Way to Go, Big Dave

The race to the bottom is back. After playing the Caroline Kennedy appointment for all its was worth, NY Governor David Patterson, the “Decider,” is reportedly about to name Kirsten Gillibrand to “Madam Secretary’s” just vacated Senate seat. Gillibrand was a corporate lawyer in New York City from a politically connected family. She was recruited two years ago by, you guessed it, Rahm Emanuel to run for Congress in an up-state, largely rural Republican district. Like so many other Emanuel picks, she is to the right of a party that is far to the right of its base. But Gillibrand was not the only “blue dog Democrat” on Patterson’s list. Evidently, he chose her over the others to placate the “women’s vote.” Shades of the master strategist John McCain, Sarah Palin’s Big Dave. But, in the end, who knows what he was thinking! Maybe it’s not as patronizing as it seems; maybe he just thinks that the way to beat the increasingly repellent Rudy Giuliani in 2010 is to field a co-thinker. Maybe he thinks, not unreasonably, that Gillibrand is a good match with Charles (Schmucky Chucky) Schumer or a worthy successor to Slick Willy’s wife. Remember, though, it could have been Caroline. Maybe someday we’ll learn why it isn’t. Whatever the reasons, be sure that the clownish Patterson is part of the story.