Sestak’s lesson for NY
So the White House tried to bulldoze Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Sestak out of a primary challenge to GOP-turned-Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter?
Big deal.
The White House has been taking aspiring opponents of rookie New York Sen. Kirstin Gillibrand and squashing them like bugs for months now — and nobody’s made a federal case out of it.
Sure, it’s moderately interesting that the designated bulldozer in the attempted Sestak disappearance turns out to have been Bill Clinton.
And it’s also possible that offering Sestak a job to keep him out of the Senate race — if that happened — was a crime.
So the whole affair (if that word can be used to describe a matter involving Bubba) bears watching.
But, we say again: The Obama White House all by itself is pretty adept at shutting down Senate primaries.
Gillibrand was appointed by the hapless David Paterson to succeed the other Clinton — Hillary.
She did little in her first year in office but reverse course on most positions she held during her single full term in the House — while transforming herself into Chuck Schumer’s shadow.
Potential opponents arose, only to be swept aside, including:
* Rep. Steve Israel (D-Long Island), whom Obama personally called and asked to drop out.
* Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan), a principled liberal who nonetheless found it impossible to raise money with the White House blocking her.
* Ex-Rep. Harold Ford (D-Tenn.), with a strong pro-Wall Street message, could have overcome his out-of-state roots — as Bobby Kennedy and Hillary Clinton did before him. But, as Ford acknowledged, the “heavy-handed tactics” of Obama’s “party bosses” carried the day.
But not in Pennsylvania.
Sestak withstood the pressure — and beat Specter. Too bad he didn’t live here.
