Update on the Senate Race
The US Senate race seems to be taking shape on the Democratic side. Incumbent appointed Senator Kirsten Gillibrand will face at least one major candidate in the primary campaign next summer in the form of Manhattan Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney.
Some recent news has come out of this race that is worth noting. The first is that Maloney has made the official obligatory press announcement of her intentions to run. From the Elmira Star-Gazette:
Rep. Carolyn Maloney of Manhattan said Wednesday that she will challenge Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in a Democratic primary next year.
“Congresswoman Maloney has made her decision,” said Paul Blank, director of Joe Trippi and Associates, who will serve as a senior adviser to her campaign.
She may be joined by other less notable candidates such as John Tasini, who ran against Hillary Clinton in the 2006 Democratic primary and lost. Also, Suffolk County legislator Jon Cooper has formed an “exploratory committee.”
On top of all this, Bill Clinton plans to attend a fundraiser for the congresswoman later this month. The AP, in its usually biased and suggestive way, claimed that this is “a slap” at President Obama:
In a slap at President Barack Obama, former President Bill Clinton will headline a fundraiser for a New York congresswoman challenging White House-backed Sen. Kristen Gillibrand in the state’s Democratic primary.
Clinton has not endorsed in the race, but his efforts to help Rep. Carolyn Maloney could be seen as a snub to Gillibrand and the Obama White House.
After definitively saying that it was a slap, the reporter then goes on to write that it could just be a snub. The Associated Press makes only a passing refence to the fact that Bill Clinton also did a fundraiser for Kirsten Gillibrand — but they don’t point out that it took place just this past March after she had already been appointed to the Senate. Also, his attendance at this upcoming fundraiser for Maloney has been in the works for a long time, whereas her intention to run for the Senate was just officially announced yesterday. The AP report is at least good for one thing: concocting and disseminating an on-the-fly inside the beltway narrative that emphasizes certain elements of the story at the expense of other important facts.
Related posts:
Who decides if a candidate is a major candidate or not? This kind of thing is the problem with mainstream media.
Jonathan Tasini is running in the primary as well. http://www.jonathantasini.com/
If more people got their heads out of the sand, Tasini would be a major candidate….listen to him! http://www.jonathantasini.com/
The reason that I say Maloney is a major candidate is that she has been re-elected to the House of Representatives every two years since 1992, she’s the chair of the Joint Congressional Economic committee, and she has a boatload of campaign cash. Tasini on the other hand has never won elected office and was beaten by Hillary Clinton in 2006 by 84% to 16%. He doesn’t have the strongest political track record and I say that as one of the sixteen percent that voted for him a few years ago. He has a very small amount of money and an even smaller amount of statewide name recognition. Tasini may have great ideas, but he doesn’t have a chance in hell running against an incumbent senator and a highprofile congresswoman.
Or you could say he isn’t a major player because the media decides not to cover his ideas.
[...] The Senate Primate Challenge - who is who and is challenging Kirsten Gillibrand. [...]
[...] Senator Kirsten Gillibrand raised over one and half million dollars in campaign funds in the 2nd quarter of the campaign finance reporting year. Her likely challenger in the Democratic primary and her former colleague in the House, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, raised a respectable $600 thousand. These numbers must be taken with a huge grain of salt given that for much of the past quarter, Maloney was still deciding whether or not to run and even now she hasn’t officially announced her run for the Senate until after the Bill Clinton fundraiser. [...]