Written for The Albany Project, and reposted here for the DKos crowd.
With less than 48 hours left until we know the results of the primary for Attorney General--probably the hardest fought statewide Democratic primary in a decade--I'm rather surprised that TAP hasn't seen more posts by various people giving their reasons for endorsing this or that candidate, until the main page overflows with AG-related content.
Well, you can rest easy: I'm not going to do that. Don't get me wrong, I certainly have opinions on all of them. In a nutshell, I like and respect Eric Schniederman, but I don't think we should elect a State Senator as the next Attorney General whose major goal needs to be investigating corruption in the State Senate and the Assembly. After being endorsed by Silver and Diaz, I don't trust Richard Brodsky with a shiny nickel, much less the AG post. Sean Coffey has been upstate more than some people who live here. I can't seem to go anywhere near Buffalo without him showing up and talking about enforcing Wall Street accountability. Eric Dinallo has a lot of very well thought out ideas for making the AG's office better and more effective, particularly for rural New York. In fact, if this were between Dinallo and Coffey, I really don't think New York could lose.
But as I said, this isn't an endorsement. Quite the opposite: I'm going to make an anti-endorsement. After observing all the candidates, I have come to the conclusion that the one person I could not abide in the AG's chair is Kathleen Rice.
To explain my position, let's start at the beginning. Rice did not vote, even once, until she was 37 years old. During that time, she was for quite a long while a registered Republican, and then was not affiliated with any party, before finally switching to the Democrats a couple of years before launching her campaign for District Attorney. To my mind, this speaks to a lack of convictions about any kind of deeply held political beliefs. Remember, the same era when Rice was choosing not to vote was during the Gingrich "Revolution," the non-stop hounding of Bill Clinton, and the "election" of George W. Bush. If those things couldn't motivate you to pick a side and take 15 minutes a year out to go vote, I have to ask, do you have any political convictions that you would put up more than a token effort for?
Yes, there are lots of "ordinary" people who didn't bother to vote then either. The important distinction--those people aren't asking to be made the Attorney General for the State of New York, and to be given the responsibility for protecting the citizens of this state and enforcing it's laws.
When confronted on this issue, Rice called it a "youthful failing," which is one step away from "youthful indiscretion" and the epitome of a politician's non-apology apology. It's good to know that I'm going to continue being able to brush off anything I do wrong as a "youthful failing" for at least another decade.
Once in office as the Nassau DA, Rice dedicated her time to prosecution of drunk driving and sex offenders, the sort of easy, non-controversial cases that a DA uses to burnish their reputation while avoiding anything difficult, controversial, or where they might risk losing. In other words, it's the kind of tack taken by an ambitious DA who wants to move up the ladder, and become mayor--or in this case, Attorney General. Given the status of one of the most powerful people on Long Island, Rice chose to use that power for self promotion and personal image.
New York can't afford for it's next AG to take a pass on the hard issues. We can't have a placeholder candidate who just wants to be the next person elected from the AG's office to something yet higher. New York needs someone who is going to approach the office of Attorney General with a knife clenched between their teeth, ready to take on any battle at any time for the sake of helping and protecting our citizens, no matter how dirty it gets, no matter if they might lose. New Yorkers need someone ready and willing to fight for them. I have yet to see any reason to believe Kathleen Rice will fight for anyone but herself.