NY Senate Appointment: “I Don’t Do Utica”
If New York Congressman Gary Ackerman (D-Queens) was harboring any secret ambitions to fill Hillary Clinton’s senate seat, he effectively scotched them this week.
Many local officials and residents expressed outrage Thursday with comments a downstate U.S. congressman made about Utica this week on a radio show.
U.S. Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-Queens, said on WOR radio Monday that he wouldn’t want to take U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Senate seat “because I don’t do Utica, and that’s a qualification for the job,” according to a story in the New York Post.
The Upstate crowd is already in an uproar, demanding the full mea culpa replete with sackcloth and ashes from Ackerman. The usual quotes are being floated about how New York City wouldn’t have any electricity or water without us rubes from the back country, but more importantly the comment highlights the tightrope that David Paterson must walk when considering the appointment and a big problem faced by Caroline Kennedy. The Five Boroughs comprise roughly 3/5 of the population of the Empire State, but you don’t win elections without the support of the more rural and conservative Upstate districts. Also, while outnumbered in raw population numbers, Upstaters actually show up at the polls and vote more reliably than their Big Apple counterparts in every single election.
Ackerman’s comments couldn’t have come at a better time for Congressman Mike Arcuri, considered by some to be a dark horse candidate for Clinton’s senate position.
U.S. Rep. Michael Arcuri, D-Utica, who works with Ackerman in the U.S. House of Representatives, said Ackerman’s comments motivate him to continue to voice his opinion that someone from upstate should be the person to replace Clinton in the Senate.
“I know Gary; I like Gary,” Arcuri said. “But I think those comments – more than anything else – are indicative of why we should have an upstater in the U.S. Senate.”
So you think we need an upstater, eh Mike? I don’t suppose you have anyone in mind….?
How does this affect Caroline Kennedy? There are plenty of pundits wondering whether she has taken a trip anywhere outside of New York City in the last two decades that didn’t involve a private jet. Her current Upstate tour, covering Syracuse, Buffalo and Rochester, is raising eyebrows all across the state. Her absolute refusal to take any questions and engage the press is doing her no favors, and she’s only meeting with Democratic Party leaders. This morning, Joe Scarborough was playing clips of Ms. Kennedy brushing off the media at every stop and described her as “acting like a queen.” That’s not going to play too well with Paterson’s upstate constituents who are already suspicious of her Manhattan pedigree.
Kennedy may yet land the role, but Paterson is clearly going to be facing a civil war in his own party if he picks her. When Sweet Caroline show up in my neck of the woods next week, I’ll see if I can’t wrangle some exclusive video for you of her ignoring my questions as well.
5 Responses to “NY Senate Appointment: “I Don’t Do Utica””
Hilarious. I went to Hamilton College, which is about 12 miles from Utica. There is no more iconic rust belt city than Utica. Drive down the mighty “Arterial” through the heart of the city and you pass blocks and blocks of abandoned warehouses. I'll never forget attending the Oktoberfest “celebration” at F.X. Matt's Brewery in the largely-Polish west side. My friends and I were the only people smiling the whole time – except a priest who came out of the brewery doublefisting a few Utica Clubs.
The Arterial, by the way, is the biggest piece of mob-kickback useless concrete in America.
New York City metro is a feast for the eyes (not only SFO on steroids, but also giving us Gritty City stuff no modern-US-location metro area can approach), but so is the Upstate New York countryside. My rad-lib friend in DC, when she'd visit me there in Upstate, found the city I was in “dreary” (I even predicted what word she would use), but she loved the countryside, too.
I said it then, and I repeat here: If it were only possible to make an economic success of it, a separate State of Erie would be nice, indeed.
Ah, Elrod brings back fond memories. I grew up in Schuyler, just down the road from there and his description is very accurate. And yes, the Arterial should have been called the Mafia Cash Grab Express.
Well… I mean, if there really WERE such a thing as the mafia. Which I'm very obviously not saying there is. Far from it, actually. Errr… I need to get going.
I hope my longer posting didn't get removed by mistake by Disqus. We'll see…
Incidentally, the place I lived and worked for a while was Binghamton. I visited all the classic Upstate cities — Utica-Rome, Syracuse (closest B of A was in Cortland, on the way north), Oswego, Watertown, Rochester, Buffalo-Niagara (eat at Oliver's at least once, even though it's very expensive!), and also Ithaca (hint: bang) and Schenectady (should qualify, too, even if Albany often doesn't). I also headed north of Albany frequently (Plattsburg is mighty cold and looked bleak after the “Quebec” ice storm that actually affected New York, New Brunswick, and other places, too).
It was removed.
To recap _briefly_, another person who might be qualified for the Senate seat, but who is unfit for it, is liberal mayor Bloomberg of New York City, the darling of the non-”moderate” liberal set. Anyone who wants to misuse the courts to shake down the gun industry is unfit. More broadly and pertinently to the “state of the state” of New York (and other states), the same ridiculous set of new taxes that Paterson includes in his budget proposal (tech kids will _love_ the “digital download” tax) include some taxes that already exist in New York City, with Bloomberg's approval. The states' problems remain mainly that of excessive spending (which is what bankrupted liberal “jewel” New York City by the mid-1970s) and the bloated, redundant government and subservience to demanding, at-times-militant unions (with a vast multiplicity of municipal-government fiefdoms in New York and other states like New Jersey, that bloat governments more than ever) is the same kind of failed model that coincidentally we've seen with the Detroit auto makers and the UAW, as well as with cities in addition to New York City.