The US Senate seat currently held by Illinois born-and-bred, Smith & Yale-educated, Arkansas attorney and DC-hostess Hillary Rodham Clinton (and before you flame me for that description, please at least search my diaries to confirm that I voted for her in the FL primary), has a long tradition of extending New York's geographic and partisan borders. Clinton inherited the seat from Oklahoma-born, Harvard professor, DC sub-cabinet type and economic advisor turned diplomat basically to get him out of the country at first, and sure I guess Hells Kitchen raised Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who parleyed his years as Nixon's house socialist and Ford's foreign-policy moralist to become a Democratic Party icon in the Empire State. (I lived there 1977-84 and happily voted for him in 82, by the way.)
Now, the "New York Republican" he defeated, James Buckley, actually won his seat on the Conservative Party line running with Nixon's blessing against the Republican Nelson Rockefeller had appointed to fill the remainder of Robert Kennedy's term. He was a Connecticut lawyer at the time, of course, where he had been Yale educated along with all those other Buckleys. He was born in NYC, and enough of a New Yorker in 1970 that he had run against Jacob Javits two years earlier in the Republican primary. He had a 38 percent plurality, but the rest of the vote was closely split between Charles Goodall and a Democrat.
Rockefeller appointed Goodall, who by New York City terms was even less of a New Yorker than someone from Connecticut as he hailed from upstate. He had been a house member since winning a special election in 1959 and was pretty much accepted as a conservative, part of the clatch who supplanted Charlie Halleck as minority leader with Gerald Ford because Halleck was too willing to actually work with Democrats on legislation to achieve government. As a senator, he went native and actually introduced the first impeachment resolution against the Trick for the Cambodia invasion.
And of course, he replaced Bobby Kennedy, who pretty much got to decide among several states he could claim residency in when it became clear that as LBJ's attorney general he had become, in Jimmy Hoffa's words, "just another lawyer." He was Massachusetts born, but had lived in NYC from ages 2 through 13 while the son of a combination tycoon, aspiring politician and philanderer. As a DoJ attorney, he was assigned to New York in early 1952 and so bonded with the city that he quit four months later to move back to Massachusetts.
I could take the lineage of the seat back further, but it would be tedious and further delay my point.
This seat has a tradition of weirdness that Gov. Paterson really needs to uphold. Yes, appointing a Kennedy would do that a little, and I'm sure Caroline Kennedy would make a fine senator. Elevating a House member on merit also has precedent, and Nadler would make a fine senator as well.
But what would uphold the seat's tradition best, and in the long run best copntribute to the continued free fall of the national Republican Party?
I'd argue: Neil Bush. Yes, we'd be giving up a piece of our majority for the first two years of the Obama presidency, and that might prove crucial. But it might not. And in the meantime, naming Bush to the seat would allow the Dems to run against a Bush in the 2010 midterms.
Played properly, it could kill Jeb!'s chances to take Mel Martinez's place as Florida's junior senator. However, the potential beyond that is delicious.
What does Mitch McConnell do in assigning him committees. Almost every major committee he could be assigned to involves some glaring guffaw generator. Banking? He wasn't just involved in a $1 billion S&L failure; investigators determined that his judgment at Silverado had a lot to do with causing the failure. Education? His software company had some serious conflict of interest action in chasing NCLB money. Commerce? The same can be said for some of the other companeis he has been involved in.
Foreign relations would be just so cool. Not only has Neil had a business relationship with a Putin rival. Not only has he been involved with several Middle East countires. He stated undear oath in his divorce proceeedings that he thought there was nothing unusual about being sexually serviced while a hotel guest in Thailand. Think about the next time Nic Kristof does some columns on human trafficking, or better still the next time a Senate panel has hearings on anything approaching sexual slavery. Neil is a poster boy for perpetrating stereotypes, either that or he is simply a customer.
anyway, Neil Bush. Senator, NY. think about it.