Paul Rosenberg tonight - in an especially pointless knock on EMILY's List - repeats a charge that has
simmered, quietly, throughout the primary race: that Hillary Clinton pushed aside another woman to run her race for the Senate in 2000.
The woman in question is Nita Lowey, still a very successful Representative in the Northern Bronx and lower Westchester... and it might be noted, a backer of Clinton (that's not that surprising... it is New York).
Whether or not Lowey was ready to run for - if you'll recall - Daniel Patrick Moynihan's seat upon his retirement is interesting, but not necessarily the point. The charge has to do with the "caroetbagger" role Mrs. Clinton had, and the question of both fairness and potential for success.
You can actually go back and verify a good bit of this... but the story is not really what people suggest: Lowey was interested in running, but it was clearly not a done deal when New York's leaders approached Clinton about running. Lowey, back in 2000, participated in discussions with Clinton, and made it clear her decision hinged on Clinton's, which does not suggest the kind of painful rivalry often alluded to of late.
It's also worth keeping in mind that Lowey running, and winning, was by no means assured: as Rosenberg notes, this discussion came up because Clinton is the first woman to win statewide office in New York... in ever. Yes the state that boasts many of the leaders of the 20th Century women's movements - from suffragettes to the sixtie - couldn't elect a woman statewide. Until Mrs. Clinton.
Lowey faced enormous hurdles going in - a popular Mayor (Giuliani, if you'l recall), a lack of statewide recognition and map that didn't work in her favor: what many non-New Yorkers (and even many city residents) fail to understand is the bifurcated nature of New York state elections. There is the city, its suburbs (Nassau, Suffolk, Rockland and Westchester) ... and then there is upstate New York.
Almost every Democratic win is predicated on obvious math - clear the city by huge margins (the city is something like 7 to 1 Democrats to Republicans), carry the suburbs by small margins, and get trounced upstate. Republicans plan the reverse. It's why Long Island and Westchester become such crucial deciders in statewide races.
Lowey's problem - as many Democrats that year knew - was that Rudy up-ended their calculus: he'd already proven he could carry the city over a Democrat twice, and he played well in areas of Queens and Brooklyn where Republicans really never do (areas, by the way, where Bloomberg also does well). It's true that by 2000 Rudy would have lost the minority votes of Blacks and Hispanics in droves (thus losing the Bronx, and probably Manhattan), but Lowey was by no means able to run well vs. Rudy with outerborough whites. That would have carried over into the suburbs, where Rudy might well have carried Long Island, while Lowey carried Westcester.
The wild card here is that anyone as closely associated iwth NYC as Rudy was would do poorly upstate. But at the time, the GOP looked very strong, and seemed prepared to help him over that hurdle (in retrospect, the tensions between Giuliani and Pataki probably would have made it very tough). But Lowey was as City-identified, if not more so; as she is even now.
Thus it's not surprising that New York Democrats were casting around for alternatives, nor that in Hillary Clinton they saw someone whose celebrity identity would make Giuliani's name recognition a non-issue. Indeed, what's become clear since is that, rather than casting around for a race to carpetbag, Clinton was reluctant to jump into New York and had to be convinced. And Lowey, calmly and without drama, stepped aside.
We'll never know what would have happened in 2000 if it had been Lowey; given Giuliani's cancer diagnosis, it's possible Lowey too would have faced a weak opponent like Rick Lazio (who, one might note, had out-raised Lowey 2 to 1 in preparation for a run of his own against Giuliani in the primary). But I suspect, still, that if not for Clinton, Giuliani would have stayed in, cancer or no. Sympathy, a chance to play up his humanity and frailties... these would have helped Giuliani, not hurt him... especially since it was clear by mid 2000 that he was playing as badly upstate as many had anticipated, and had no stomach for fighting for it.
But more to the point, this meme ought to die because its undertones - that Hillary is a woman who "takes out" women who stand in her way, that she ran roughshod over people for her own ambitions, that her run in 2000 was insincere - are just appalling. And similarly, the rounds of attacks on EMILY's List - whose mission has been clear since its inception, ought to be out of bounds for any progressive blog. Our commitment, as Democrats, to gender equality and parity in government, makes EMILY's List essential. And yes, it's not surprising that they choose the woman in any race, nor is it surprising that they backed Hillary Clinton for President in a way that would be different, and will be, when dealing with Obama's run.
Enough. Let it go. And let Lowey be.
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