When Alfonse M. D’Amato was a senator from New York, he made a point of showing up at photo ops throughout the state.
No ribbon cutting, no ground breaking was complete without a smiling, wisecracking D’Amato on hand.
Nonetheless, it was surprising that D’Amato, a Republican, had a prominent spot in a Democratic press conference last Friday.
There he was when New York’s Gov. David A. Paterson, a Democrat, named Kirsten E. Gillibrand, also a Democrat, to replace Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
And D’Amato wasn’t just in the photo; he was to Gillibrand’s immediate right. Paterson was on her left.
To Paterson’s left in The New York Times version of the photo, but cropped out of many of the versions that ran on the web and in newspapers, was Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a Democrat and the man who defeated D’Amato in 1998.
Schumer is no slouch when it comes to publicity seeking. Indeed, Bob Dole famously remarked that the most dangerous place in Washington is between Schumer and a camera.
For that reason, Sam Roberts of the Times called D’Amato’s upstaging of Schumer a “Herculean feat.”
D’Amato downplayed his achievement when asked if he knew that he had snatched the best spot. “No one ever blocks Chuck out for long,” D’Amato said.
But D’Amato’s position on the podium was no accident.
Gillibrand interned for two summers during college in D’Amato’s Senate office.
In addition, her father, Albany lobbyist Douglas P. Rutnik, once dated Zenia Mucha, D’Amato’s former communications director and campaign manager.
Like Gillibrand, Paterson also has strong connections to D’Amato.
D’Amato, the founder and head of Park Strategies LLC, a lobbying firm, may be Paterson’s largest fundraiser, Wayne Barrett reported on the Village Voice’s website.
The Voice’s examination of campaign donations indicates that D’Amato and his firm raised $581,400 for Paterson near the end of last year.
Some of the same donors were also backers of Sen. John McCain’s presidential run, reflecting what Barrett describes as “a symmetry that knows no ideology, only D’Amato connections.”
Paterson needs these contributions to fund a gubernatorial race in 2010.
There’s a chance that Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, could end up being his Republican opponent.
D’Amato and Giuliani don’t get along. That’s another reason, Jim Dwyer suggests in the Times, why D’Amato is backing Paterson and why Paterson made sure that D’Amato was in the picture when he named Gillibrand.
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1 Comments
#1. New Frontier 01.29.2009
Boy oh boy, and we thought Blago was bad!
What about Paterson’s obvious pay-to-play scheme in NY with Gillibrand and her “sugar daddy,” Alfonse D’Amato?
See this article about the Paterson-Gillibrand-D’Amato connection which reports that Al D’Amato gave Paterson a stunning $500k at a holiday party last year during the heat of the senate seat competition. (And details another half million or so raised by D’Amato for Paterson in the preceeding weeks!)
That’s well over a million dollars, certainly enough money to buy D’Amato prime placement in the front row of Paterson’s press conference announcing D’Amato’s longtime BFF Kirsten Gillibrand as his senate pick…and perhaps it bought um….other things as well. (cough)
This investigative report unravels the fascinating relationship between Gillibrand and D’Amato (it’s all in the family, baby!), how the two came to be so strangely close to Governor Paterson, and tells the REAL REASON why Caroline Kennedy didn’t get Hillary Clinton’s former senate seat…the cash she wouldn’t pony, Macaroni!
PLEASE READ THIS STORY THE MSM DOES’NT WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT!
http://thekennedys.wordpress.com/2009/01/27/pay-to-play-scheme-in-ny-senate-seat-pick/
Well, now ya know why D’amato had that prime position on the podium with Gillibrand and Paterson. Mystery solved!?
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