Well, If Not Malcolm, Who?

Neil Breslin (4.00 / 3)

Upstater/suburbanite, Irish Catholic, loyal Dem, everyone likes him.  That is exactly what we need, a nuts-and-bolts Dem who get the job done in a non-polarizing way.

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by: jacksonian dem @ Thu Dec 11, 2008 at 00:57:49 AM UTC

Senator Breslin received over 100,000 votes on Nov. 4th (0.00 / 0)

Last night on the Ch. 6 news Fred Dicker covered the story of the New York Senate leadship fiasco.  He stated Gov. Paterson is really worried, as he should be.  What a mess!  We need to have a Majority Leader NOW and get working on the budget crisis.  My question to all of you, many of you who are very knowledgeable about issues and NY politics, what can we do about this situation? This is reprehensible on the part of the three rogue Democrats!!!!  

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by: otsegoblue @ Thu Dec 11, 2008 at 14:07:13 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

well... (0.00 / 0)

they might still be pushing the hispanic thing for the sake of appearing to have a continuous argument. or on the off chance that it could be one of them (hey, blago thought he could run for president, why wouldn't espada give it a shot?)

is the only other one in the senate other than diaz espada & monserrate... jose serrano?

It is difficult to get the news from poems


Yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.

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by: RichardPlatypus @ Thu Dec 11, 2008 at 01:03:14 AM UTC

How has Smith blown it? (0.00 / 0)

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by: nrafter530 @ Thu Dec 11, 2008 at 01:13:20 AM UTC

Actually... (4.00 / 2)

I'm not necessarily one bit sure he has.  But, there are some posters here who seem to think so... and there is certainly the chance that, while the Gangstas 3 would not vote for him because he did not stick to the deal he made with them, they might vote for another Dem (under whatever conditions), if offered the chance.  

This is all at least as speculative as "who will Paterson appoint Senator," but, it is interesting to see what people think.

Come to think of it... there is some excellent way out of a sticky wicket-- Paterson appoints Smith US Senator, and then somebody else picks up the circular firing squad duty in the "historic State Senate Democratic majority."

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by: robinia @ Thu Dec 11, 2008 at 01:22:48 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I can think of few things worse (0.00 / 0)

than Smith being appointed to the Senate

Follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/SteveinNYC

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by: SteveinNYC @ Tue Dec 16, 2008 at 00:35:42 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

a team of breslin, thompson and krueger (0.00 / 0)

in any order for leader/deputy/finance team. thompson would probably be best as finance, and the other two would be great as leader/deputy.

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by: peterpiper @ Thu Dec 11, 2008 at 01:17:58 AM UTC

More history (4.00 / 1)

If Liz Krueger were President Pro Tem/Majority Leader, we could make more history, eh?  

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by: robinia @ Thu Dec 11, 2008 at 01:24:51 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Thompson like Antoine? (0.00 / 0)

Fat chance. The man's IQ is lower than than the drinking age.

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by: Amherst Guy @ Thu Dec 11, 2008 at 02:04:05 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

just so long (0.00 / 0)

As you don't describe them as a "team of rivals".  

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by: Exile on Ericsson St. @ Thu Dec 11, 2008 at 04:36:07 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

women in leadership (0.00 / 0)

has been completely absent from this discussion which is too bad. i think it is pretty pathetic that while everyone wants a woman for hillary's seat, and paterson and cuomo and supposedly so upset no woman was nominated for the court of appeals, no one is raising the fact that no women are in leadership in the state legislature.

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by: peterpiper @ Thu Dec 11, 2008 at 01:28:45 AM UTC

Geez... (4.00 / 1)

Din't ya know, Albany's system is three men in a room?

Don't go gettin' wack crazy reform-like on us now, or uppity wimmins like me will start thinkin' our daughters might aspire to be Governors someday or sumpthin'.

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by: robinia @ Thu Dec 11, 2008 at 01:58:39 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

klein is pulling the strings on this one I bet (4.00 / 2)

Klein has been awfully quiet during this kerfuffle.  

He's been preparing this for two years.  Remember back then it was a no-no for the senate to have a white guy as the dem leader when both the governor and the assembly leader was white.  Now that we have a black governor, maybe there won't be the same opposition.

As far as I'm concerned, Klein is Bruno v2.0, younger and hungry. He isn't a goofball like smith.  Don't trust him in the least and the quieter he gets the more I worry.  We could be looking at the death of any meaningful reform in the Senate, friends.

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by: Todd_NYC @ Thu Dec 11, 2008 at 01:36:40 AM UTC

So, too, says our friend Dan Jacoby (0.00 / 0)

Yeah-- just looked at this over at Daily Gotham

Is it just possible that behind the "three amigos" nutsoidness is a secret attempt by someone who shares a borough with two of them to take over the caucus?

Jeff Klein rose rapidly to become Deputy Minority Leader (before even finishing his first term), and many people believe he has his eyes on the top spot. So far, he has stayed out of the news on this, except to mention once or twice that he has no intention of staging a coup. But...

An anonymous commenter adds this cheery thought to the post:

And Klein is Darth Vader of the Senate. He's as bad as Blagojevich, but smart enough not to be caught on tape.

A horse, a horse.  My Kingdom needs a horse... beats these dumb asses we got.  Oy.

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by: robinia @ Thu Dec 11, 2008 at 01:55:41 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Tom Libous? (0.00 / 0)

Probably not the answer anyone wants to hear, but suddenly plausible.

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by: simonstl @ Thu Dec 11, 2008 at 02:06:26 AM UTC

Indeed. (0.00 / 0)

Was just mentioning him here.  Now, there is a guy who knows how to make deals... and didn't need no stinkin' MBA to learn, neither.

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by: robinia @ Thu Dec 11, 2008 at 02:31:00 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Tom (0.00 / 0)

is a good guy. The only problem I have is that RT 12 from Binghamton to Utica sucks, and it needs to be resolved so we can get some business going through here again. Otherwise, he is fair, and been around for a while.

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by: chenangofreethinker @ Thu Dec 11, 2008 at 05:08:57 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

OT (0.00 / 0)

OK, chenangofreethinker, this is a totally OT, but I have always wondered about it, geography freak that I am.

Rt. 12 has always, always had problems.  It gets attention and money and upgrades, and then it has problems again.  If I remember correctly, it has a phenomenal number of accidents for the traffic that goes on it currently.  My experiences driving it in winter have been horrible-- remember particularly coming home from an Eileen Ivers concert in a snowstorm, headed South to Whitney Point (the better-maintained direction), and wondering if we were going to make it at all.... or spend the night in a roadside snowdrift.

So, here's the question: is Rt. 12 and its difficulties the result of inattention/not enough maintenance money, or, is it the result of being located in an unfortunate, mountainous micro-climate, the kind of terrain that is maybe more suited to a seasonal road?  Of course, I don't know another route to Norwich that would be better, but, maybe developing trains rather than roads would be more practical?  I'm not trying to be difficult here, but, I really wonder how practical making Rt. 12 truck-and-industry attractive can be.... maybe back to the transport methods that established Norwich as a city in the first place, rail, and, (am I correct on this) canal?  

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by: robinia @ Thu Dec 11, 2008 at 14:07:20 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Yeah (4.00 / 1)

Pretty much, the canal and rail came through here. Both have been abandon. There is a small faction of people that want to get the rail going, but we have the whole NYRI issue, and the railroad owners are touchholes and want the taxpayers to fix the rail.

RT 12 has received a good bit of attention, and yet, nothing has been done with it. Its a 2 lane highway, that needs to be 4 lanes, with a speed limit of 65. As far as maintenance, its well maintained, no potholes, etc, its just small, and you get behind a tractor, or some granny, and you are stuck forever cause there are no passing zones. So retards from other states cough NJ cough pass people when they shouldnt and end up killing people.

Norwich, city proper has about 7500 residents, in its hayday it had closer to 15000.

The other day, my son  (12)and I were reading ARSTechnica and it talked about the 8000 Sony layoffs, to which my son commented "wow, they just killed our town"! While Sony isnt here, he gets the concept. While I can go on and on about Norwich. We can take this discussion offline just email me.

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by: chenangofreethinker @ Thu Dec 11, 2008 at 17:52:32 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Klein is obvious (0.00 / 0)

because he's the logical choice. He'll have the votes.

My preference is Breslin or Valesky. Not gonna happen, but hey, we can dream.

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by: Amherst Guy @ Thu Dec 11, 2008 at 02:11:04 AM UTC

Ruben Diaz (0.00 / 0)

(snark)

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by: Roatti @ Thu Dec 11, 2008 at 04:06:14 AM UTC

I would like to see a female... (4.00 / 1)

And I find Diane Savino, Suzi Oppenheimer or Liz Krueger all worthy choices.

I do think Malcolm blew it. It's hard to argue he didn't. He really dropped the ball here. I hate to say this, but he was apparently wearing two faces in this situation. I guess all it took was about 20 angry members of his caucus to turn him the right way. But you can't go to them and tell them nothing is going on when you have three other men who say that they have a deal.

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by: robert.harding @ Thu Dec 11, 2008 at 04:21:25 AM UTC

Why not Hassell-Thompson? (0.00 / 0)

At least she sounds like a reasonable person when she has the floor during debates.  Oppenheimer seems like she's past her prime, and Liz is probably a bit too outspoken to garner enough support.  Savino is an unknown quantity to me, but I noticed that she seemed to be an appendage to Malcolm in the video when the conference appeared for their post election day blessing of Malcolm's leadership.

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by: teaparty2 @ Thu Dec 11, 2008 at 11:55:54 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Me (0.00 / 0)

Myself, I nominate me!! I can do as good of a job as any of these Democrats!  

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by: chenangofreethinker @ Thu Dec 11, 2008 at 05:03:28 AM UTC

I know (0.00 / 0)

Maybe they should try to find the senator who has the royal Purple Pimpernel birthmark on his ass.  

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by: NYCO @ Thu Dec 11, 2008 at 13:23:46 PM UTC

I got an idea (0.00 / 0)

Hassell-Thompson for Leader, Dave Valesky for Deputy and Liz Krueger for Finance!

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by: demlonnie @ Thu Dec 11, 2008 at 15:50:04 PM UTC