A Time for Change

As you all probably know, when Hillary Clinton took the Secretary of State job, her Senate seat was vacated.  That lead to an ugly process whereby several potential candidates made it known that they would like to be appointed to fill her vacancy, including New York Attorney general Anrew Cuomo and Caroline Kennedy.  In a truly unnecessary political scuffle, Governor David Paterson gave signals that he would support Kennedy’s appointment and then appeared to publicly “diss” her by allowing (or encouraging) his staff to make unnecessary comments about Ms. Kennedy.

Paterson eventually appointed Kirstin Gillibrand after Kennedy abruptly withdrew herself from consideration. The appointment though was at best clumsy and at worst an indicia of a level of incompetence and nastiness unbecoming of a Governor of the State of New York.  Paterson has already lamented that he wishes he could redo the clumsy appointment of Kirstin E. Gillibrand to the Senate: ““I should have just ended it,” he said of his vacillating on the appointment. ‘I understand that.’”  A recent poll reported in the Buffalo News shows that the Governor ran into public opinion issues over that appointment since his popularity stands at a mere 26%:

Lee M. Miringoff, who conducts the Marist poll, said the governor’s position deteriorated after sending mixed signals about Caroline Kennedy, daughter of former President John F. Kennedy and a Senate aspirant. When Paterson’s staff planted disparaging stories about her after she withdrew, a public backlash erupted.

“Not only was it a messy process but it took him away from dealing with the economy in the public view,” Miringoff said, noting Paterson’s favorables still ranged near 50 percent before the controversy.

As a result, Miringoff noted that Paterson’s favorable ratings dropped 20 percent from the end of January until early this month. Even his New York City base has turned away from him, Miringoff noted, and his statewide numbers mark the lowest for any governor in the 30 years Marist has conducted statewide surveys.

While polls show voters believe President Obama and New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg appear attuned to their economic concerns, they fail to express the same confidence in a governor who also was blamed for embarrassing the daughter of a beloved president.

“It’s just that they thought he was not in control of the process and people did not appreciate the rough treatment [of Kennedy],” Miringoff said.

No one is sure if Paterson will be able to rebound for the Gubernatorial election next year.  I actually hope that a popular Kennedy runs against him or Andrew Cuomo because I think he deserves to be booted out.

In any event, that left Gillibrand’s seat in the 20th District open.  A special election is set to occur on Tuesday and CNN reports that Democratic candidate, Scott Murphy, is reminding voters of certain Republican leaders, including Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and George Bush, to persuade voters that upstate New York needs a representative in Congress who is more attuned to the needs of his constituents than the ideology of the GOP.

Murphy’s campaign has sent out a last-minute mailer featuring pictures of Rush Limbaugh, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and former President George W. Bush.

“Upstate New York can have a congressman who works for them,” the front of the mailer said, with arrows pointing to Limbaugh, Palin and Bush. “Or one who works for you.”

“Republicans want to stop President Obama. On Tuesday, you can help stop them,” the mailer said above a picture of Murphy.

Public opinion polls have shown that Limbaugh, Palin and Bush are not very popular beyond the GOP base, although the 20th district in New York is weighted toward GOP voters.

The now almost-legendary Nate Silver of  fivethirtyeight.com predicts that Murphy is pulling ahead, although he makes the usual caveats about low turn our in special elections.  No wonder, I previously posted about the GOP being so toxic that Jim Tedisco rejected the GOP’s assistance,which you can see here.  It is too late, however, for him to reject his party, its right wingnuts and Bush.

Jim Tedisco – stuck with the GOP

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