Relaxed Politics

[The starting QB and the captain of the cheerleaders?]

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and that those who ventured out to shop today returned with all body parts in place and intact (can you believe what happened at that Wal-Mart on the Island?).

It’s a slow weekend, and it took me a very long time to find anything interesting to write about.  Fortunately, baseless political speculation abhors a vacuum, and there are likely to be two seats in the United States Senate that will be filled by gubernatorial appointments in the near future,  President-elect Obama’s seat in Illinois and SecState-presumptive Da Hil’s seat here in New York.  New York and Illinois are remarkably similar in political topography these days, so many of the same considerations come into play in both states.

So let’s have a little harmless fun.

Illinois. One of the considerations that would normally come into play in Illinois – who could most help Gov. Rod Blagojevic in his 2010 re-election campaign – is off the table here, thanks to Blago’s 13 percent approval rating and the high likelihood that Pat Fitzgerald will seek to indict him on political corruption charges of some sort in the next 12 months.  It doesn’t appear that there is a viable candidate from Downstate, notwithstanding that Dick Durbin is pushing hard for Iraq War vet Tammy Duckworth, so it’s likely to be a choice among the heads of various factions in Chicago.

Jesse Jackson, Jr. wants the job badly.  That, in and of itself, may or may not disqualify him.  State Senate President Emil Jones, a former Obama mentor, is often mentioned, but his age counts against him.  Under ordinarly circumstances, if Blago were seriously contemplating running for re-election, sending Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madiagn to Washington would eliminate his most likely primary challenger, and would have the added bonus that she clearly has the intellectual horsepower for the job. But these are hardly ordinary circumstances.  A couple of other Chicago area Congresscritters also get mentioned as possibilities.  The Christian Science Monitor recently ran a good summary of the situation.

If I had to put a bet down, I would probably put it on Madigan, but I wouldn’t bet anything I couldn’t afford to lose.  And if I ran a book, this would be off the board – there is just no way to handicap it.

New York. As we all know, the New York Democratic Party is the cradle of identity politics.  Anybody with a pulse who fits neatly into a category will be seen by people of that category as the only possible pick.  But it’s even more complicated than that.  Governor Paterson’s relationship with the Legislature is completely toxic, due to an absud clash of little men with big egos, and the temptation to fix that by sending one of the perps (perhaps State Senate Democratic Leader Malcolm Smith) to Washington may turn out to be irresistible.

The only clue that Paterson has dropped so far has been to say that he thinks it is “very important” that the new Senator be someone from outside the City.  If that’s seen as a key consideration, then three names come to the fore: Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi and Upstate Congresscritters Brian Higgins and Kirsten Gillibrand.  Gillibrand is an extremely interesting possibility: not only is she a woman (the biggest identity group of all), but progressive financial and organizational support were key factors in ther upset win in 2006.  Giving her the seat throws a pretty nifty bone to the Howie Klein/Jane Hamsher wing of the party.

But as there seemingly always is in New York politics there is (apologies for the mixed metaphor) an 800-pound gorilla in the corner, and his name is Andrew Cuomo.  One has to think that if he signals that if he wants the job, he gets it, because he can cause all kinds of trouble for the party in 2010 if he gets snubbed.  And there are those (including the folks at TNR) who think he is the right person for the job on the merits, entirely apart from electoral considerations.

Me? I think it’s Cuomo.  And if it’s not Cuomo, I think the Gov will somehow be reminded how difficult it is for an upstater with no name recognition or fund-raising apparatus in place south of Exit 22 on the Thruway to win a statewide office.  My longshot bet is Congressman Jose Serrano from the Bronx.

That’s all I got. You guys can yak about this if you want, or we can just call it an open thread.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

posted on Friday, November 28th, 2008 at 9:10 pm under Relaxed Politics.