Late breaking news via Liz Benjamin: Both Peter King and Susan Molinari have opted out of challenging Senator Gillibrand later this year.
While King was a self-immolation waiting to happen, Molinari was objectively speaking the Republicans best and most realistic shot at trying to take this Senate seat. With her and King both departing, the Republicans are left with no likely candidates for the fall: George Pataki is reportedly unlikely to run, and the only remaining undecided is Liz Feldman, mayor of Larchmont.
As a result of a recent event involving an aircraft and underpants Representative Peter King (R-Not From Iowa), the senior Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, has again come forth to bring his expertise on questions of international terrorism to the national debate.
King, a Congressman who represents a district that straddles New York's Long Island (NY-3), previously served as the Comptroller of Nassau County and a member of Hempstead, New York's Town Council, which wouldn't seem to be the kind of résumé that would give you much credibility in this arena-but Mr. King is a special case.
You see, Mr. King knows a great deal about terrorism...from the inside...because for many years the personal cause that drove his life was to be an active and public supporter of a terrorist group.
And that's why, today, we'll be connecting the dots between Congressman King and the Irish Republican Army.
Apparently the other day when I was mentioning Peter King's list of transgressions (xenophobia, torture, racial profiling) I forgot a fairly major one: supporting terrorism.
Somebody helpfully reminded me today that King had a decades-long apologist relationship with the Provisional Irish Republican Army, even going against his fellow Republicans who wanted him to stop publicly defending the group that was banned as a terrorist organization in both the UK and the Republic of Ireland. From an old article in the New York Sun:
The politician once called the IRA "the legitimate voice of occupied Ireland," he was banned from the BBC by British censors for his pro-IRA views, and he refused to denounce the IRA when one of its mortar bombs killed nine Northern Irish police officers.
Of course apparently, while bombing police stations, and throwing around heavy weapons in civilian areas isn't enough to get you on the outs with Peter King, not being sufficiently pro-Bush is. He stopped talking up the Provisional IRA in 2002. Not because he suddenly had concerns about terrorism in the wake of 9/11, though.
Conceding that he has "cooled on Ireland," Mr. King blames an epidemic of what he calls "knee-jerk anti-Americanism" that swept through Ireland after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
"I don't buy that it's just anti-Bush. There's a certain unpleasant trait that the Irish have, and it's begrudgery ... and resentment towards the Americans," he said in a recent interview in his Washington office.
Wait, Irish bashing? On top of calling Italian Americans mobsters, and saying that there's too many mosques in America? Did this guy just walk straight out of the 1940s? Is he running for the Senate in New York, or Alabama? He makes Daniel Day-Lewis' character in Gangs of New York look grounded and tolerant.
Peter King, the Republican Congressman who represents most of Nassau County, has been all over the national media lately (CNN, Today show, etc.) attacking Obama for his reaction to the failed underpants bombing of NWA 253.
He kicked off the New Year by calling in to Paul Vandenburgh's show this morning on WGDJ-AM in Albany, and, aside from his usual Obama-bashing, also reopened the door to a possible challenge of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand this year.
Back in August, King had said that he would not run against Gillibrand because he didn't think he could raise enough money to be competitive.
I would have to spend every waking moment over the next year trying to raise money for that race. And it would still be a stretch.
But back in August, GOP leaders were hoping to interest Rudy Giuliani or George Pataki in the race. Both of those guys are out (Giuliani officially, Pataki unofficially), so King is Plan C.
While I'm sure that everyone here is still paying most of their attention to the healthcare reform debate, we find outselves creeping up on another one of those bits of inconvenient life. To wit, the preparations for the 2010 election cycle are underway, and cannot be ignored: we can't pass bills without votes.
Fortunately, despite the ongoing propaganda efforts, the environment is still ripe to produce victories. A week ago, we proved again that even against the might of the national Republican party, and the smear machine they've brought to bear over the past year, we can continue the winning streak we've had for the last three election cycles.
We've removed 80% of the former Republican representatives from this state, electing open, accountable, and progress friendly legislators in their place.
There are now only two congressional seats left in New York held by regressives. NY-03, occupied by Peter King, whom most people here already know and despise. And NY-26, held by Chris Lee, a man with the intellectual prowess to rival of bag full of dried ferret droppings.
These two men continue to be a thorn in the side of all efforts at reform and fixing our national problems, and in my opinion they should both be prime targets in 2010. We in New York can do the same thing that our neighbors in New England did: kick the bums out. All of them.
As of today, it's 355 days until Election Day 2010. As the DFA trainers will tell you, the one thing you never have more of is time. That's why we need to start planning and preparing right now.
We in the GLOW Democratic committees recently have come into possession of some juicy material on Lee which you'll be hearing about in the future, but even so, it's going to take the combined efforts and support of people all across New York and the country if these efforts are going to have a chance.
That's why I'm asking everyone reading this to chip in, one way or another. Provide ideas. Volunteer time. Look for candidates. Contribute to the ActBlue nomineefunds.
But we need to get mobilized. Healthcare reform is important, but so is insuring a healthy and growing progressive majority in Congress.
In what almost should be relegated to the dog-bites-man category of political news comes an announcement today from Rep. Peter King that he will not run against Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand - or seek anything other than the seat he currently holds - in 2010.
The lone Republican congressman on Long Island insists he reached this decision "after months of deliberation and conversations with family members and friends and advisors."
Dag, yo.
King's heartbreaking letter is in the extended entry.
A new Marist poll on Senator Gillibrand's approval numbers suggests that she's gaining ground in statewide recognition, though head to head election polling is still a dead heat.
The poll groups respondents into those who have a generally positive opinion of the Senator's job performance, those who have a generally negative opinion, and those who have no opinion or won't say. The latter number declined by 10%, while both the positive and negative views went up.
May
Now
Good or excellent
19%
24%
Below average
10%
13%
Don't know
43%
33%
With 33% of the public still unwilling to commit to an opinion, it's still early, but at the current rate within a few months the Senator may make significant gains in statewide name recognition.
Marist also polled the Senate primaries: a statistical tie between Gillibrand and Maloney, and Pataki beating Peter King by about 15 points.
Polling was done on the general election assuming Gillibrand as the Democratic nominee, bearing out the idea that a moderate and substantially less insane Republican like Pataki would be a stronger general election opponent than King.
A word about election polling a year to a year and a half out: nobody cares but us. Not that that influences the science, but it does influence the public attitude. Ultimately, polls conducted right now are going to be just a measure of name recognition, and thus fairly meaningless once the campaign heats up and people are paying attention.
If polls 18 months out were accurate, Hillary Clinton would have been challenging Rudy Giuliani in the 2008 presidential race.
There has been a lot of speculation about New York and redistricting come 2012. Some believe that my home congressional district, the 26th congressional district, could be a target. Others have discussed the possibility of some of the separate, gerrymandered districts.
Now comes word today that the 3rd congressional district might be a target during the redistricting process, which would be one way for Democrats to get rid of Republican Peter King.
A source close to Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith confirmed "serious discussions" between Democrats in New York and Washington are underway about King's district.
"It's an obvious choice because of the population of the area," he said.
Long Island was once a Republican stronghold, but it has been trending Democratic since the last census.
The GOP still has a 46,072-voter enrollment edge in King's 3rd Congressional District, which includes parts of Nassau and Suffolk counties.
The number of Democrats has grown faster since the last redistricting, with 16,843 voters added to their ranks since 2001, compared with the Republicans' 1,336.
King isn't concerned about being on the Democratic hit list.
"This is dream talk," he said. "It's three years from now. I don't know if I'll even be alive."
It will be interesting to see what approach the Democrats take when it comes to redistricting. King is probably the most safe of the three Republicans that are still serving in the House of Representatives from New York. Targeting him makes sense, but how you would split up his district is a tougher question.
There has been a lot of talk, and some action, regarding attempts to unseat Senator Gillibrand. Several people, on both sides of the political aisle, have been mentioned as possible contenders, and a couple of them have gone so far as to form exploratory committees.
They all have one serious problem -- Kirsten Gillibrand is an extremely bright, politically savvy person who can raise an enormous amount of money. She comes from a politically active family, and has shown the rare ability to rise above her early indoctrination (her father was a Republican lobbyist, and her first political job was as an intern for Al D'Amato).
Since becoming a Senator, her views on guns and gays have "evolved," to use the popular buzz word. She has spoken publicly in support of universal healthcare coverage, including a public option. These positions will win her downstate votes. They may cost her something upstate, but not much.
The main reason for assuming continued strength upstate is that none of her potential challengers comes from anywhere farther north than Peekskill, and all but one of them hail from NYC or Long Island. Senator Gillibrand is positioning herself brilliantly, both on issues and geographically.
In a primary, she will win upstate handily, and between her evolution on issues and the support of Senator Schumer she will gain plenty of downstate votes to win. In a general election she will do even better, earning a lot of upstate Republican votes as well as virtually every Democratic vote in the state (can you see a Democrat voting for George Pataki or Peter King?).
Even Rep. Israel would have been at a serious disadvantage. For every upstate vote he gets, he loses two or three from NYC. If he tries to focus on NYC/Long Island, he loses by such an enormous margin upstate that there is no way he makes up for it.
"It is wrong...for Notre Dame to award President Obama an honorary degree, because this will be seen as tacit acceptance of the president's abortion views, which are so antithetical to Catholic moral teaching on the sanctity and value of human life."
"Senator Cornyn believes Peter King would be a very formidable candidate. He believes the seat could be in play, and is prepared to commit the resources to win the seat," said a senior Republican aide familiar with the meeting.
A source close to King confirmed that the congressman is strongly considering running for the Senate. He is expected to make a final decision whether to run "soon after" Gov. David Paterson appoints a successor for Hillary Clinton's Senate seat.
If the NRSC backs Peter King in a Republican primary, I'll seriously consider sending them a check.
King is all about protecting the borders, no amnesty for illegals and taking a hardline on law-breakers... unless of course they are ex-IRA gunmen here in the US.
The New York State Republican Party is trouble, at its "lowest ebb in 70 years", said one of them to the Sun yesterday.
As Vice President Cheney arrives in the city today to address the New York Republican State Committee at its annual dinner, he will find a party in worse shape than one of his hunting buddies. The state's Republican Party, once a national powerhouse that yielded presidential nominees such as Theodore Roosevelt and Thomas Dewey, is struggling through a seemingly continuous stretch of setbacks, embarrassments, and defeats, leaving Republican elected officials an endangered species throughout the state and party stalwarts divided over how to spur a recovery.
You could say that. They've lost two members of their congressional delegation to retirement and a third to a brilliantly spectacular flameout. They just lost a state Senate seat they'd held since the 19th century. They can't recruit for crap, either at the federal level or closer to home (Um, Barbara Donno? Frank Powers?) They've got no bench and the old farts in the state Senate ain't getting any younger. (Senator Trunzo, I'm looking at you...)
Into this increasingly dismal situation strolls Mr. Sunshine himself, President Dick Cheney who "headlined" the state GOP's big wing ding dinner in Manhattan last night. These weary troops needed some morale boostin' and Darth Cheney was just the man to give it to them.
At a Midtown hotel ballroom on Thursday, Vice President Dick Cheney declared that the United States was "succeeding brilliantly" in Iraq and assailed Democrats on taxes, gas prices, and national security.
As the keynote speaker at the annual dinner of the New York State Republican Party at the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers, Mr. Cheney predicted victory in November for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona. He also criticized Democrats in Congress for refusing to extend President Bush's tax cuts.
"Succeeding brilliantly?" Does he even believe this garbage anymore? Better yet, do the geezers in the ballroom believe this nonsense anymore?
Cheney wasn't the only one spewing false optimism in the hall last night either. Rep. Pete "Baghdad is just like Manhattan" King was there to predict that his party would pick up seats in the New York state Senate this fall, even though he told the Sun a rather different story yesterday:
"Right now we're in tough shape," a Republican congressman who represents Long Island, Peter King, said yesterday in an interview. "During the last decade we didn't build up a farm system and we didn't strengthen organizations and try to keep them alive. I think we just stagnated along the way."
All this happened while across town the Staten Island GOP, at least the ones who don't get invites to the big ol' Cheneyfest in Manhattan, finally found someone willing to run, a "dark horse" candidate (uh-huh), for the seat being vacated by the man with two families.
And if this wasn't weird enough, as if all these old men staring into the abyss while telling each other lies and and cheering on a certified war criminal as he told lies to them, as if this scene of greasy napkins, cufflinks and whistling past the graveyard of impending doom wasn't weird enough, or sufficiently perverse, the priest spoke and boasted of giving the "most partisan invocation ever" to great applause. Then he proceeded to enlist God's help in smiting Barack Obama. Or something.
Of course the chronology is all backward, but this is the order in which the relevant component's of the story of last night's surreal event came to me and, as they piled up, the scene just seemed creepier and creepier.
Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), a last-minute addition to the program -- rearranged around Cheney's changed schedule -- declared Republicans "are going to increase our lead" in the state Senate and warned that Barack Obama "cannot be trusted" with the highest elected position because "his vision is wrong" on negotiating with foes.
I mean, Jefferson, LBJ and JFK slept around, right? What's the big deal?
Let's get some perspective: Presidents such as John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson had extramarital affairs; Grover Cleveland and (it's now believed) Thomas Jefferson fathered children out of wedlock. Objective journalists would look at the entire person and not present a trivialized, prurient caricature.
Yeah, Pete. Vito is just like them, not just some nominally talented hack from Staten Island with two families, traveling the world with his mistress on the taxpayer dime while shunning his gay sister and prattling on about "family values" and driving while completely sh*tfaced. Yep, I totally understand now.
It's simply amazing that someone like Peter King with his past ties to terrorists and his almost innate ability to speak out of both sides of his mouth gets elected.
King writes an op-ed for the New York Post today going way off the rails in his defense of his buddy Vito Fossella.
Cigarette-smuggling rackets originating on New York's Indian reservations are resulting in huge sums of money being transferred to Middle East terror groups, according to a report issued today by Republicans on the House Committee on Homeland Security.
"In total, law enforcement officials in New York State estimate that well-organized cigarette smuggling networks generate between $200,000-$300,000 per week," said the report, which was commissioned by Rep. Peter King, R-Seaford.
"A large percentage of the money is believed to be sent back to the Middle East, where it directly or indirectly finances groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas and al-Qaida."
The report, based largely on interviews with state and federal law enforcement officials, offers no new large-scale evidence of cigarette money flowing to terrorists. (Emphasis mine.)
Instead, it recounts the 2003 case of two women from the Seneca Nation of Indians who were sentenced for their role in a smuggling ring that ended up profiting a Hezbollah-linked network in Dearborn, Mich.
I highlighted that next to last paragraph because there is no new evidence. This is just a report based on a previous incident. A previous incident that happened five years ago.
The report argues that tax increases on cigarettes will only lead to more smuggling and the report also criticized New York for its approach to this problem.
To me, this is more fearmongering and the singling out of cigarettes sold on Indian land troubles me (to say the least).
I also have to laugh at this report for this reason: We are making a big deal out of cigarettes and their possible role in funding terrorists, but why are we not worried about the impacts of oil money on terrorist groups and rogue nations? To me, that should be a more reasonable and intelligent priority instead of focusing on something that is, by comparison, a smaller problem.
