You may recall that, back in August, GOP Rep. Pete King made one of the mopiest exits from Senatorial consideration in recent memory, kvetching that Gov. David Paterson’s decision to tap Kirsten Gillibrand instead of Caroline Kennedy to fill Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat robbed him of the opportunity to enter a competitive race. Well, it looks like King, at the urging of Rudy Giuliani, may be having second thoughts:
While Mr. Giuliani mentioned Mr. Pataki and Representative Peter T. King of Long Island as potential challengers to Ms. Gillibrand, those who know Mr. Pataki say the odds of his running are remote. (Efforts to reach Mr. Pataki through a spokesman on Tuesday were unsuccessful.)
Mr. King ruled out a race against Ms. Gillibrand in August, but said in an interview on Tuesday that he would give it a second thought, at the urging of party strategists. A run would mean giving up his House seat and his spot as ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee, and winning would leave him facing re-election in 2012.
Who knows how seriously King is taking this — if he wants to run, he wasted a hell of a lot of fundraising time in dithering for so long while the industrious Gillibrand has been flooding her coffers. The GOP can’t seem to come to terms with letting this race slip away, but they have nothing substantive to show for this race 11 months after Gillibrand’s appointment.
UPDATE: King tells Politico that it’s unlikely that he’ll run, with the chances that he’ll take the plunge on a scale of 1-to-10 being a “three”.
Gillibrand would crush him and we might have a chance at getting his house seat!
Get Peter King on the ballot! He insulted Michael Jackson right after he died. Maybe they forgave him but if you remind them what Peter King said, they should get active. I bet there are some really die hard Michael Jackson fans out there.
As I pointed out in another thread re: Rick Lazio, King would probably play very well in his home territory on Long Island, but that alone only brings you to about 43% of the vote statewide. He’d need to win in places like Syracuse, Schenectady, Renesselear and Westchester, which have all trended more and more blue over the years.
Gillibrand’s definitely vulnerable, but I dunno if King is even strong enough to overcome the Dem registration advantage. At best, he could eek out a victory like D’Amato ’92, and at worst, he could lose by double-digits like D’Amato ’98 and Lazio ’00.
Pete King probably could make a race out of it. As for his House seat…well, we do have Ed Mangano. A Mangano v. Suozzi rematch would be fun.
The way I see it, if you want to attack Peter King, use his association with the IRA, not his opinion of Jacko.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/…
Gillibrand is likely to win with 65%+ of the vote
Schumer is likely to win with 80%+ of the vote
Cuomo is likely to win with 70%+ of the vote
… but he want the support of the stablishment. Now open the door because he know the republican stablishment need continue finding.
considering a few dozen redistricters are feverishly working on “sticking it to” him right now.
Gillibrand’s favorables are well underwater. He likely won’t win but he could make a race of it.