| Rodrick had plenty of access to Gillibrand, and his article covers everything from her family connection to former Albany Mayor Erastus Corning to her recent strategizing with Sen. Chuck Schumer, and all of it is pretty interesting.
My favorite was this one, in part because I was in the room, and it was the first time I saw Gillibrand in person:
(After deciding to run for NY-20 in 2006), Gillibrand hit her mailing lists hard, raising a startling $2 million by the spring of 2006. Still, the Rahm Emanuel-led Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee remained skeptical. In May 2006, Emanuel dispatched Representative Steny Hoyer to check on the race at a fund-raiser. "Hoyer was there, but he seemed checked out," recalls (longtime Gillibrand friend Elaine) Bartley. "But then Kirsten got up and start talking about the race and how it was winnable, and people started clapping and he started paying attention."
Emanuel upgraded Gillibrand's candidacy from doubtful to winnable on the big congressional map in his office at the DCCC.
That event was a pay-what-you-will fund-raiser in the Albany Omni Hotel on May 21, a Sunday afternoon, and Emanuel had been the advertised speaker.
I wrote a diary about it, here was my first impression of Gillibrand from back then:
This was the first time I'd seen Gillibrand in person, and she's as impressive as I'd heard.
Speaking without notes, she was eloquent in calling for rational tax policies, preserving Social Security, deductions for college tuition, energy independence as economic development, and a Murthaish exit strategy from Iraq, with no permanent bases or stealing Iraq's oil.
She's not a Fighting Dem, but she's a fighting Dem and really a great candidate -- smart, articulate, hard-working and attractive.
Plus, she's raised almost $1 million so far.
When I spoke with her that day, she knew who devtob was from what I had been writing, here and elsewhere, about her campaign and thanked me warmly. Which personalizes for me what a college friend told Rodrick:
She was always very nice. She always remembered names. You could see how she could become a politician.
Another interesting story is about her college choice, with some insight into her current wonkishness:
Gillibrand debated between Princeton and Dartmouth for college. "I went to visit Princeton, and all the girls wore a ton of makeup and high heels and had fancy pocketbooks," she says. "And then I visited Dartmouth, and everyone was in sweats with no makeup, doing outdoor things. That was more my speed."
At Dartmouth, Gillibrand majored in Asian studies after taking a class in Chinese politics. "Learning Chinese doesn't have a lot to do with talent or skill," Gillibrand says. "It is about putting in the hours doing rote memorization. And I knew I was good at that."
Gillibrand's Democratic political opponents get their say in the article:
"The commercials write themselves," says a top Manhattan political consultant. "Big Tobacco. Immigration. Guns. It's all there. And she has no record. She has no base of goodwill to build on."
Says one early rival, "I assure you that we will be united in our opposition to her. She'll be re-elected over my dead body."
As I said, please read the whole thing.
You will learn something about Gillibrand, I know I did. |
