When Caroline Kennedy’s name floated to the top of the rumor mill of Governor Paterson’s potential appointee list, it became immediately obvious that the governor by default is not above strategic political maneuvering. No doubt he wanted to satisfy as many special interest groups as possible to smooth the way for his first official run at the governor’s office.
The strong feminist wing of the New York Democrat party wanted a female replacement. The elitist crowd wanted a celebrity. However, what the voters didn’t want was a senator with no experience sitting in the nation’s capital. Indeed, Kennedy was relying on her family name alone to secure her run.
What may shock some voters, but please others, is who Paterson did appoint. Upstate congresswoman, Kirsten Gillibrand, slipped by the media hullabaloo, vying for the spot in secret. For Paterson, it was a good political move for New York Democrats. Gillibrand is a self-professed Conservative Democrat — yeah, I bet you didn’t think they existed anymore, either — and is quite popular in her district. Both Gillibrand and Paterson will have to run for re-election in 2010 and are hoping for the support of conservative voters of upstate New York. They’ll have beat out popular liberal contenders, like Rep. Carlyn McCarthy who is already speculating on a Senate run, and former Presidential front-runner and ex-NYC mayor Rudy Guiliani, who could be interested in either position. Gillibrand will be a friend to fiscal conservatism, as a member of the majority party in the Senate from an influential state. She opposed the corporate rescue plans while in the Congress, which would prop up failing banks with public funds. She has voted to support tax cuts, favoring the reduction of government spending via tax credits. She has expressed her support for mandating a balanced annual Federal budget, which would prevent fiscal stimulus packages that would raise the national debt. She has the endorsement of the NRA, as a protector of gun rights. While Gillibrand clearly has the intent to minimize government as much as possible, her record hasn’t been perfect. She supported the auto bailout bill, seemingly hypocritical to her fiscal conservative stance. She has angered fellow Democrats on her stance on illegal immigration, she clashed with Spitzer’s proposal to grant driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants and, worst of all, supports making English the language de juris of the United States. Like libertarian Republicans, conservative Democrats are all but a dying breed in the new “Washington consensus” of deficit spending and printing money to find economic stimulus. Paterson himself, has tended towards fiscal conservatism during times of economic crises, so his Senate pick makes sense. Hopefully Gillibrand can band together with the other sane voices on Capitol Hill, urging restraint during a time which her contemporaries are preaching economic gluttony.
