Pulling Up the Ladder: A person ascends, after which the person disables the device which enabled that ascension, in order to prevent those who follow from ascending similarly.
Note: The Village Voice has been doing yeoman's work analyzing the current NY-Sen primary and its many actors and at times, surprising actions, which are creating an exciting if not at times melodramatic political scenario in the context of a senate seat currently held by an appointee, but which most likely will be subject to a primary to choose a Dem nominee prior to the general elections in 2010.
Today I'd like to discuss a piece in which the Village Voice analyzes Senator Chuck Schumer's contention that primaries in some contexts are undesirable and dangerous (a contention which appears to have led to Schumer pulling up the ladder and disallowing or dissauding several viable candidates from participating in a primary for the NY junior senate seat).
To start, the three current main actors re: the NY junior senate seat are:
*David Paterson, the New York Governor, promoted to his current position courtesy of Spitzer's affinity for ladies of the night and subsequent resignation; Paterson is the "election of one" appointor of the New York Senate Seat previously held by Hillary Clinton
*Kirsten Gillibrand, Paterson's appointment choice for Junior New York Senator; Gillibrand is a former House Rep and member of the Blue Dog Coalition who was previously the most conservative member of the New York Democratic House delegation; her current ideological leanings are progressive; her long-term ideology is currently subject to considerable debate and controversy; she is a very good fundraiser and coupled with her conservative record, could appeal very well to centrist voters
*Chuck Schumer, elected Senior New York Senator, staunchly opposes a primary of Paterson's appointee, yet does not oppose of a primary of Paterson himself (it's unclear whether Schumer approves of versus opposes a primary of Roland Burris, Gillibrand's IL appointee counterpart)
On June 17th, Wayne Barrett of the Village Voice published a piece titled, "Schumer Protects Gillibrand from a Primary Challenge Citing His Record On Such Matters -- So We Checked That Record."
The entire article is an extremely good read and I strongly encourage dkos readers to check it out.
It focuses on challenging assertions which Schumer has made in the course of advocating for a no-primary-scenario despite the appointed (rather than elected) nature of the current seat holder. I won't excerpt the entire article here, because it is more than worth taking the time to read the work in its entirety.
I will quickly excerpt the article's exposure of the main point of weakness in Schumer's anti-primary arguments:
Per Schumer, divisive primaries lead to weakened, bruised general elections competitors, thus risking seats and justifying Schumer's previous actions in which he used a heavy hand and his senior position on the DSCC to clear the senatorial field for candidates like Harold Ford in TN. The Voice catalogues the races which Schumer utilized as evidence of his thesis, and summarized in reply:
This chronicle of key races, led by the ones cited by Schumer himself, makes no case for Schumer's current attempt to block a primary against Gillibrand. The only times when Schumer prevented primaries and won in November, his strategy was designed to take a seat away from the Republicans, hardly the Gillibrand situation. While Schumer won three times (Pennsylvania, Ohio and New Mexico), he lost once (Tennessee), and there's no evidence that the candidates who were forced out were any less likely to win than the ones who did (especially in Pennsylvania). There are no real examples of destructive primaries, and many solid examples of primaries that appeared to help.
Also of note (and giving rise to the title of this diary, "Pulling Up the Ladder") Schumer himself benefited from senior powerbrokers being unable to choose one candidate amongst themselves with no input from voters, and then discourage primary candidates from challenging that top-down choice:
Ironically, Schumer freely acknowledges that he benefited from the contested 1998 primary that catapulted him to a November victory over longtime New York Republican incumbent Al D'Amato (Schumer's 2007 book, Positively American, describes his primary win over Geraldine Ferraro -- who he started out trailing by 36 points and beat by 25 -- as a magnificent gearing up of his campaign team for his November win over Al D'Amato). Asked if he'd ever tried to prevent a primary to protect an unelected senator appointed by an unelected governor, as he is trying to do with Gillibrand, Schumer said: "I look at it a little differently. She's an incumbent."
Senator Schumer, please extend the ladder back down. Let ambitious politicians compete fairly for a promotion to the New York Senate.
Debate welcome!