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N.Y. / Region

Kennedy Shadow Looms Over Senate Hopefuls



Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times

Try the pastries, urged Representative Steve Israel at the Mar-Logg
Restaurant in Utica, one of his stops on an upstate tour. He would
like to be appointed senator.

By JEREMY W. PETERS
Published: January 5, 2009


UTICA, N.Y. — It is not easy competing with a Kennedy. This axiom of American politics has been true for more than half a century.

But nowhere is it more obvious than in New York nowadays, where United States Representatives Steve Israel and Carolyn B. Maloney, who both aspire to the Senate seat being vacated by Hillary Rodham Clinton, have followed the lead of Caroline Kennedy and crisscrossed the state in a campaign-style dash through city halls, train stations and offices of local party leaders.

They have variously invited reporters to lunch, cheerfully passed around cream-filled pastries and publicized every stop on their schedules, but still attracted scant attention compared with the heiress to America’s most storied political dynasty.

Mr. Israel was greeted by four reporters Monday afternoon at the Mar-Logg Restaurant in Utica, where patrons barely seemed to notice as he held court in the rear of the diner. He said the low-key reaction did not trouble him.

“Look, she’s Caroline Kennedy,” said the congressman, after sitting down to lunch with a group that included Utica’s mayor, David R. Roefaro; and State Assemblywoman RoAnn M. Destito. “And it doesn’t bother me, dissuade me or affect me in the least.”

Mr. Israel, who represents central Long Island, and Ms. Maloney, from the Upper East Side of Manhattan, have two decades of service in Congress between them and are unquestionably politicians in their own right. Yet they have spent the last several days traveling through the requisite campaign stops for statewide office in New York: Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse.



James Rajotte for The New York Times

U.S. Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, who hopes to fill Hillary Rodham
Clinton’s senate seat, with State Assemblyman Joseph D. Morelle on a visit
to Rochester City Hall on Monday.

On Monday, after visiting Rochester, Ms. Maloney tried to turn her lack of renown into an asset.

“If this is a celebrity beauty contest, I am not going to win,” Ms. Maloney said in a telephone interview as she was wrapping up her upstate tour. “But if people want to look at someone’s record and their service and their work to help people, I think I have a chance.”

Clips of Ms. Kennedy’s hurried exit from Syracuse City Hall as she ducked reporters’ questions last month are still being played on cable news channels. Ms. Maloney’s town hall forum at a church there on Sunday earned a 350-word article in The Post-Standard, the local paper.

At times, Mr. Israel and Ms. Maloney seemed to be competing for who could meet with the most local of political officials in the area. Mr. Israel’s trip included visits with not only the mayors of Syracuse and Utica but also the mayor of Hornell, in the Southern Tier (population about 8,500).

Ms. Maloney dropped in on the chairman of the Monroe County Democratic Committee, Joseph D. Morelle, and the president of the Syracuse Common Council, Bea González.

If this all looks suspiciously like a campaign, Mr. Israel, Ms. Maloney and Ms. Kennedy certainly are not calling it that. In fact they are all going out of their way to avoid appearing to be seeking the Senate seat too aggressively for fear of antagonizing Gov. David A. Paterson, who has sole authority to make the appointment.

Mr. Paterson’s vetting process for the seat remains a subject of speculation and some mystery, and he seems exasperated with all the fuss about it. Except for confirming the names of those who say publicly that they have been interviewed by Mr. Paterson, the governor’s aides have not released any information about how Mr. Paterson is reviewing people. His spokeswoman, Risa B. Heller, said on Monday that the process was confidential.

Ms. Maloney emphasized in the interview that the decision rested “completely and totally” with the governor.

When asked if his visit to the restaurant in Utica was a campaign stop, Mr. Israel insisted: “There’s no campaign when you don’t have any voters. It’s a job interview.”

But anyone who dropped in on Mr. Israel’s visit to the diner could have been forgiven for thinking he was running for office. He shared his views on promoting environmentally friendly technology (“I am on an evangelical mission to do this”) and the need for the federal government to better understand how they can help state and local governments cut costs (“I was a city councilman”).

He took delight in sampling the local desserts and then insisting that the reporters who were invited to sit down at his table try one. His favorite seemed to be the lobster tail, a cream-filled pastry dusted with powdered sugar.

“You can’t leave Utica without trying an Italian pastry,” Ms. Destito observed.

And as in any campaign, there has been the occasional flub. In Buffalo on Saturday, Ms. Maloney mispronounced Tonawanda, a town nearby that is home to a General Motors plant. In the interview on Monday, Ms. Maloney brushed off the blunder, even as she carefully enunciated each syllable of the town’s name.

“I think people should listen to what you have to say, not how you say it,” said Ms. Maloney.

Neither Ms. Maloney nor Mr. Israel was eager to talk about Ms. Kennedy, but her shadow seemed to lurk. Mr. Israel noted that his visit to Rochester was his fourth or fifth in the last two years. Ms. Kennedy skipped Utica on her tour and told reporters that her visit to Rochester was her first.

With a chuckle, Mr. Israel also described walking into a meeting at Buffalo City Hall on Dec. 17 to discuss his interest in the seat with Byron W. Brown, the mayor. Of course, Mr. Israel was not the only person on Mr. Brown’s schedule that day.

As he entered City Hall, Mr. Israel said, he noticed a large gathering of reporters, photographers and camera operators. “I said, ‘Wow, I’m really popular in Buffalo,’ ” he recalled on Monday.

Then someone politely pointed out that the media had gathered for another reason. “They said to me, ‘No. They’re not here for you, they’re here for Caroline Kennedy.’ ”


Nicholas Confessore contributed reporting from Albany.


Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company