NY-Sen-B: McCarthy Vows to Challenge Gillibrand

Full speed ahead:

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy on Friday vowed to challenge Sen.-designate Kirsten Gillibrand in New York’s 2010 Democratic Senate primary, citing Gillibrand’s support from the National Rifle Association in past campaigns.

McCarthy became active politically after her husband was killed when a gunman went on a shooting spree on a Long Island Railroad train in 1993, and has made gun control her signature issue since entering Congress in 1997. Her son was wounded in the shooting and still has health problems.

“I certainly have never forgotten why I came into politics, so you can imagine how I felt when I heard that the next Senator from New York would be a person who got the endorsement of the NRA,” McCarthy said during an interview on MSNBC just minutes after Gillibrand was named to the Senate by New York Gov. David Paterson (D).

McCarthy told the cable network that she had spoken to Paterson two weeks ago to air her objections to a possible Gillibrand appointment.

“This is a personal issue to me,” McCarthy said. “It has nothing to do with politics. … I’m not out here to make trouble. … I had to speak up. I had to let the people know who their next Senator is going to be.”

If McCarthy does indeed follow through with this, Paterson may come to regret opening this can of worms. Of course, it’s possible that any choice he made could have been subject to a primary challenge, but this one has the potential to be especially divisive. Oy.  

139 thoughts on “NY-Sen-B: McCarthy Vows to Challenge Gillibrand”

  1. Gillibrand will actually have to adapt her positions to those of New York Democrats. There is already evidence that she is doing this.  

  2. “This is a personal issue to me,”

    way to make this sound like a personal vendetta against gun owners.

    I know McCarthy and I like her too…I have a feeling if Gillibrand is popular in a year, this primary crap will go away. This could merely be a threat to bring Gillibrand toward the center/left on guns.  

  3. In the piece, McCarthy doesn’t actually commit herself to running against Gillibrand in a primary, even though that’s what the reporter says.  I wonder if they’re editoralizing here or if there was more said by McCarthy that just wasn’t quoted.

    Also, I strongly suspect McCarthy will back down in the end.  Assuming Gillibrand has the support of Clinton, Schumer, and Paterson and given her proven campaign abilities, I think McCarthy would get crushed and McCarthy is a smart enough politician to know so.  Maybe I’m wrong, but are there really that many single-issue gun control voters in the NY Democratic primary?

  5. 2006 Gubernatorial primary

    400K votes in the five boroughs

    362K votes in the rest of the state

    72K votes in Nassau and Suffolk

    Out of the five boroughs, 55K in the Bronx, 132K in Brooklyn, 120K in New York, 82K in Queens, and 11K on Staten Island.

    So using the 06 numbers.. Gillibrand winning 2/3rds of the vote upstate is a lead of 193300 to 96700, a majority of over 96K.

    So basically McCarthy would need to run up big majorities in New York City to have any shot.

    Also, a cloud or two would damper enthusiasm for McCarthy too.

  7. i’d like to see the quote.  she would be an underdog in the primary – even today – and she would give up a fairly secure house seat.

    and what if gillibrand votes for or authors some anti-gun legislation?  then does mccarthy run?

  8. This constant attack on the Blue Dogs makes no sense to me.  Would you folks genuinely rather see a Republicans who votes against our interest 98 percent of the time versus someone who votes with us 90 percent of the time.  As far as I am concerned the only Blue Dog who deserves a primary is Dan Boren because there isn’t a populist bone in his body it appears.

    Sometimes when I read some of these comments I feel like I am reading something from the Club for Growth political handbook.  Must purify the party!

  9. Does anyone realize that if we ran Nancy Pelosi in all 435 congressional districts we would not have a Dem majority?  Stop complaining that Dem reps in conservative areas aren’t super-liberal, if they weren super-duper-liberal they wouldn’t get elected.

    If we are to be the “big tent” party, we need to be less “bitch” and moan” and more “listen and learn”.  While McCarthy has a very admirable profile for her gun control stance, why are all the posters here so sour on Gillibrand.  However, the 20th is fairly storng rural areas, gun country, maybe Nascar area.  Who knows, but her gun control stance IS IN LINE WITH HER DISTRICT.  Isn’t that what representation in the House is all about

    I don’t think Gillibrand challenged Dem leadership in the house on any major issues.  History would then project that she wouldn’t do that in the Senate either.  So we traded Hillary, who was pragmatic and maybe more liberal for Gillibrand.  Its a step down, as Hillary was more experienced in politics (thought not officially), but c’mon.

    The world did not end today.  Everything will be okay.  And I expect Gillibrand will pass the same votes that Hillary would about 99% of the time.  

  10. i hope that if McCarthy does challenge Gillibrand i hope that Gillibrand wrecks her in the primary. Gillibrand may be a blue dog but she can attract GOP votes and would counter balance Schumer’s liberalism. I like Gillibrand. I followed her campaign in 2006 and i was very impressed with her and i hoped that she would move on to higher office. Go Kirsten….you got this!!!

  11. and mccarthy says she’ll run if she can’t find someone younger to run against gillibrand.  but she seems shrill and personal.  and she’s getting a splash right now as the skunk at the garden party but will she be able to build energy/fundraising/legitimacy for the next 2 years?

    and while i underwstand that the gun issue is personal for mccarthy, her sneering attqacks on gillibrand seem overstated.  she keeps calling her the “the poster girl for the nra.”

  12. Gillibrand needs to sit down with NYC metro Democrats and convince them that she will represent them on the issues, i.e. move to the left.  She apparently already has done so on gay rights.  And then people like McCarthy need to drop their primary threats.

    I will say this, if McCarthy actually primaries Gillibrand, we are at risk to lose this seat as well as the Governor seat as well as McCarthy;s House seat.  Unless Gillibrand actually votes like a Blue Dog in the Senate, a primary is completely unneeded and harmful.

    The NY Dems, Gillibrand, and McCarthy need to compromise and avoid a primary, whatever it takes.


  13. Gillibrand Is a Centrist With a Tenacious Style

    By MICHAEL POWELL and RAYMOND HERNANDEZ

    Published: January 23, 2009

    Kirsten E. Gillibrand, the two-term Democratic congresswoman chosen to fill the Senate seat vacated this week by Hillary Rodham Clinton, has married a relentless political and fund-raising style to a centrist brand of politics.

    The Freshman: Frenetic Start in Congress for One Democrat, Class of ’06 (February 20, 2007)

    Times Topics: Kirsten GillibrandMs. Gillibrand (pronounced JILL-uh-brand), a 42-year-old lawyer and mother of two young children, had never held political office before defeating a four-term incumbent in a vastly Republican district in 2006. Her district extends from the flatlands of the Hudson Valley to the mountainous North Country.

    She comes from a politically connected family; her father is a prominent state lobbyist who once had close ties to former Gov. George E. Pataki, a Republican, and her grandmother was prominent in the formidable Albany Democratic machine. Ms. Gillibrand worked as an intern for a Republican senator, Alfonse M. D’Amato, and clerked for a federal judge appointed by President Ronald Reagan.

    Her politics, perhaps reflecting her conservative district, cannot be easily charted along a left-right axis. She earned a high rating from the National Rifle Association and opposed efforts to extend state drivers’ licenses to illegal immigrants. At the same time, she favors abortion rights, voted to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq and to extend middle-class tax cuts, and she has opposed privatizing Social Security. She raises large sums of money from Wall Street, but voted against the first bailout bill last fall; that vote angered some Democratic leaders in Congress.

    Alan Van Capelle, the executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda, a gay rights group, said that he spoke by phone with Representative Gillibrand on Thursday night and that she spoke in favor of same-sex marriage. This would make her the first United States senator from New York to endorse gay marriage; Charles E. Schumer, the state’s senior senator, opposes it.

    “She spoke eloquently about the 1,324 rights that are denied to same-sex couples in New York,” Mr. Van Capelle said.

    An aide to Ms. Gillibrand confirmed that she supports gay marriage.

    She was an outspoken supporter of Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign and has drawn financial support from prominent women’s groups in Washington, not least Emily’s List.

    She has insisted, to the point of annoying Congressional colleagues, on openness in government, posting a “Sunlight Report” on her Congressional Web site listing her meetings with lobbyists as well as the names of individuals seeking government grants known as earmarks.

    And, much like Mr. Schumer, she has adopted a permanent campaign approach to office, crisscrossing her district, holding public meetings in malls and general stores, and tromping across fields to meet with farmers. She is mindful, she has told friends, that her two elections might be seen as aberrations and quickly undone.

    As her re-election approached, Ms. Gillibrand also reinforced her reputation as a prodigious fund-raiser, taking in $4.6 million. Much of it came from corporate and other political action committees, including tobacco companies, a fact Republicans seized on in an effort to undercut her efforts to portray herself as a reformer.

    In her first campaign, in 2006, Ms. Gillibrand ran aggressively against the Republican incumbent, Representative John E. Sweeney, and won with 53 percent of the vote.

    After her victory, Ms. Gillibrand and her staff quickly realized there was little time for celebration. Politically, Ms. Gillibrand found herself in a tough situation: a Democrat (and onetime Manhattan lawyer) representing a heavily Republican district filled with mill workers, dairy farmers and other blue-collar workers.

    Quickly, Ms. Gillibrand moved to bridge the political and cultural divide, shunning political labels and even embracing Second Amendment gun rights and other positions that placed her outside the mainstream of her party.

    In the end, she wound up winning a second term with nearly 65 percent of the vote against Alexander F. Treadwell, a former state Republican Party chairman who spent about $7 million on the race, much of it his own money.

    From the moment she arrived in Washington in 2007, the Democratic Party leadership in Congress has been very attentive to Ms. Gillibrand’s needs, mindful of the political challenges she faces back home.

    On her very first day in Congress in 2007, for example, she was allotted a few minutes to give a floor speech on Congressional ethics reform, one of the central themes of her campaign. Ms. Gillibrand was also handed a high-profile role: helping advance a package of antiterror bills that the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, introduced.

    Most important, Democratic leaders gave her two committee assignments she had lobbied for – Armed Services and Agriculture – both of which allowed her to deliver aid to her district, where there are large numbers of farmers and military veterans.

    Ms. Gillibrand lives near Hudson, N.Y., just outside Albany, with her husband, Jonathan Gillibrand, a financial consultant, and their sons, Theodore, who is 5, and Henry, who is 6 months old. (Ms. Gillibrand received a standing ovation on the floor of the House from her colleagues for working right up to the day she gave birth to Henry.)

    Ms. Gillibrand attended Emma Willard School in Troy, N.Y., a women’s high school, before going to Dartmouth College, where she majored in Asian studies. After earning a law degree from the U.C.L.A. School of Law in 1991, she served as a clerk for a federal appeals court judge. She then went on to work as special counsel for the housing and urban development secretary, Andrew M. Cuomo.

    It looks like she is already rounding up support from the party establishment and the traditional news media.  

  14. and it may have been quite decisive…Upstate wanted attention and they were going to get it anyway possible. They wanted this seat and if Paterson had given it to some NYC liberal, Upstate Dems (they even formed a caucus) were going to primary the downstate Senator anyway with potentially divisive results. With Democratic support solidified downstate, Democrats are trying to grow the party Upstate (that’s where our State Senate majority lies…Upstate is where Democrats are holding on to Republican Senate seats).

    That’s the genius behind the Gillibrand pick. Now it’s likely downstate Democrats are going to try to retain their control of the party in an effort to keep moderates from winning statewide…it will only seek to divide the state further.

    New York State’s Democratic Party needs to be a statewide mix of Downstate liberals, Downstate moderates, Upstate liberals and Upstate moderates. We have to stop this Downstate control because we’re afraid upstaters are too conservative. It will only hurt us in the long run.  

  15. The former Republicanism, the Iraq War vote and the generally lacklustre record won’t give her much to work with on the left, whilst rural areas are likely to instinctively recoil on the gun issue.

    However, I could see a more viable primary challenge to Gillibrand from NYC rather than Long Island. Not from a Representative – I couldn’t see two of them independently challenging a sitting senator – but from a little lower down the scale. A councilmember who doesn’t think they could dislodge their Representative might very well try to run an ultra-progressive primary campaign, basically trying to come off as some sort of hybrid of Jesse Jackson Sr. and Bernie Sanders.

    I don’t know that there would be a route to 50% that way, but a strong campaign in NYC and bits of West NY (where I’ve seen little evidence of strong Gillibrand connections and where economic populism would be a strong message) might allow it to get towards 40%, and then McCarthy tying up Long Island votes might let it sneak through.

    Not that I think this is likely, just that I think that’s the greatest threat to Gillibrand.

  16. http://www.pollster.com/blogs/…

    Favorable / Unfavorable

    Sen. Kristen Gillibrand (D): 41 / 11

    2010 Senate General Election

    Gillibrand 49%, Peter King (R) 24%

    Gillibrand 44%, George Pataki (R) 42%

    Compared to your views, do you think Kirsten Gillibrand is too liberal, too conservative, or about right?

    10% Too Liberal

    10% Too Conservative

    42% About Right

    Kirsten Gillibrand has an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association. Does this make you more likely to vote for her for U.S. Senate in 2010, less likely, or does it not make a difference to your vote?

    18% More Likely

    25% Less Likely

    54% No Difference

    I think these numbers confirm what a formidable general election candidate she’ll make, crushing the R’s most likely candidate by a 2-1 margin.

Comments are closed.