It’s official: Maloney’s out
Manhattan Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney has declared her intention not to run for the US Senate in the Democratic primary against Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. For a while there, it looked all but certain that this would be the heavy-weight bout on the ballot in September, 2010. But now that Maloney is out of the race, it’s extremely likely that Kirsten Gillibrand will be our senator for at least another six years and maybe longer.
Ealier today, Maloney released this statement:
However, these are unique times with unparalleled challenges and running for the Senate is a full time job. Giving up for a critical period of time, the things I do best-passing legislation, working on the issues, serving New Yorkers would put politics before policy for the next year and a half.
Working this past week to provide meaningful health care reform and to advance important legislation to help those who lost their health because of 9-11 attacks, which would bring more than $11 billion to the city of New York, brought into sharp focus the importance of the work we are doing in Congress and of what is at stake for the nation.
The right decision for me and the people I represent is to stay in the House of Representatives and use the leadership positions I hold, including Chair of the Joint Economic Committee, to get things done.
Related posts:
http://www.jonathantasini.com/
From http://www.cityhallnews.com/news/128/ARTICLE/2021/2009-07-17.html
Tasini Redux
Not long after he announced he was launching another campaign to be New York’s junior senator, Jonathan Tasini headed up to Saratoga Springs for the Democratic Rural Conference convention.
He was the unexpected hit of the party. Rep. Steve Israel (D-Suffolk), then quickly putting together the pieces for his Senate run, greeted him with a hug. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan/Queens) took to him immediately, spending only a few minutes in conversation with him before turning to State Committeewoman Trudy Mason, who had introduced them to each other, and whispering, “he’s terrific—we should really run him for something.”
He is, of course, already really running, and unlike in 2006, when he waged a small but determined campaign against Hillary Clinton mostly in protest of her vote for the Iraq War, this year he has a four-person campaign operation (only one person is full-time) and is already doing fundraising calls every day. Though he knows he will never raise as much as the professional politicians, compared to Kirsten Gillibrand’s more public conservative positions, he said, his relative obscurity is an advantage.
“It’s much harder to remake a negative image than to establish a new image,” he said. “She’s going to have to spend $40 million to reset her image.”
Just as he was the forerunner on the issue of protesting Clinton’s war vote in 2006, the labor activist and writer believes he is already emerging as the forerunner of economic populism ahead of the 2010 race, he said, laying out his case over a cup of coffee, his brightly colored striped socks peeking out from beneath his suit leg. In The Audacity of Greed, his book due out this fall, he will elaborate on the argument.
While he does not rule out eventually endorsing Maloney or Suffolk County Legislature Majority Leader Jon Cooper, whom he had a four-hour meeting with a week before July 4—“I want the most progressive senator possible, but obviously, if it comes down to someone being a strong candidate… ,” he said, trailing off—Tasini said he worries about endorsing someone who might later drop out of the race.
So as for Maloney, he said, “I won’t believe she’s in the final race until she files her petitions.”
In the meantime, he plans to continue moves like the critical press release he fired off in response to reports that the congresswoman would consider voting for a health care bill that does not include a public option. “Rep. Carolyn Maloney Abandons New York Progressives” blared the subject line of the e-mail with the Jonathan Tasini for U.S. Senate logo.
He is, at least for the moment, in it to win it, noting that he only needs to get 10 more percentage points than he did in 2006 to have a realistic shot at the nomination in a multi-candidate field. He also notes that he got more Democratic votes in 2006 than Gillibrand did (though, admittedly, he was running statewide and she was running in one congressional district).
“At this point, short of Nelson Mandela becoming a U.S. citizen and getting into the campaign,” he said. “I don’t think there’s anyone who could make me leave.”
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