other diseases. (She claimed she only helped Phillip Morris sell death so she could have enough money to defend abused women and their children for free. Using abused women and children to advance her career has always been one of her most overarching traits.)

Gillibrand was lucky enough to be swept into office in an anti-Republican wave, although it didn’t hurt her when a 9-11 call was released that had her opponent’s wife calling the police to report he was beating her up. The opponent, John Sweeney, claimed the 9-11 tape was fake and his wife backed him up. But he never recovered from the terrible press. Once Gillibrand started voting, people wondered what difference it made to have her or a Republican. She became infamous for her vote to-- wait for it-- withhold federal funds from sanctuary cities. She actively campaign against undocumented immigrants getting drivers licenses and voted to make English the official language.

When Obama appointed Hillary Clinton Secretary of State, Gillibrand was the choice of the corrupt conservative Democratic establishment-- especially the Clintons-- as the replacement. She immediately went back to pretending to be a progressive since she would soon have to win election statewide. Like I said, no moral core whatsoever. She has accepted more Wall Street bribes ($9,151,324) than anyone currently serving in the Senate other than former presidential candidates John McCain and Marco Rubio, and the notoriously corrupt bankster allies Chuck Schumer ($26,727,695), Rob Portman ($10,753,434) and Pat Toomey ($9,178,850). Everyone in Washington knows she’s for sale.

But that’s all old news— and not the reason we’re naming her the worst Senate Dem of 2017. She won that distinction by revving up a war against men in the hope that it will serve as a stepping stone towards a presidential bid. She maneuvered behind the scenes to force Al Franken to resign, something which has, fortunately, backfired against her. A new poll from PPP, released Thursday, in fact, shows that most Minnesotans are pissed off how it all went down and do not want to see Franken forced out of office. And you know who’s the most pissed off? Democratic women. Key findings:

• 50% of voters think he should not resign, to only 42% who think he should go through with his planned resignation. There is little appetite from Democratic voters at the state level for Franken to go, with 71% opposing his departure. A majority of independents- 52%- as well think he should not resign, with just 41% favoring his exit.
• Franken remains well above average in popularity for a Senator, with 53% of voters approving of the job he’s doing to 42% who disapprove. PPP rarely finds Senators with majority approval in their home states. Franken’s continued popularity is being driven especially by women. 57% of them like the job he’s doing to 37% who don’t. By contrast Donald Trump stands at 40/58 with women in the state.
• Minnesotans don’t like how the process with Franken’s resignation has played out. 60% think the Senate Ethics Committee should have completed its investigation (including 79% of Democrats and 61% of independents) before any decision was made about Franken’s future, while only 35% think he should resign immediately. Beyond that 76% of Minnesota voters think their voices should have been more important in determining whether Franken stayed in the Senate or not, to only 12% who think that should have been determined more by his fellow Senators in Washington.

Side from Gillibrand and the senators she bamboozled into supporting her decision to force Franken out, the only group that supports him resigning at self-described Republicans and admitted Trump voters.

Since Gillibrand thought it so important for her little lynch mob to go back and dig up dirt on Franken from before he was in the Senate, wouldn’t it be fair to litigate Gillibrand’s own anti-Hispanic activities from when she was already in Congress. Why should anyone tolerate a racist and bigot like her among Democrats, especially coupled with all the blatant hypocrisy and corruption? I'm afraid Kirsten Gillibrand should resign.

Everyone's Sorry-- Except Trump, Who Isn't Sorry For Anything

Did you watch Jake Tapper's CNN show Sunday? Is this what the primary is going to be about-- a parade of unaccomplished candidates apologizing for their unsavory pasts? Then it all becomes a test of who you believe and who you think is just an opportunist faking it. (Gillibrand is the worst so far-- refusing to apologize for destroying Al Franken's career, while making up the crappiest excuses for why she espoused xenophobic, racist, gun-loving policies as a House member-- basically blaming her constituents and demonstrating how she was/is a complete sociopath.) Tulsi was on the show too, but she sounded more credible and authentic in her apologies to the LGBTQ community for "offensive and hurtful statements" in the distant past.

I wonder if interviewers will spend much time speaking with Joe Biden about his slavish devotion to banksters? His handling of the Anita Hill testimony? His "hands on" behavior towards women? The 1994 crime bill? His grotesque anti-integration agenda back in Delaware? His crusade for mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes. Here he is in 1989 attacking Bush from the right for being soft on crime. [And he's OFF!] Yeah... ultimately it will be Biden who's the sorriest of all.

And Biden's not the only candidate with a weak criminal justice record. I haven't heard anyone-- at least not on TV-- take on Kamala Harris for her wobbly record as California Attorney General, particularly in regard to letting Mnuchin off scott free. Lara Bazelon, former director of Loyola Law School Project for the Innocent, in the NY Times last week: "Time after time, when progressives urged her to embrace criminal justice reforms as district attorney and then the state's attorney general, Ms. Harris opposed them or stayed silent. Most troubling, Ms. Harris fought tooth and nail to uphold wrongful convictions that been secured through official misconduct that included evidence tampering, false testimony and the suppression of crucial information by prosecutors."

Christopher Cadelago wrote a piece for Politico about The I'm Sorry Democratic Primary:

Gabbard issued her apology this week in a video after the past remarks resurfaced with her presidential ambitions. CNN published statements and reports from earlier in her career, including a 2002 quote in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin where she spoke about working against same-sex marriage with her father’s anti-LGBT organization. Also included was a Gabbard quote from her time as a state legislator, when she advocated that “as Democrats, we should be representing the views of the people, not a small number of homosexual extremists.”

“In my past, I said and believed things that were wrong, and worse, they were very hurtful to the people in the LGBTQ community and to their loved ones,” Gabbard said in the apology video.



For Gillibrand, who announced her plans to seek the White House Tuesday on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the questions she now faces trace back to her political rise in 2006. That year, she won an underdog challenge to Republican then-Rep. John Sweeney in a GOP-heavy, overwhelmingly white New York district.

In the House, Gillibrand earned an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association; opposed driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants; and, according to a CNN report, opposed “amnesty for illegal immigrants” and voted to increase funding for U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to work with local law enforcement on deportations. Those and other past Gillibrand positions, including wanting to make English the official language of the U.S., were recounted in painstaking detail by Maddow.

The liberal host didn’t hold back in her introduction, referring to Gillibrand’s political “transformation.”

“She has been on her own party’s right,” the popular MSNBC host said. “She has been on her own party’s left.”

Gillibrand, for her part, said she came to realize the errors of her ways when she became a senator and met with the Brooklyn family of a slain teenager-- a story she often cites to explain her shift on gun control. “And now, I’ve been a leader on these issues,” the senator added, noting her support for universal background checks and bans on assault rifles and large magazines.

Later, Maddow said she was struck to hear Gillibrand tell CBS’ “60 Minutes” that she was essentially embarrassed by her previous positions on immigrants.

“Well, I don't think it was driven from my heart. I was callous to the suffering of families who want to be with their loved ones, people who want to be reunited with their families,” Gillibrand said.

Looking back, she added, “I really regretted that I didn’t look beyond my district and talk about why this is an important part of the United States story, and why it’s an important part of our strength.”

And there's Cory Booker. Is he going to start apologizing for his coziness with Wall Street? How about his charter school support, which he was up to again over the weekend.

Wouldn't you rather hear candidates saying something like this instead of whining about being sorry about their miserable records? Guess who said this: "When so many others have abdicated their responsibility, it's on all of us to breathe fire."

One of the many things Trump is never sorry about is the swampiest administration in American history. The worst and most ignorant "executive" always surrounds himself with people even stupider than he is. In his new book, Let me Finish, Chris Christie wasn't complementary about most Trump staffers or the staff in general. Nothing we didn't already know, but...

Donald so urgently needed the right people around him and a solid structure in place... Far too often, he’s found himself saddled with the riffraff.

Instead of high-quality, vetted appointees for key administration posts, he got the Russian lackey and future federal felon Michael Flynn as national security adviser. He got the greedy and inexperienced Scott Pruitt as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

He got the high-flying Tom Price as health and human services secretary. He got the not-ready-for-prime-time Jeff Sessions as attorney general, promptly recusing himself from the Justice Department’s Russian-collusion probe. He got a stranger named Rex Tillerson as secretary of state…

He got the Apprentice show loser Omarosa Manigault in whatever Omarosa’s job purported to be. (I never could figure that one out.)… Too few Kellyanne Conways. A boatload of Sebastian Gorkas. Too few Steven Mnuchins.

One Kellyanne is way more than enough. Ditto for Mnuchin, who should actually be in prison. But the rest of the assessments all seem right on. But don't mix up the Chris Christie book with the Cliff Sims White House tell-all, Team of Vipers. Who's sorry now? Former Trump chief of staff John Kelly? "This is the worst fucking job I’ve ever had. People apparently think that I care when they write that I might be fired. If that ever happened, it would be the best day I’ve had since I walked into this place."

What Do Progressives In Upstate New York Think Of The Candidate Democratic Bosses Picked To Run For Kirsten Gillibrand's House Seat?

I asked a prominent progressive from Saratoga County to give us an assessment of the race to fill Kristen Gillibrand's House seat. He doesn't sound very optimistic:

BLUE DOG ANYONE

Here in the 20th congressional district of Upstate New York we have borne our share of electoral indignities over the years. Chief among these were Congressman Gerry Solomon (R), who once famously claimed on the House floor that his wife needed to be able to have assault weapons to defend herself (in their exclusive and wealthy neighborhood of mansions in Queensbury, NY).  Solomon’s successor, handpicked by Republicans was the infamous John Sweeney, a drunk, spousal abuser, and quite possibly the main reason (see Florida recount shutdown) we suffered through 8 years of the worst presidency in the country’s history. When then Congressional candidate Kirsten Gillibrand decided to run for the seat in the '06 election, she was enthusiastically embraced by Democrats and progressives in the district. During her campaign she portrayed herself as a progressive, promising to help bring the Iraq war to an end and to restore some accountability to Congress. Once elected, she joined the Blue Dog caucus and repeatedly voted for funding Bush’s war. In a delegation of increasingly progressive congressional Democrats from New York State, she acted more like a Republican than a Democrat would, should or could. Shortly after being picked by now unpopular NY Governor David Patterson to fill Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat, it was revealed that she had a 100% approval rating from the NRA.  She also told reporters that she kept shotguns under her bed to protect her family in “dangerous” Hudson, NY.  Brilliant, considering that she has 2 young children, one a toddler!

Now with a vacated seat here in the 20th CD, we are left with 2 choices: James Tedisco (R), a 25 year NY assemblyman with no legislative accomplishments and who is barely coherent, or a newcomer, Scott Murphy, a venture capitalist. Murphy, originally from Missouri, worked as an aide for Missouri's former Democratic governors, Mel Carnahan and Roger Wilson.

Murphy’s website is light on details of how he would represent the district.  Consider these position factoids from his website:

America and the World

Scott believes the US can be an effective leader in the world on fighting terrorism, combating climate change, and helping those suffering from poverty and hunger.

Hmm. Hard to be against those issues. Tell me more

Health Care

With about 47 million Americans lacking health insurance-- and many more unable to afford skyrocketing costs-- the United States is facing a health care crisis. As a successful businessman, Scott knows the strain that rising health care costs place on small business, families, and local communities.

Scott believes we must find a bipartisan solution that provides health care access to everyone.

By increasing coverage, we can reduce visits to the emergency room and ensure that no family is forced to choose between quality health care and other necessities. Scott has pledged to work with President Obama, Republicans and Democrats in Congress, and leaders in the health care industry to find common ground on ways to expand health care coverage to all Americans.

Scott applauded the bipartisan passage of an expansion of the successful State Children’s Health Insurance Program as an important step forward in making sure every American has access to health insurance.

Scott also supports federally-funded stem cell research. This research holds promise to provide cures to some of the most devastating diseases including childhood diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s.

Again not very substantive. How will coverage be increased?  Are you advocating Single Payer Universal healthcare? Why not? How does one find a bipartisan solution with the party of NO? The last paragraph should be a no brainer as almost all progressives support Stem cell research and probably a majority of Republicans. It is also a moot point as President Obama will reverse the bush policies prohibiting stem cell research by executive order.

Job Creation and Economic Recovery

Scott doesn’t just talk about putting people back to work, he has actually helped create over 1,000 jobs, including jobs in growing sectors like green energy and internet technology. It’s that kind of private sector experience and willingness to look beyond ideology that we need in Washington to get our economy back on track and create jobs right here in the 20th Congressional District.

Vague, vague, vague! Where did you create these jobs? Can we look up the statistics?

Where will these new jobs come from in Upstate NY’s chronically depressed economy that lacks critical infrastructure? Most young people leave here never to return after college because there are NO jobs. Green energy! Does that include the Republican favorite of green energy: Nuclear power? You know the one where we magically dispose of the waste for future generations.

So where does Murphy stand on issues such as Civil rights? Gay Marriage? The environment? Illegal surveillance of Americans? No one knows. Many have asked. None have been answered. An article in Newsday does tell us where he stands on a few issues:

The last person to hold the seat in the 20th district was a Blue Dog Democrat-- a fiscally conservative caucus that Murphy wants to join. Gillibrand had managed to wrest the seat from former Republican Congressman John Sweeney in 2006 after a police report became public showing that Sweeney's wife had called 911 in what appeared to be a domestic violence incident. 

Many voters are just beginning to learn about Murphy, a businessman and former political staffer from Missouri. 

For starters, he's pro-gun, a position he shares with Gillibrand, which has gotten her some criticism in more urban parts of the state since she's become Senator. 

So he wants to be a Blue Dog and supports gun rights (already guaranteed in the constitution for 200+ years).  I think we’ve been down this path before. There are also murmurings from Democrats in the district who wonder why it is that Murphy has never contributed money to any local Democratic candidates for other offices in the district, or why he had a re-election sign for Republican State Senator Betty Little in his front yard in a recent election.

The lack of candor on questions from both candidates has even rattled one local newspaper in the district, the Glens Falls Post-Star. In their weekly column, entitled "Boos and Bravos," they wrote:

Candidates should communicate more directly

Boos to the congressional candidates from the two major parties, Republican Jim Tedisco and Democrat Scott Murphy, for their over-reliance on spokesmen and press releases to communicate to voters. This is a grassroots election taking place in a very short time frame. Voters deserve to hear from the candidates and have their questions answered directly, not filtered by political flacks and in pre-written, sanitized statements. Every day, the local media is bombarded by press releases from the candidates with alleged quotes from the candidates. But when asked to come on the phone to clarify their positions and answer questions, the candidates have taken to deferring to their "spokesmen." It doesn't happen all the time, but it happens far more than it should. If you want to run for Congress, have the courage to speak to voters for yourselves. Otherwise, step out of the way and let someone else have a try.

So here in the 20th we have an unknown quantity running on the Democratic line for Congress. Other than his pro-gun, Blue Dog leanings, we don’t know what else he stands for. Some might argue that electing a Democrat, any Democrat is better than a Republican. But is that true? How is it good if this representation supports values that will fail to help a majority of the districts residents? In the Glens Falls Metro area the median income (of those still employed) is around $38,000 per year and this is one of the better stats for this CD. Tax cuts for the wealthy anyone? How will more of the same failed policies such as those advocated by Republicans and Blue Dogs help working people in a collapsing economy in an already economically depressed district? In addition there is the likelihood that this CD will be redistricted out of existence after the next census.

After the last 8 years of crime, corruption and cronyism why should anyone be willing to support candidates who are evasive in their positions on critical issues? Progressives have worked hard to elect candidates who share their values. We are in deep trouble on many different fronts: environment, economy, critical government services, deficits and Civil liberties. If Mr. Murphy can’t take a stand on issues how can he represent us effectively in Congress? As the Post-Star wrote:

"If you want to run for Congress, have the courage to speak to voters for yourselves. Otherwise, step out of the way and let someone else have a try."

Will Obama Have Coattails In Special Elections-- Like In NY-20's Contest Between Tedisco And Murphy?

In November Obama ran up bigger vote margins than John Kerry in every state except for 6 racist throwbacks that are still largely KKK bastions, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and West Virginia. The first number is Obama vote percentage and the second is Kerry's.

Alabama- 39/48
Alaska- 38/36
Arizona- 45/44
Arkansas- 39/45
California- 61/54
Colorado- 54/47
Connecticut- 61/54
Delaware- 62/53
DC- 93/89
Florida- 51/47
Georgia- 47/41
Hawaii- 72/54
Idaho- 36/30
Illinois- 62/55
Indiana- 50/39
Iowa- 54/49
Kansas- 41/37
Kentucky- 41/40
Louisiana- 40/42
Maine- 58/54
Maryland- 62/56
Massachusetts- 62/62 (Kerry's home state-- and Obama came up with 90,000 more votes)
Michigan- 57/51
Minnesota- 54/51
Mississippi- 43/40
Missouri- 49/46
Montana- 47/39
Nebraska- 42/33
Nevada- 55/48
New Hampshire- 54/50
New Jersey- 57/53
New Mexico- 57/49
New York- 62/58
North Carolina- 50/44
North Dakota- 45/35
Ohio- 51/49
Oklahoma- 34/34
Oregon- 57/51
Pennsylvania- 55/51
Rhode Island- 63/59
South Carolina- 45/41
South Dakota- 45/38
Tennessee- 42/43
Texas- 44/38
Utah- 34/26
Vermont 68/59
Virginia- 53/45
Washington- 58/53
West Virginia- 43/43
Wisconsin- 56/50
Wyoming- 33/29

The result was 365 electoral votes for Obama and 53% of the popular vote, as opposed to the 252 electoral votes and 48% of the popular vote that Kerry took, or-- in way of comparison, 286 electoral votes Bush got in 2004, along with 51% of the popular vote.

There are similar instances in congressional districts in every part of the country. A combination of Obama's coattails and voters' disgust with Republican governance combined to elect a great many Democrats in traditionally Republican seats. Upstate New York's 20th congressional district, which has a PVI of R+3 gave Bush 51% in 2000 and 54% in 2004, dumped it's drunken, woman-beating wingnut of a Republican incumbent, John Sweeney, and elected moderate Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand in 2006 by over 13,000 votes, 53-47%. This past November, against concerted and well-financed opposition (Sandy Treadwell spent over $7,000,000, $6 million from his own pocket, to Gillibarnd's total of $4.4 million), Gillibrand's constituents sent her back to Congress with a startling 62% of the vote. Obama's margin of victory was smaller but his win was not something Republicans were expecting.

New York's completely clueless soon-to-be-ex-governor appointed Gillibrand to fill Hillary Clinton's Senate seat and it was widely assumed, on both sides of the aisle, that he was throwing away the NY-20 House seat. If the Republicans get it back, it will be a close race, and a very expensive one. Their candidate, Jim Tedisco, started out with a seemingly insurmountable lead against Scott Murphy, a moderate Blue Dog Democrat who isn't exactly inspiring any progressives. But after a series of missteps from Tedisco and from the national GOP, the race is now neck and neck. The NRCC has leaned on its members to flood Tedisco's campaign with money and 88 of them have responded with checks. The NRCC itself has put 344,000 into negative TV ads and the RNC has put in another $180,000. National Democrats have put $156,000 into the race.

Tedisco, a hard-core conservative, refuses to say whether or not he will join the Republican Party's All Obstruction/All the Time strategy against President Obama's policies and won't answer any questions about where he stands on the Stimulus bill. If Obama were to appeal directly to voters in NY-20 to give him a supporter in Congress, the way FDR did for Democrats, Murphy might actually hold the seat. Gillibrand is trying but the impact isn't the same.

Meanwhile, on the Republican side, the race is seen as a make it or break it contest for the party itself. Today's Hill:

Though officials at the NRCC warn the race will be close, privately Republican strategists say a loss would be devastating. Republicans hold a wide voter registration advantage in the district, and before Gillibrand beat an ethically tainted incumbent in 2006 Republicans had held the seat since the 1970s.

Early polls showed Tedisco with a wide lead, though recent public surveys indicate Murphy is quickly closing the gap. Though Republicans privately expressed early optimism and played up their chances of taking over the seat, some strategists are now privately expressing concern.

Private GOP polls show that Murphy has all the momentum and has actually pulled slightly ahead of Tedisco. The RNC's embattled chairman has realized that if Tedisco loses he will probably be forced out of his job even sooner than is expected.

[A]fter a series of comments that have turned Steele into the butt of jokes on late-night comedy shows and a punching bag in his own party, Republicans say the former Maryland lieutenant governor's performance depends more than ever on his mastering the essential duties of a party chairman: raising money, hiring staff members and helping candidates win elections. No major figure in the GOP has yet called for the resignation of the party's first black chairman, but many want him to stay behind the scenes, even though his reputation as a likable and telegenic figure helped win him the job in the first place.

Today's North Country Gazette absolutely savaged Tedisco and will make it even harder for him to make up lost ground against Murphy. A campaign add from President Obama about GOP obstructionism would end Tedisco's chances once and for all.

The economy-- layoffs and foreclosures and other detrimental effects of the recession-- is the most important issue in the campaign for the 20th Congressional District.
 
While Democrat Scott Murphy of Glens Falls has been focused on the everyday issues facing middle class families in this tough economy, the Republican candidate Jim Tedisco, part of the Republican regime that got us into this recession, is still driving around in his state-owned vehicle spouting his rhetoric and claiming to be “one of us.” While you are struggling to make your car payments, pay your car insurance, maintain your vehicle and put gas in it, Tedisco is among the state employees who are riding around at your expense. He’s NOT one of us.