According to Friday's
New York Times, it looks like the Progressive blogging community and some smaller media outlets
barely got it right on NY Governor David Paterson's announcement of the appointment of Representative Kirsten Gillibrand (NY-20) to fill Hillary Clinton's Senate Seat.
The story, "Paterson Picks Gillibrand for Senate," by Danny Hakim and Nicholas Confessore, provides a rather detailed and somewhat fascinating, behind-the-scenes read on the events leading up to the anticipated press conference being held today at noon in Albany.
If we're to believe Messrs. Confessore and Hakim's reportage, apparently, Governor Paterson did not make up his mind until just three hours ago!
Mr. Paterson made his final decision shortly before 2 a.m. Friday after a marathon series of phone calls and deliberations with his top aides, according to the person who spoke to him. He began making phone calls to other contenders about 9 p.m., and had notified most of the other contenders by midnight. By then, the only two candidates who had not heard from Mr. Paterson were Ms. Gillibrand and Randi Weingarten, the president of the United Federation of Teachers.
--SNIP--
The governor continued to deliberate and discuss the matter with his advisers -- despite earlier reports that he had settled on Ms. Gillibrand -- until he made his decision, according to the person who talked to him. He then called Ms. Gillibrand, who had earlier in the evening been told to come to Albany to await an announcement, to let her know she was his pick.
Today's NY Times' piece includes quite a bit of detail--apparently with much of what we've read around the blogosphere over the past 72+ hours being less than accurate--surrounding Caroline Kennedy's "mystifying departure from the Senate field."
Because the governor has often contradicted his own comments about the Senate pick in the course of a single day, no one in the capital appeared ready to say for certain who the new senator would be. Ms. Gillibrand's was the name most frequently mentioned, though other candidates, including Ms. Weingarten and Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, were not ruled out.
--SNIP--
There was incredulity in Democratic circles on Thursday afternoon after the governor's camp engaged in a ferocious public back-and-forth with Ms. Kennedy's side, reaching out to numerous news organizations to disparage her qualifications; one person close to the governor said that her candidacy had been derailed by problems involving taxes and a household employee, but declined to provide details.
This is outstanding journalism folks. Kind of a blow-by-blow of the past couple of days. I would strongly suggest that you check it out. Confessore's one of the greats; and, together with Hakim, he doesn't disappoint.