Rep. Carolyn Maloney of Manhattan says she’s planning a primary chal lenge to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, the ideological chameleon from Albany.
Good for Maloney.
Yep, she’s a dyed-in-the-wool liberal Democrat. And her positions on most major issues give us hives.
But she has principles, and for 16 years she has ably represented New York’s so-called Silk Stocking district — the East Side of Manhattan and parts of Queens.
Kirsten Gillibrand?
In 2006, she eked out a victory in the 20th Congressional District — which, while it’s changing, counts as many cows within its borders as liberals.
Gillibrand won by mouthing conservative views on the issues, and by taking full advantage of a scandal-plagued Republican incumbent’s many weaknesses.
She cruised to re-election in 2008 — after having presented herself as a pro-gun, anti-immigration, anti-gay-marriage, anti-bank-bailout “moderate” Democrat.
Then New York’s senior senator, Chuck Schumer, and its accidental governor, David Paterson, egregiously and successfully conspired to replace Hillary Clinton with Gillibrand.
Whereupon Gilly began changing colors — morphing from deep purple to bright blue in the blink of an eye.
Clearly, Kirsten Gillibrand isn’t about to let principles stand between herself and all those downstate primary votes.
But as unseemly as her behavior may be, even worse is the disrespect for democracy that Schumer and the Democratic Party — all the way up to the White House — have displayed to date.
Himself the product of a bruising 1998 primary fight, Schumer has now decided that contested primaries are bad — doubtless because he knows that his puppet will be hard-pressed to win one.
So, he got President Obama to push aside possible challengers to Gillibrand, including Long Island Rep. Steve Israel.
Maloney, happily, seems to be made of tougher stuff.
New Yorkers deserve to choose their own leaders.