BEHIND THE HEADLINES
Paterson may feel backlash from angry Democrats
The governor’s handling of the appointment to New York’s U. S. Senate seat has political insiders scratching their heads.
ALBANY — She started out as the genteel daughter of a slain president, an icon of the Democratic Party’s most famous family, a devoted mother and champion of public schools.
But by the time Caroline Kennedy unceremoniously ended her quest to be a U. S. senator from New York, she had come to be portrayed as flighty, snobby, aloof, uninformed on issues and a member of the privileged set out of touch with regular people. She even found herself likened to singer/actress Jennifer Lopez.
For good measure, Gov. David A. Paterson’s advisers piled on a few more salacious tidbits: She has embarrassing skeletons in her closet related to taxes, a nanny and her marriage.
That Paterson would sanction such a frontal assault on Kennedy after she already had ended her quest to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton stunned even the most grizzled political insiders.
What was to be gained when advisers close to Paterson decided to dump on Kennedy in interviews with The Buffalo News and a handful of other news outlets Thursday, less than 12 hours after she already dropped out of the running?
What was the benefit the governor saw in attacking Kennedy, whose political connections — including straight to the Oval Office with President Obama — go far beyond anything the governor enjoys?
The strange, two-month process ended Friday with Paterson picking Hudson Valley Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand to succeed Clinton. But the payback period for the governor by angry Democrats may just be starting.
And the lineup of players not likely to forget how the governor handled things goes beyond just forces loyal to Kennedy. There is a long line of people Paterson upset with his pick, from members of Congress with far more years in the political trenches than Gillibrand to state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who led in popular polls but was passed over.
And the governor did himself no favors with loyalists to Clinton by considering Kennedy in the first place; to Clinton backers, Kennedy “embarrassed” Clinton last year with her well-timed endorsement of Obama.
Several Democrats were already publicly sniping at Paterson and were openly talking of primary challenges for next year against the governor’s selection — the kind of challenge to authority usually avoided for a governor who is the titular head of the state’s Democratic Party. One leading Hispanic Democrat, Assemblyman Peter Rivera of the Bronx, said Paterson’s selection “creates a split among New York Democrats that will only serve to damage our party.”
People involved complained that Paterson dithered over his decision, as he alternated between teasing the public about his selection to shutting out even the most basic of information, such as refusing to release even blank questionnaires that he asked candidates to fill out.
But it was the surprise attack on Kennedy that resonated loudest.
“No class. You don’t do stuff like that. He sort of accidentally fell into the job as governor and then they behave like amateur hour,” said Robert Shrum, a former adviser to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who has been involved in dozens of major Democratic contests over the years.
Damaged reputation
While Paterson seemed to relish the national media attention his ruminations brought, by the end he was skewered for what even many Democrats say was a fumbled process that made him look indecisive and pliable. The damage to his reputation comes at a time when he is already trying to convince lawmakers to go along with his plan to cut spending and raise taxes to deal with New York’s rising deficit.
“I guess they thought they were hurting her. In the long term, they’re hurting Paterson’s credibility and effectiveness,” said Shrum, now a senior fellow at New York University’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.
Shrum said Paterson molded a new image for himself within Democratic circles in New York and beyond.
“You wouldn’t see David Paterson as someone you can rely on — people won’t trust him,” he said.
Democrats questioned why Paterson showed so little discipline during the process.
“He just looks bad. The process made him look bumbling,” said Joseph Mercurio, a veteran New York political consultant.
Mercurio said it is not surprising many Democrats are angered with his selection of Gillibrand, a member of the conservative Blue Dog coalition in the House who has a 100 percent rating from the National Rifle Association. He noted she also voted against the $700 billion bailout of the financial industry; New York’s economy relies heavily on the banking sector.
“It’s pretty astonishing that a seat once held by Bobby Kennedy, Pat Moynihan and Hillary Clinton is now going to a Blue Dog. It’s incredible,” Mercurio added.
A price to pay?
Will there be a price to pay for Paterson’s attack on Kennedy? Some have theorized, considering Kennedy’s ties to Obama, that it could affect New York’s relations with the new White House.
“When it comes to the national scene, Kennedy’s entree to the Oval Office remains strong. Paterson certainly hasn’t made any lasting friends in the White House with this,” said Lee Miringoff, who heads the Marist College polling center. “It doesn’t mean Obama is going to freeze New York out. But my guess is a few phone calls don’t get returned down the road.”
But Shrum said, “The president is not going to punish the people of New York because of this.”
For Paterson, it all comes at a bad time. His numbers are slipping in the polls. Last fall, lawmakers ignored his demands to cut the budget. A deal he brokered to end a feud among Democrats in the Senate fell apart and then came together only after he stayed out of the fight. And no one in the State Legislature took seriously his insistence that the current year’s deficit be closed by Feb. 1.
Now some are wondering if Cuomo, long with his eyes on being governor, may consider a primary challenge against Paterson next year.
That Paterson appears politically weakened for his handling of the Senate process does not bode well for him, Democrats said. “I think the entire thing made him look indecisive and weak,” said one party insider who spoke on condition of anonymity. “He played it too cute and too coy and angered too many people in the end.”
To be sure, Kennedy had her many stumbles, from at first avoiding answering questions to then being vague on issues to snubbing key Democrats to giving short shrift to upstate. But by the end, Paterson, with Thursday’s verbal assaults on her, managed to make Kennedy into a sympathetic character.
Kennedy declined an interview request.
“She’ll go on. She’ll live her life and this will fade away for her. But it will leave a lasting sense about how he [Paterson] operates,” Shrum said.
Transparency backfires
For his part, Paterson suggested maybe he had been too public in his on-again, off-again pronouncements on his thinking. “In retrospect, I wish I had not showed all of you the wrestling match,” he said Friday after introducing Gillibrand.
“I think that I may have just, in an attempt to be as transparent as possible, publicly gone through the back and forth of my decision,” he added. “If that in any way confused anyone, I was not trying to mislead anyone.”
Some Democrats say Paterson’s choice of Gillibrand could have selfish political motives. One lawmaker theorized that he took a lesser-known Democrat as a way of making the 2010 Senate race more attractive for a big-name Republican — say Rudolph Giuliani — to take on instead of running against Paterson next year.
While Paterson aides insisted he was not going to appoint Kennedy, many Democrats said the governor informed a number of people last week that Kennedy was his first choice. Some theorized that when she surprised him by pulling out for “personal reasons,” he was angered following weeks of feeling boxed in by Kennedy and her supporters and a feeling that he almost had to appoint the Democratic icon to the job.
And, for added ammunition to back up claims he wasn’t going to pick her anyway, sources close to him let flow with vague accusations about tax, nanny and marriage skeletons she had in her background.
“She turned down the job, so their feelings are hurt,” Richard Donohue, a longtime Kennedy family confidant who worked for President John F. Kennedy, said of Paterson. “I think it’s not fair, but it’s the game.”
Paterson began the Senate selection process with many possible political chits he could store for the future. In the end, though, it all backfired.
“I think he’s getting advice from people who are serving other people,” Mercurio said. “This can’t be a smart move for the governor.”
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