(Crossposted from The Field.)
Now that Caroline Kennedy has removed her name from consideration, tomorrow's noon ET announcement by New York Governor David Paterson as to his pick for US Senate can be seen as a train wreck about to happen.
Speculation swirls around US Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand - a "moderate" Democrat who opposed Comprehensive Immigration Reform among other issues that separate her from the Empire State's more liberal delegation - who was pushed by US Senator Chuck Schumer (D-Wall Street).
Each and every "Netroots progressive" that railed against a possible Kennedy pick owns this one, and their protestations to the contrary - I've been discussing it with some today - come off as cowardly...
They took a progressive voice, painted a villain's mustache on her image, called her "princess" (I'm lookin' at you, Hamsher) and worse, laced it with healthy doses of misogyny, and now that they may get a "Blue Dog" conservative Democrat instead they refuse to accept responsibility for their actions and words.
They sound like the mob in Bob Dylan's song about a boxer that died in the ring, Who Killed Davey Moore:
Who killed Davey Moore,
Why an' what's the reason for?
"Not us," says the angry crowd,
Whose screams filled the arena loud.
"It's too bad he died that night
But we just like to see a fight.
We didn't mean for him to meet his death,
We just meant to see some sweat,
There ain't nothing wrong in that.
It wasn't us that made him fall.
No, you can't blame us at all."
Nope, it don't work that way.
You broke it. You own it.
You argued for Paterson to pick a full-time politician from the mediocre farm team, and it appears that's exactly what you're gonna get.
This adventure in unintended consequences will become bigger than life for years to come on the blogosphere. Anytime the self-proclaimed "progressives" go off trying to eat their own (which for some, is daily), the rallying cry will be sounded: "Remember Caroline Kennedy!"
And if it's true that Paterson is going to appoint Gillibrand tomorrow, that steam engine has already sprung a leak:
But if Mr. Paterson is hoping to quiet the tumult by picking Ms. Gillibrand, there are already indications he may not get his wish. Ms. Gillibrand, a centrist Democrat from upstate who has been endorsed by the National Rifle Association, is controversial among some of the party's more liberal leaders downstate.
Representative Carolyn McCarthy, a Long Island Democrat and ardent gun control activist, said Thursday that if Ms. Gillibrand got the job, she was prepared to run against her in a primary in 2010. Ms. McCarthy was elected to Congress after her husband was killed in a gunman's rampage on the Long Island Rail Road in 1993.
I don't claim to know the real story of why Kennedy removed her name from speculation, and anybody that does claim to know is blowing smoke into an already swirling morass of conflicting theories and gossip. As far as I'm concerned she's now a civilian again and deserves all the privacy that she wishes.
But I think I'm going to enjoy sitting back and watching the next steps play out, and, of course, offering play by play commentary from this eye-in-the-sky chopper as the train cars collide, flip and pile up.
Those that got on the anti-Kennedy train when the conductor cried "all aboard" are stuck on it now as it speeds down the track toward disaster. Put on your seatbelts, kids. Whoo Whoo!