Former New York Republican Gov. George E. Pataki has decided not to mount an election challenge against Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand this fall.
Instead, he said in an interview Tuesday that he would create a new national organization aimed at building support to repeal the recently enacted health-care overhaul.
What a douchebag — but that’s beside the point. Pataki has consistently posted strong performances in hypothetical head-to-heads against Gillibrand (including a Q-Poll released just today showing him leading by five points), so Democrats lucked out with this one – though Pataki never appeared very interested in running in the first place. Gillibrand appears to be one of the only potentially vulnerable Democratic senators who’ll escape a serious challenge from the GOP this year.
As an early Gillibrand supporter (as in she was my first choice for this seat before it was known who would take it) this thrills me. Looks like NY-Sen B is SAFE for 2010!!!!!
Looks like WI-SEN and WA-SEN are all that is left in flux. I’m thinking/hoping Stupak was the last retirement at the Federal level.
Go team blue!
It’s good for us, I suppose, but that doesn’t change the fact that Pataki is a fool.
no surprises here, It’s Gillibrand’s seat now
He’s supporting David Malpass I bet. Malpass is kicking off his campaign tomorrow, and Pataki doesn’t want his campaign kick-off to be ignored b/c of questions about whether Pataki will enter.
When the topic of Gillibrand ’10 came up, he seemed to think she’d be a pretty safe bet, even with Pataki in the race. On Blakeman, he said “good luck with that.” With DioGuardi, though, he expressed concern that a riled-up conservative base could keep Gilly on her toes, ala Moynihan vs. Castro in ’94; the incumbent Dem won by 12% there.
I happen to disagree with my buddy, though. I think Blakeman can peel off conservaDems and run well among moderates, though all Gillibrand really needs to do is score 90% among Democrats to win this. I think DioGuardi and Malpass are downright toxic, although I think the latter can self-finance, which is a plus. Of course, so can Blakeman, and he’s a RINO.
Keep in mind, though – historically, GOP wins (as in, D’Amato wins) in recent years have been attributed to chaos stemming among the Dem base.
D’Amato won in 1980 because incumbent Jacob Javitz opted to run third-party after losing the GOP nomination; he was a liberal Republican, and he stole conservative Democrats away from the liberal Dem nominee, Liz Holtzman. Holtzman would’ve won w/o Javitz in play.
In 1986 and 1992, D’Amato benefitted from a fractured, post-primary Democratic Party. In ’86, Mark Green defeated the multimillionaire John Dyson for the Dem nod; Dyson’s more conservative supporters bolted for D’Amato in the general. In ’92, the Dems waged a bloody, super-negative primary among Holtzman, Geraldine Ferraro, Robert Abrams, and Al Sharpton. Abrams won, and the Holtzman/Ferraro supporters stayed home.
D’Amato lost in ’98 because the Dems finally got their act together. And, with Carolyn Maloney and Harold Ford outta the picture, Gillibrand should be OK. I wouldn’t get lazy, though.
Rasmussen obviously got a heads up since he polled that famous New Yorker “Generic Republican”.
http://www.rasmussenreports.co…
third mulls the charm? (Snark)
What is it about Kirsten Gillibrand that scares off potentially formidable challengers? Whatever it is, I am glad Pataki isn’t making the race. It’s not a shocking development though. I still think Gillibrand would’ve won but it would’ve been a somewhat close race and it would’ve depleted resources we can spend in other states.
What’s the status on the potential Senate candidacies of Dino Rossi in WA and Tommy Thompson in WI? Ultimately, I doubt either one runs and they’ve left the state parties in a terrible bind by waiting this long to decide (boo-hoo). But I think once the intentions of those two jokers are made clear, we’ll know exactly how many seats we have in play.
If Gillibrand keeps up her progressive bonafides and keeps herself in the limelight and in check, her and Sen. Klobuchar will be battling it out for Veepstakes in 2016, if it isnt Clinton as the nominee. (Im pretty confident both parties will move to gender-balanced tickets so long as they have the candidates with the credentials to be a VP pick.)