Under renewed frantic pressure from state GOP leadership and lagging badly in fundraising, Jeanine Pirro yesterday abandoned her quest for Hillary’s Senate seat. But having taken so long to decide, Pirro leaves her successor scant time to prepare and makes her own race for attorney general of New York bumpier when she announces in January.
There were signs that this day might be coming. In the speech announcing her candidacy, the Westchester County district attorney suffered a numbing attack of brain freeze, misplacing page 10 of her speech before going stone silent for 32 seconds as cameras rolled.
She rebooted eventually, but her campaign had suffered a general failure, going on to raise only about $400,000, or approximately the amount patriotic Americans spend weekly on anti-Hillary T-shirts, key chains, and mouse pads.
The Republican Party in New York now must pick amongst people whose names you’ll never learn to slow the dread advance of Clinton 44. The best bet seems to be Ed Cox, who dropped out of the race in October when Pirro secured Procurator Pataki’s endorsement. Cox has indicated he would rejoin the race if Pirro dropped out, and seems sure to receive the backing of the Conservative Party of New York State (www.cpnys.org).
Cox would give Hillary the best run, and if he gets within Lazio distance in the polls (say, 10-12 points), Hillary might actually begin spending down some of her campaign chest ahead of her, cough, official 2008 Presidential bid. At least that’s the idea.
While the odds of stopping the Hillary Juggernaut in ‘06 are small, the consequences of simply throwing some hack under its wheels could be dire. Big Hillary and Spitzer wins would reverberate down-ticket knocking out Pirro, letting the Democrats pick up seats, and giving Hillary momentum.
No, things don’t look good at all in New York.
