[Britfunclubs]

Nepotism NY style as clans vie for seat


By GLENN THRUSH & HARRY SIEGEL
12/20/08 8:08 PM EST



Photo: Composite image by Politico.com

The appointment of the New York Senate seat
has become a struggle among political dynasties, with the
question being which family ends up on top.

The appointment of the New York Senate seat Hillary Clinton will shortly vacate has become a struggle among political dynasties, with the question being which family ends up on top.

It involves no fewer than five intertwined political clans of varied national and regional standing-the Clintons, the Kennedys, the Cuomos, the Patersons and the Suozzis, with cameo appearances by the Ickes and the Rutnik-Gillibrand families.

As the clans clash and collude to fill the soon-to-be vacant seat, the frontrunner to replace the former first lady appears to be Caroline Kennedy, the former first daughter with an unexceptional resume and a low public profile prior to her campaign work for Barack Obama earlier this year.

On the other hand, her name is pretty much everywhere in New York, ranging from the international airport named after her father to the Triboro Bridge, which was recently renamed for uncle Bobby, once the state's junior senator.

That's just one example of the tangling of plotlines with bloodlines. …

Into this already volatile mix comes Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the state's best-known environmentalist, who so disdains Cuomo that he flirted with a 2006 run against his former brother-in-law for the then-open attorney general seat, and has now become perhaps the most vociferous backer of his cousin Caroline's candidacy.

"Incestuous, intermarrying with one another to take over the crown and consolidate power," is how one Nassau pol described the Kennedy-Cuomo relationship.

The man solely responsible for appointing the new senator is, of course, Gov. David Paterson, son of former New York Secretary of State and Harlem power broker Basil Paterson who replaced disgraced ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer, the son of politically wired, mega-developer Bernie Spitzer, whose net worth is estimated at $500 million.

Another potential Clinton replacement is Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi, son of Judge Joseph Suozzi, a supporter of the Kennedys for decades, and a name partner at Meyer, Suozzi, English and Klein, where another partner is – you guessed it – Paterson the Elder, whose clients include many of the state’s most politically potent unions.

And who's quietly pushing Suozzi to Democrats all around the state? None other than Hillary Clinton's top consigliere Harold Ickes, himself the son of FDR's interior secretary, and one of Basil Paterson's best friends.

Then there's Upstate Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, a moderate Democrat who was said to be an early Schumer favorite. Unlike Kennedy, she changed the name she used professionally, so she has no obvious family name to speak of. But her father happens to be Douglas Rutnik, one of the state's most powerful lobbyists.

The quiet, if intense, palace struggle for Clinton's seat evokes nothing so much as a 16th-century power struggle among Florentine families, only without the dagger thrusts, poisoned figs and vicious, allegorical frescoes. …

One Albany Democrat blames the rise of the dynasties on the slow death of New York's despised old Tammany machine, which allotted power on the basis of loyalty and venality, not on birth and marriage certificates.

"The political organizations. created a bench for offices," the person said. "Now, you have political families looking like Rome after Caesar. Just in the Bronx you've got Espadas, Diazes, Riveras, and sons and daughters coming up all over the state owing to the decline and decay of political organizations. In the [Al] Smith era [of the 1920s], when someone was in line to go up, someone else was on the bench for their old position. Now the talent is depleted." …

Yet even if Kennedy prevails, an anti-nepotism and -privilege backlash, spurred on by the sour economy and resentment at rich-kid and filial entitlements, the latter embodied by Bloomberg's hard push to stretch the city's term limits, could eventually sweep away the dynasties.

To get in the game before that happens, Kennedy greased the skids for her campaign for the appointment by hiring the well-connected consulting firm run by Josh Isay, a former chief of staff to Sen. Chuck Schumer, which many view as an implicit acceptance, if not endorsement of her bid, by the state's senior senator. ...

Oh, and professional provocateur Al Sharpton, with whom Kennedy just had a high-profile Kabuki lunch, is also a client. …



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