Intelligencer

N.Y.’s Striving Dems Are Raising Hill

Politicos want to be her friend, successor.

By Geoffrey Gray
Published Jan 7, 2008

(Photo: Patrick McMullan)

Hillary’s candidacy was looking a bit less inevitable after her Iowa finish last week, but her support remained strong among New York Dems with an eye on the Senate seat she’ll vacate if she wins the White House. (Thanks to campaign-finance laws, they can’t formally dispatch their staffers to help Hillary, but they can generously allow them to use their vacation days to pitch in.) Carolyn Maloney, the Upper East Side congresswoman, is in New Hampshire with her daughter to urge women to vote for Clinton. Two top staffers for Jerrold Nadler, the West Side rep, worked for the Clinton campaign in Iowa, then the congressman himself spent the weekend in New Hampshire stumping for her. Staffers of Nita Lowey, another congresswoman supporting Hillary, are also helping the campaign in early primary states, and Lieutenant Governor David Paterson stumped for Clinton in Iowa on several occasions and joined her there on caucus night. “They can all say they are just trying to help out a fellow New Yorker, but they really want her job,” says one veteran Dem strategist. If Hillary is elected president, Governor Spitzer will choose her replacement.