A '10 Senate Race to Watch: Democrats Gillibrand and Maloney Vie in NY

                   

Left, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY                 Right, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, D-NY

For liberal New Yorkers mulling the fall 2010 special election race to fill the U.S. Senate seat currently occupied by  Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), the declaration of Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney's (D-NY) campaign for it represents an interesting wrinkle. Under state rules governing a vacated Senate position, Governor Paterson chose Gillibrand to fill what had been former Senator Hillary Clinton's seat for a portion of the time remaining in her term when Clinton joined Obama's cabinet. In 2010, the U.S. Senate seat goes wide open to both major political parties, and there's tremendous interest among Democrats in retaining the seat with, naturally, the strongest possible challenger to whoever the Republicans put up.* In this case, it's generally accepted that the Democratic aspirant will likely be a woman. What's unusual is that in addition to the question of who's more "electable" (and why), there's the additional question, who has the better feminist record?

The American Prospect notes NARAL's recent endorsement of Gillibrand, and speculates as to how other feminist groups with influence will align. With their longtime advocate Maloney? Or with the seemingly party-approved relative newcomer, Gillibrand?

CQ Politics looks at how polling for the two Democratic U.S. Senate candidates shakes out: dead even in many respects.

The NYT has a more "inside baseball" look at backchat among NY's Democratic Party heavy hitters, including unsourced, moistened finger-to-the-air implications that from Obama on down, Democratic Party machinery is lining up behind Gillibrand.

Truly, I wish Florida or maybe Utah had these problems: two strong Democratic women candidates in a contest to be elected their state's Senator, both of whom are avowed feminists and advocates for women and/or children, each with credible policies behind them and worthy proposals for future work ahead of them. They vie for mainstream support, of course, but especially for women's votes because they matter. Hell, I'd be happy if Florida or Utah could put up one accomplished Democratic feminist candidate who knew what she was doing when she spoke to women about the breadth of their concerns.

Last year, Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin separated the wheat of truly discerning, women's issues-literate women from the chaff of you-go-girl women who mistook one woman's high achievement (Palin's) for a tide that would lift their boats too, policy-wise. (GOP darling/bete noire Palin? Palin' in Comparison to BOTH Maloney and Gillibrand. Either Democratic woman could govern circles around Palin, I'm sure.)

Now it looks as if among truly discerning, women's issues-literate Democratic voters, there'll be a struggle over definitions of "electability" and whether voters and the party are ready to be pushed left by Maloney, or slightly to the right of her by Gillibrand. This isn't a cause for concern, so long as the debate remains substantive--right now, two highly-qualified and overtly feminist Democratic candidates constitute an embarrassment of riches.

(Let me have a kumbaya moment, just like I did in late January, 2008.)

Stay tuned. Their respective records and platforms are about to undergo close scrutiny. With any luck we who graduated from Feminist Electoral Politics 101 by observing and discussing Hillary Clinton's run for president will have a chance to further refine our stances and voting preferences in Feminist Electoral Politics 201: the Gillibrand/Maloney contest for NY's Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate.

*Due to the unusual circumstances regarding the temporary appointment of Gillibrand, formerly a Congresswoman, to the Senate seat, the winner of the special election in 2010 will have to run again in 2012 to re-align the 6-year term for that seat to the Senate cycle for NY. See OpenCongress to follow this race.

Cynematic blogs at P i l l o w b o o k.

Disclosure: members of MOMocrats have previously participated in a book club featuring Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney's Rumors of Our Progress Are Greatly Exaggerated. MOMocrat Kady interviewed Maloney here. No MOMocrat to date has stated on this blog a preference for either Democratic candidate in the current race, but I'm sure some will soon.

I didn't participate in the book club, and I don't live in NY. Nor am I sure which candidate I'd even hypothetically support at this moment. But I'll opine about it anyway.

Comments

[NYer]

Maloney should stay in the House and use her seniority and committees to advance the issues she says she cares about, rather than indulging in a political ego trip. She campaigned very hard to be appointed to the Senate seat, was not selected and is now trying to cloak her oversized ambition in policy concerns.

Gillibrand will win because, like her predecessor Hillary Clinton, the more voters meet her, the more they like her and the more suport she gains. That has never been said about Maloney.