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This belongs to you. Take it back...
Gillibrand 
Thu Jan 22, 2009 at 22:47:54 PM EST
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(This is an, ahem, modified version of a rant recently posted at Daily Kos.)
If it's true that Kirsten Gillibrand is our next senator, I have mixed feelings; I would have preferred Elizabeth Holtzman, despite her weaknesses as a candidate for 2010, just because of her stance on issues important to me. But I am OK with Gillibrand - and yes, it's because of the geography.
Gillibrand seems unacceptable to many Democrats, yet I have to ask -- if Gillibrand is so unacceptable, why has the NY Democratic party done so little to build an Upstate progressive Democratic brand that might have produced a better female, progressive, Upstate candidate more to everyone's liking?
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Sun Dec 30, 2007 at 21:18:56 PM EST
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( - promoted by phillip anderson)
Kirsten Gillibrand, NY-20, delivered the Democratic national radio response Saturday, and talked up the Congressional Democrats' accomplishments.
Like most here, Gillibrand is aware that much of what happened this year, with the Senate blocking/dumbing-down many good House bills, and Bush vetoing several that got through, was disappointing.
But she found a way to describe the glass as half-full.
Like this:
We have fixed the alternative minimum tax to protect middle-class families, raised the minimum wage, and funded small business tax cuts to address the pressures of high fuel prices, increasing health care costs, and rising property taxes.
This is an important meme -- Congressional Democrats accomplished quite a bit this year, and a lot more than the previous three Republican-dominated Congresses -- that the Republicans and their media are fighting 24/7.
Gillibrand got a few minutes on national radio to counteract Republican/media propaganda.
And did a pretty good job.
Hard-to-find details, below.
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Sun Dec 09, 2007 at 16:29:33 PM EST
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Kirsten Gillibrand held a 41st birthday party/fund-raiser last night at the Albany Institute of History and Art. About 150 people attended -- labor leaders, elected officials, party activists, longtime friends (she's an Albany native), etc.
In her first event since publicly revealing that she's pregnant (due in May), Gillibrand was "showing," but as energetic as ever. She chatted nonstop with people before and after giving a short speech that focused on Congressional accomplishments (energy, security, minimum wage, ethics), though she started by owning up to the failure to end or scale back the Iraq occupation.
I got some one-on-one time with Gillibrand (talking about a Truman committee to probe contractor fraud and the alarming suicide rate of Iraq War vets), chatted with several people I knew from the campaign, and congratulated Mike McNulty (who gave Gillibrand major props in his short introduction) on his pending retirement from Congress.
But the most fun was chatting with a Republican.
Really.
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Sun Jul 01, 2007 at 13:07:13 PM EDT
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(Nice diary. - promoted by phillip anderson)
Like many Democrats, I did little more than vote for the right people before 2000.
But a stolen election that installed the Worst President Ever changed that.
In the 21st century, I have, for the first time, given money to worthy Democratic politicians (locally and nationally); carried petitions to get Democrats on the ballot; phone-banked and canvassed (including driving two hours twice to work for Kerry in New Hampshire and once to work for Lamont in Connecticut); attended several fund-raising house parties; became an active diarist/commenter on several websites; attended a two-day Democracy for America campaign training event; and committed $1,000 or so of scarce personal resources to attending YearlyKos this year.
Yesterday was a day that brought a lot of that together.
Details below.
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Mon Jun 04, 2007 at 20:25:44 PM EDT
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More has been accomplished on ethics reform in Washington than Albany this year, thanks in large part to activist freshmen members.
The excellent "Bill Moyers Journal," thankfully back on PBS, had a segment on Congressional ethics Friday that featured three freshmen who may not be in the House today, but for the disgraceful ethical lapses/crimes of the DeLay Republican Congress -- our own Kirsten Gilliband, Paul Hodes (NH-2), and Zack Space (OH-18).
Gillibrand made ethics a key issue in her successful campaign against John Sweeney, who had taken a junket to the Marianas at the behest of Jack Abramoff and DeLay, and compared the sweatshops there favorably to sweatshops in this country.
Hodes noted that the incumbent he beat, Charlie Bass, refused to return $15,000 in tainted contributions from DeLay and Bob Ney, an Abramoff bribee now in prison.
And Space won the seat vacated in August by Ney, by a 62-38 margin that was the largest of any Democrat in a Republican-held seat nationwide in 2006.
Moyers not only gave these freshmen some national face time, he also credited "freshmen reformers" for steeling the rest of the Democrats in Congress to pass meaningful ethics reform.
Details below.
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Sat May 26, 2007 at 22:23:27 PM EDT
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(I saw this earlier at DailyKos and I was hoping that devtob would crosspost it here. I think one of the commenters on that post said it best when he said:
Gillbrand is a good Rep.
But she was dead wrong on this vote.
Her explanation rings hollow, as do they all. A shameful episode for her and all other Democrats who voted for it.
Sounds about right to me. That said, I am genuinely curious to know what YOU think. - promoted by lipris)
Kirsten Gillibrand, NY-20, called her vote for the Iraq War supplemental the "hardest vote" of her first five months in office in an appearance before more than 100 activists, most associated with Citizen Action of New York, Friday night.
Weeks ago, Citizen Action scheduled a barbecue at Grafton Lakes State Park for Gillibrand to report to the progressive group that did a great deal to help elect her.
Little did they, or she, know that the barbecue would happen a day after her most controversial vote, at least for her progressive supporters.
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Wed May 16, 2007 at 21:36:35 PM EDT
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There has been much written about how many Democratic political consultants play it too safe, too towards the DLC middle, and, as a result, end up having worked for losing candidates.
These mushy-middle types (Shrum, etc., ad nauseam) have roundly, and deservedly, been decried as losers.
But there are some solid winners out there, among managers of relatively high-profile campaigns.
Like Bill Hyers.
Hyers is not a national-level political operative yet, but he has notched two unexpected come-from-behind victories for progressive Democrats in the last seven months.
Hyers was the campaign manager for Kirsten Gillibrand (show some love here please), who easily won the NY-20 Congressional seat held by the Miami Mob Leader (John Sweeney), and yesterday his guy Michael Nutter easily won the Democratic primary for mayor of Philadelphia.
More about this Democratic winner, below.
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Thu May 10, 2007 at 21:47:07 PM EDT
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(This is a non-story. Unless, of course, you are a sore loser. - promoted by lipris)
Kirsten Gillibrand, the excellent-in-every-way member of Congress for NY-20 who defeated the Miami Mob Leader in November, has been the target of a GOP website for doing a little fund-raising while on vacation in Europe.
She obeyed all the laws, only taking contributions from American citizens, most of them affiliated with Democrats Abroad.
Gllibrand raised about $20,000 in two events in London and Paris, a drop in the $4 million bucket she needs to fill.
But for the wingut website, and sore-loser Sweeneybots at the Times Union political blog Capital Confidential (here and here), any criticism of Dear Leader in a foreign country, no matter how private, is verboten.
Details below.
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Sun Apr 29, 2007 at 22:02:53 PM EDT
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(More of this please. - promoted by lipris)
Kirsten Gillibrand, the excellent-in-every-way Democrat who represents NY-20, held another one of her Congress at Your Corner events at the Golden Harvest farm stand on Route 9 in Kinderhook today.
Gillibrand is one of the hardest-working Members of Congress ever; the afternoon meet-and-greet-consituents event was her third event of the day.
She talked to about 50 people about a wide range of issues, from energy independence to milk price supports, from the U.S. attorneys scandal to the deleterious impact of No Child Left Behind on local school districts, from health insurance to the war.
And what she said about the war is worth a diary.
Why, below.
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Sun Mar 11, 2007 at 15:47:30 PM EDT
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(Light-- not heat-- about health care reform. - promoted by robinia)
As part of her remarkable outreach campaign, Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand put on the second of her issues forums, on health care, Saturday afternoon at the Hyde Collection in Glens Falls.
An SRO crowd of about 150 heard Gillibrand explain the basic problem and what's happening in Congress on health care, and from a hospital CEO, the physician head of a primary care community health center network, officials from the state Health Department and Office for the Aging, and someone from the PHARMA free prescription program.
Then, during question time, Gillibrand heard about the many difficulties people have in getting decent insurance at an affordable price.
Highlights, below.
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Sun Mar 11, 2007 at 10:46:28 AM EDT
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I attended Kirsten Gillibrand's town hall forum on health care held in Glens Falls on March 10. The people who attended that meeting, mostly senior citizens, were squarely in her corner. More than 200 people showed up. It seems like everyone loved her. More below the fold.
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Sat Mar 03, 2007 at 19:49:45 PM EST
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(Kirsten really connects with her constituents! - promoted by am)
Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand held one of her Congress at your Corner events at Miller's Supermarket in West Sand Lake this afternoon, and once again showed why she is one of the real stars of an exceptional Democratic freshman class.
She simply connects with people, with obvious empathy and intelligence.
About 50 people gathered for their Kirsten connection in an Easter candy corner near the front of the store.
Details below.
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Sun Dec 10, 2006 at 09:22:19 AM EST
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(What a peek into how the media thinks! - promoted by am)
The poll linked to this post asks whether I should have lunch with John Penney, an editor at The Poughkeepsie Journal. If you read to the bottom, you'll see he's invited me to lunch to further explore an exchange of letters we had this week regarding my attempt to understand the Journal's policy about when/when not they require substantiation of assertions made in letters to the editor.
As background, many of you may recall that John Sweeney used a Utah-based push polling firm to attack Kirsten Gillibrand. Below the fold, you'll see what happened when I wrote a letter to the editor about this -- and what happened this week when I sought clarification of their policy:
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