Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand went ballistic on potential rival Harold Ford Jr. yesterday, unleashing a barrage of attacks a day after he rapped her as a “parakeet” for Democratic insiders in Washington.
“I really don’t know who Harold Ford thinks I am but I’m not gonna be pushed aside [by] his banker buddies,” she told The Post in an unsolicited phone call.
“This guy aspires to be a US senator?” Gillibrand added, in by far her most scathing comments about her possible rival, whom she has generally avoided mentioning.
“Him calling me names doesn’t hurt me but it affects New York because it distracts from issues.”
Gillibrand’s comments came just over an hour after she used Twitter to hit back at the “parakeet” comment.
For more than two weeks, Ford and his backers had been mocking Gillibrand as everything from Sen. Charles Schumer’s second vote to a politically weak candidate — and Gillibrand had responded non-aggressively, until now.
“All we know about him is his record, which is abysmal for New York,” Gillibrand said as she blasted his ideas for a payroll tax cut as “a regurgitation of failed Bush” policies.
Ford spokesman Davidson Goldin lashed back hard, saying Ford is someone “who will focus on creating jobs for New Yorkers, so it’s no surprise the unelected senator seems so afraid of losing in an actual election.”
Gillibrand repeatedly complained that people are criticizing her before looking at her record — and ripped into Ford for positioning himself as an outsider.
“The fact that he says he’s an outsider is ridiculous. It is a fraud,” she said. She noted that Ford grew up in Washington when his dad was a congressman from Tennessee, and that Ford himself later held the seat, and was the head of the moderate Democratic Leadership Council.
She called suggestions that she’s a puppet of Schumer “absurd, it’s insulting, it’s very far from the truth . . . my record, if anybody would bother to look at it, is that I fight for the people I represent.”
Goldin hit back: “She started her career as a tobacco apologist and, after being appointed senator in a backroom deal, has spent her time kowtowing to Washington insiders,” he said.
“She takes positions that hurt the people of New York, whether it’s raising our taxes or killing jobs. And her rock-bottom approval numbers prove that New Yorkers are well aware of this. Undoubtedly, she is, too.”
Earlier, Goldin rapped Gillibrand for her Twitter posting about her rival, saying it was an interesting use of the senator’s time.
Gillibrand tweeted, ” ‘Parakeet?’ I wouldn’t allow my 6 yr old to engage in this kind of namecalling. And HF thinks he should be senator?”
Privately, several longtime Democratic insiders agreed, with one saying, “There are far more effective and more senatorial forums for Gillibrand to take on her opponents and critics than Twitter.”