LET THE MERRY-GO-ROUND BEGIN

Now that Hillary's off to State, the decision falls to Gov. Paterson as to who's filling that seat. Suffice to say ain't no Moynihans in this crowd:

On the other hand, the New York State chapter of NOW wants a woman to succeed Clinton. That could boost the chance that New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn could become the first openly lesbian member of the U.S. Senate. And if all that speculation weren't enough, the New York Post reports that Paterson and Senator Chuck Schumer may already have a deal to appoint a relative nobody to the spot. It seems that Schumer's priority is that he get recognized as New York's senior Senator, and Andrew Cuomo would be the only contender for the Senate seat to threaten that status. Schumer apparently wants a less high-profile junior Senator -- someone like Buffalo Representative Brian Higgins, or Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand. Whoever ultimately succeeds Clinton, both the successor and Paterson will be up for re-election in 2010. Waiting in the wings are New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (whose popularity has dipped since he announced his plan to seek a third term), and former Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

A relative nobody? Shoot, I'll apply.

O'ROURKE HOLDS FORTH

We Blew It is the title of P.J. O'Rourke's latest rant. He's beautiful when he's angry (and that's not a sexist observation):

We've had nearly three decades to educate the electorate about freedom, responsibility, and the evils of collectivism, and we responded by creating a big-city-public-school-system of a learning environment.

Mm-hm. I do have a quibble with:

People are even more conservative if they have children. Nobody with kids is a liberal, except maybe one pothead in Marin County.

This is not entirely true. When you have kids you become half-conservative-firebreather, half-liberal-nancypants. So when somebody suggests that it might be a bit much to hire Padma Lakshmi for the grade-school lunchlady, we start in bleating on how They Don't Care About The Children^TM; on the other hand, some years down the road when the first young fellow comes to our doorstep calling on Noodle he will be greeted by me as Ted Nugent and my wife as Gunny Hartman, and woe betide any nanny-stater who dares challenge our right to make that boy dance to the tune of our combined weaponry.

Continuing:

And yet we chose to deliver our sermons only to the faithful or the already converted.

Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes. Once upon a time, in September, New York was actually kindasorta in play if you go by the Marist and Siena polls that had McCain down between 5 and 10 points, and yet the McCain campaign never even bothered to open a campaign office in New York, let alone campaign here - their Jersey operation, such as it was, covered both states. Pathetic.

Here in New York was an enormous opportunity for McCain to really let both parties have it - after all, the state GOP establishment was in the tank for Bush back in '00 and tried keeping McCain off the primary ballot even, so it's not like McCain owed them anything even if the NYGOP were Republicans in more than name. And as for the state's Democrats, it's time to turn in your vast right-wing conspiracy secret decoder ring if you can't make hay taking swipes at the likes of Hillary, Sharpton, Shelly Silver, the departed Spitzer, and father and son Cuomo.

All these sharp operators at Camp McCain and not a one of them saw the parallels between Barack Obama and Mario Cuomo circa '82-83 - soaring oratory joined at the hip to a legislature gone flabby, locking in unsustainable gold-plated benefits for preferred constituencies. How'd that whole taking-care-of-the-base thing work out for you again, lads?

The whole thing, you go read it, yes?