The abortion-rights activist community in New York is beginning to coalesce around Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. This development could be a boost for the new senator -- appointed to her seat in January -- as she attempts to deter fellow Democrats who are threatening to run to her left in her Senate contest next year.
NARAL Pro-Choice New York will announce tomorrow that it is endorsing Gillibrand, who Democratic Gov. David A. Paterson picked to fill the vacancy created when Hillary Rodham Clinton left to become secretary of State.
The organization says it is the earliest it has ever endorsed a candidate in an election cycle. But NARAL President Kelli Conlin said, "If we can avoid a bloody primary by endorsing early, we want to be a part of that." She added, "We don't want to risk this seat in a general election."
NARAL Pro-Choice is not the first feminist organization to rally to Gillibrand's cause in the November 2010 special Senate election, which will fill out the remaining two years of the term Clinton won in 2006.
EMILY's List, a fundraising powerhouse for Democratic women candidates who support abortion rights, endorsed Gillibrand promptly after she was appointed in January.
The backing by these abortion-rights advocacy groups contrasts with the trouble Gillibrand has had consolidating support from other liberal constituencies in the state -- in large part because she projected a centrist image in winning the 2006 and 2008 House races in New York's 20th, a swing district upstate.
She has been courting the state's labor unions and so far has secured one endorsement , with the big unions still waiting on the sidelines. Gun control advocates and minority-group leaders, meanwhile, have been skeptical of Gillibrand.
Conlin said that other prospective contenders in the 2010 Democratic primary -- Reps. Steve Israel, Carolyn B. Maloney and Carolyn McCarthy, and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer -- are "all friends" whom NARAL Pro-Choice has endorsed in the past. But she said organization leaders made the determination early on that Gillibrand deserved their support because she is the incumbent and she has been a "real leader" on abortion issues during her term in the House and now in the Senate.
"We threw ourselves into her congressional races," Conlin said. "We fought for her then, we're fighting for her now."
That will include reaching out to NARAL's 60,000 members in the state and doing voter outreach efforts to abortion-rights supporters. NARAL also plans to raise campaign funds for Gillibrand.
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Comments
This is a smart move by Kelli Conlin to back Senator Gillibrand with an early and strong endorsement.
It should give the other candidates pause to understand what their possible primary challenge will actually produce: it will give a safe New York Senate seat to a Republican.
Posted by: TeddieR11
| May 15, 2009 6:39 AM
I'm in full agreement with TeddieR11; Ms Gillibrand has been re-branding herself in the Senate, including what can be described as some very liberal votes. The Democrats nationally need to present a united party to the country, that shows they are more interested in doing the nation's business than in internal arguments, while allowing the GOP to show itself as divided and more focussed on infighting than presenting an alternative model of government.
Posted by: fenwaydawg
| May 15, 2009 8:52 AM
NARAL president Kelli Conlin has said, “We see a champion in Kirsten Gillibrand. We want to back that champion and be a part of her victory.”
Lots of us feel that way, even those of us who also have supported and admired others whose names are being advanced as primary challengers. Let us hope that those others re-think their interest in challenging Gillibrand which many of us understand to be ego politics prodded by consultants-seeking-business. We need to coalesce around Senator Gillibrand, help her be the best advocate for New York that she can be, and be sure that she wallops any Republican foolish enough to go up against a unified Democratic party.
Posted by: rrlieberma
| May 15, 2009 10:44 AM
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