All Over Albany

Is Kirsten Gillibrand unstoppable?

It appears the conventional wisdom (or whatever) is shifting from "Kirsten Gillibrand isn't going to make it" to "Kirsten Gillibrand is unstoppable." From a NYT story today about "What Makes Gillibrand Scary?":

... Ms. Gillibrand possesses assets most of the aspiring senators lack. She has a legitimate geographic base, having represented an Albany-area Congressional district in a part of the state where her family is prominent. She has a network of donors, especially women, who are not going to abandon her. She has a commitment to working her tail off to keep the seat, a fact that even her political enemies grudgingly acknowledge.

And, perhaps most important, she has $5.1 million in her campaign account.

Nothing like a big stack of money to scare off opponents. KG's skill/luck at clearing the field of electoral opponents for her Senate seat has prompted all sorts of theories, including one that involves Al D'Amato secretly supporting her while he publicly supports a Republican.

Earlier this week, a writer for TPM asserted (absurdly) that KG is... "the most powerful woman in American politics." (That kind of press should really help KG's relationship with Nancy Pelosi.) Not bad for someone whose favorable rating in the last Siena poll was just 32 percent -- with 38 percent of respondents saying they "prefer someone else" for the Senate.

And all this while she's, reportedly, busy "in the middle of diapers and bottles and bills and votes and markups."

If this kind of press keeps up, we'll await news of a kryptonite intolerance...

Earlier on AOA:
+ Describing the candidates
+ Does she sound like a senator?