The RFK Assassination

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"Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live."

Robert F. Kennedy

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Today is the 50th anniversary of the fatal shooting of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in Los Angeles after he had declared victory in the California presidential primary.

He didn't die immediately. He lingered for about 24 hours.

I have written on this blog before about my memories of that event. What I am thinking about today is the aftermath — when his body was brought back to New York for the funeral, then carried by train to Washington where he was buried next to his brother in Arlington Cemetery.

I remember watching the funeral service on TV — and seeing Sen. Edward Kennedy's moving eulogy to his brother. I remember the stoic demeanor of Kennedy's widow, Ethel. In the context of what had occurred in the preceding days, it was heart–breaking.

But I suppose my dominant memory is of the train making its way from New York to Washington. It is a distance of only about 200 miles — ordinarily a four–hour trip by train, historian Theodore White observed, but more than doubled by the crowds that came out to pay their respects. It seemed as if nearly everyone who lived between those two cities came out and stood beside the railroad tracks until the train carrying Kennedy's body went by.

At first, the crowds were mostly small groups, but as the train proceeded, the crowds grew larger, standing three, four, five rows deep, sometimes more. Every segment of the American population was represented — young, old, black, white, affluent, poor. Sometimes they spilled onto the tracks, forcing the train to slow down even more. My memory is that a handful of people may have been killed after being struck by the train.

There have been museum exhibits recently that sought to capture that experience for those who have no memory of that time, but the sensation is incomplete without knowledge of the signs that were always present during Kennedy's life — and followed him to his grave.

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When Kennedy walked among us, those signs encouraged him to seek the presidency or demanded justice after he made his decision to run. After he was shot and his fate was still unknown but widely anticipated, the signs read "Pray for Bobby." Along the train route, they simply said, "Goodbye" or "So long."

White tried to describe the scene — but how do you describe the indescribable?

"There were the family groups: husband holding sobbing wife, arm around her shoulders, trying to comfort her," he wrote. "Five nuns in a yellow pickup truck, tiptoeing high to see. A very fat father with three fat boys, he with his hand over his heart, each of the boys giving a different variant of the Boy Scout or school salute. And the people: the men from the great factories that line the tracks, standing at ease as they were taught as infantrymen, their arms folded over chests. Women on the back porches of the slum neighborhoods that line the tracks, in their housedresses, with ever–present rollers in their hair, crying. People in buildings, leaning from office windows, on the flat roofs of industrial plants, on the bluffs of the rivers, on the embankments of the railway cuts, a crust on every ridge and height. Pleasure boats in the rivers lined up in flotillas; automobiles parked on all the viaducts that crossed the line of the train. Brass bands — police bands, school bands, Catholic bands. Flags: individual flags dropped in salute by middle–aged men as the train passed, flags at half–staff from every public building on the way, entire classes of schoolchildren holding the little eight–by–ten flags, in that peppermint–striped flutter that marks every campaign trip. He turned them on, black and white, rich and poor. And they cried."

No other politician in modern history could connect with as many disparate groups as Bobby Kennedy. It is something no one tries to do anymore because it is so difficult to achieve. And in the blink of an eye, he was gone.

The Day William McKinley Was Shot

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"Father Abe freed me, and now I saved his successor from death, provided that bullet he got into the president don't kill him."

James Benjamin Parker

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Forty–three men have been president of the United States. Most Americans probably can name a handful — maybe — and most of the ones they can name were president during their lifetimes — as if history didn't exist prior to their births.

(That assumes that the people with whom you are speaking can tell you who is currently president — and, frankly, you would be surprised how many people cannot. I haven't decided whether that is a blessing or a curse.)

Many Americans, of course, can name a few presidents who served before they were born — a list that usually includes George Washington and Abraham Lincoln at the very least although people can surprise you with what they know and what they don't know. If they can name Washington and Lincoln, they may also name Thomas Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt.

As some of you probably know (I wish I could say all, but I have to be realistic), those are the four faces chiseled into Mount Rushmore.

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Roosevelt became president when the incumbent president, William McKinley, was shot and killed 115 years ago. In fact, McKinley was shot inside the Temple of Music at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y., on this day in 1901. His assassin shot twice. The doctors who treated McKinley were only able to retrieve one of the bullets; the other lingered in his abdomen and killed him eight days later.

Roosevelt had only been vice president for about six months when McKinley was shot. McKinley's first vice president died on the eve of McKinley's campaign for re–election, and Roosevelt, then the governor of New York, was nominated by the convention to be McKinley's running mate in 1900 — the president felt it was the delegates' decision to make, not his. Roosevelt was known to have his eye on the White House, and the vice presidency seemed like a good stepping stone for Roosevelt's own run in 1904.

Roosevelt might have been elected in '04 — unless McKinley decided to seek a third term, which, at the time, was permissible. It was only after the presidency of Roosevelt's cousin, Franklin, about 50 years later that the 22nd Amendment limiting presidents to two four–year terms was ratified.

Had fate not intervened, McKinley might well have been a candidate for a third term. He was only 58 when he died — younger than many of his predecessors had been when they entered the presidency — and McKinley was already into his second term.

Polls that measure public approval of a president didn't exist at the turn of the century. They wouldn't exist, in fact, until Roosevelt's cousin was in the second term of his presidency. But if they had existed in 1900, they might well have reported solid public approval of McKinley's performance in office.

That might be a difficult conclusion to reach when one looks at the election returns from 1896, when McKinley was first elected to the presidency, and 1900, when he was re–elected. In 1896, McKinley received 51.02% of the popular vote. His share of the vote went up to 51.66% four years later. He received 60.6% of the electoral vote in 1896. That percentage went up to 65.3% in 1900.

Clearly, McKinley was popular enough to be re–elected — and by a wider margin than the one he received when he was elected. That is something Barack Obama cannot say. But on the surface it isn't as impressive as students of presidential politics might expect. See, even though America's last three presidents were re–elected by less than overwhelming popular margins — and the one before that wasn't re–elected at all — it has been commonplace historically for presidents to be re–elected by landslides.

Seen in that context, McKinley's electoral performance may not be especially eye–popping unless you keep a few things in mind. Most important, perhaps, is the fact that realigning elections as the 1896 election is frequently labeled (and which I plan to discuss in greater detail in November) are not always dramatic landslides. Sometimes they are virtually imperceptible unless you consider preceding voting patterns — and what happened in the elections that followed.

The opponent's relative strengths and weaknesses are important factors to consider, too. McKinley had to win both elections with William Jennings Bryan, one of the great orators in American history, as his foe. My guess is that McKinley was lucky to live in the pre–TV and pre–internet age. Far fewer people got to hear Bryan speak in 1896, and that almost certainly worked to his benefit.

He could have been appealing in our time. I have heard him described as open, cheery, optimistic, friendly. That generally plays well with the voters. He was not necessarily a gifted speaker, though, so it may have been a good thing for him that TV and radio played no roles in elections at the time.

When McKinley won re–election in 1900, he carried Bryan's home state of Nebraska, a traditionally Republican state that made an exception for an exceptional favorite son. Bryan was nominated by the Democrats for the presidency three times. The 1900 election was the only time he lost his home state (with the exception of an 1894 Senate race).

It is fair to assume, even though we have no polls to support this conclusion, that McKinley was a popular president on this day in 1901 when his assassin, a 28–year–old anarchist named Leon Czolgosz, fired two shots into the president's abdomen. Czolgosz was about to fire a third time when James Parker, who had been a slave as a child, reached for the gun and prevented the shot from being fired.

As it turned out the first shot struck a button and was deflected. Only the second shot struck McKinley, but it ultimately proved fatal, probably due to inadequate medical care. There was a surgeon in Buffalo who might well have saved the president, but he was performing delicate surgery in Niagara Falls. During the operation he was interrupted and told he was needed in Buffalo; he insisted he could not leave even if it was the president of the United States who needed him. It was at that point that he was told the identity of the patient.

A couple of weeks later, after McKinley had died, that surgeon saved the life of a woman who had suffered almost exactly the same wound as McKinley.

McKinley's death was quite a shock to the American public — who had been misled by unjustifiably optimistic prognoses into believing McKinley was recovering.

He was the third American president to be assassinated within 40 years — and the last to be assassinated before John F. Kennedy more than 60 years later.

Oh, and Roosevelt did win a full four–year term on his own in 1904 — but he did so as the incumbent.

Musing About the Big Apple

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"In the first half of the 20th century, New York was the dominant state in presidential politics. It had the most electoral votes, and of all the large states, it was usually the most evenly divided between the two parties. In the 21st century, New York — with 33 electoral votes in 2000, 31 in 2004 and 2008 and 29 in 2012 — has come to be the most heavily Democratic large state. It's easy today to forget that in 1976 Jimmy Carter only carried the state with 52% of the vote, winning just seven counties and only three outside New York City."

Richard E. Cohen with James A. Barnes
The Almanac of American Politics 2016

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I've been reading a lot and listening to many reports about Tuesday's New York primaries, and I really have to wonder about its significance, especially on the Republican side. It probably means about as much in the long run as Hillary Clinton's victory in the Democratic primary here in Texas. Whichever Republican wins the New York primary — even if, as now seems probable, it is native New Yorker Donald Trump — is not likely to win the general election there.

But the Republican race is about delegates now, and there are 95 available in New York. All indications are that the delegate race will be very tight at least until the California primary in June so that, more than anything else, will attract media attention on Tuesday.

That along with the fact that Trump is likely, as he has elsewhere, to draw many new participants into the electoral process. In 2012, fewer than 200,000 New Yorkers participated in the Republican primary — and the GOP nomination had, in all fairness, already been decided

As Cohen and Barnes correctly pointed out, there was a time — not so long ago, really — when the outcome of a presidential campaign in New York was not a foregone conclusion. In six of the first 10 presidential elections following World War II, Republicans carried New York. But New York has voted with Democrats in the last seven elections. New York hasn't voted for a Republican presidential nominee since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

"The Almanac of American Politics" observes that this transition was caused by Jewish voters becoming more strongly identified with Democrats, rising black and Hispanic populations, and white Catholics, who once voted largely on the basis of cultural issues like crime are more likely now to vote on the basis of issues like abortion, gun control and gay rights.

Of course, New York's electoral performance often seems to be influenced by the presence of a New Yorker — or someone with regional ties — on a national ticket. But not always. In that 1984 campaign, the Democrats had New Yorker Geraldine Ferraro on their ticket, but Reagan took nearly 54% of the state's popular vote.

New York offers a big chunk of delegates in its Republican primary. It isn't winner–take–all. The winner of the state overall will secure a huge block of votes, but some will be allocated based on the results in congressional districts — and if the CBS News/YouGuv poll that was released today is accurate, that could mean a very big night for Donald Trump.

And I suppose it is possible that Trump's presence on the ballot could put New York in play in November — but I doubt it. In the last five presidential elections, New York has never given a Democratic nominee less than 58% of its vote.

That being the case, it might be more instructive to observe the results in the Democrats' primary.

That CBS News/YouGuv poll found Clinton with a 10–point lead over Bernie Sanders. Considering the facts that Clinton was elected to the Senate twice by New York voters and beat Barack Obama by 17 points in the 2008 New York primary, a 10–point win over Sanders would suggest declining support in her "home" state — which could, in turn, suggest declining support nationwide.

A Sanders upset would change the game for certain.

Cruz's Gambit

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We have a Republican presidential primary coming up on Tuesday along with two caucuses (Utah and American Samoa) — then two weeks until the next time voters go to the polls. Time is short — almost two–thirds of the states have been heard from now.

I hear a lot of talk of a contested convention, but there has only been one convention in my lifetime — the 1976 Republican convention — that went down to the wire. I have my doubts that this year's convention will be the second almost–contested convention in my lifetime.

See, the thing is that Donald Trump's candidacy is the kind of phenomenon that political observers have rarely seen. They function in a world of conventional wisdom, but what is happening is spinning conventional wisdom on its ear. In 1976 conventional wisdom eventually won out, and President Gerald Ford defeated challenger (outsider?) Ronald Reagan.

Trump reminds me more of Ross Perot in 1992 — a wealthy man who promised to run government efficiently, like a well–run business. Trump has gone far beyond where Perot ever did, perhaps because he has pursued the presidency through an established party rather than seeking the office as an independent.

Trump also reminds me, in a way, of Barack Obama eight years ago. Trump is not the first outsider businessman to seek the presidency, just as Obama was not the first black man to seek the presidency. But Obama capitalized on and exceeded the achievements of his predecessors, and Trump appears poised to exceed Perot's achievements as well.

It's easy to forget from the perspective of 2016 what Perot achieved in the general election of 1992. He didn't carry any states, but he received nearly 19% of the national popular vote.

On the Republican side it is, essentially, down to two candidates, Trump and Ted Cruz. There is a third candidate, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, but he is already mathematically eliminated from a first–ballot nomination even if he runs the table the rest of the way in this new winner–take–all delegate environment. He is no longer focused on winning the nomination on the first ballot, when most delegates are committed to certain candidates by the voters of their states. He is looking beyond that.

However, with Marco Rubio out of the picture, Cruz appears to believe he has a chance to inflict some damage on Trump and, if not secure enough delegates going into the convention to assure himself of the nomination, have enough delegates committed to him to prevent Trump from winning the nomination on the first ballot.

Cruz has been talking about how well he has performed in closed primaries — primaries held in states where voters are required to declare their party affiliation upon registering and vote in only that party's primaries. And that's true.

But there are two sides to this coin.

Cruz contends he is the best choice to be a standard bearer for Republicans because he has outperformed Trump in primaries in which only registered Republicans can participate.

Trump has performed better in the open primaries where voters can declare in which party's primary they want to participate, and he has been drawing support from Democrats and independents. Some have been motivated by a desire to throw a wrench into the works, but others have been motivated by genuine support for Trump. Consequently, Trump can argue — with at least some validity — that his victories in the open primaries demonstrate his appeal for the broader electorate in the general election.

This phase of the electoral calendar may tell us who is right — or, at least, whose case makes the most sense to Republican voters.

The primary on Tuesday is being held in Arizona; it's a closed primary that will award all 58 of its delegates to whoever finishes first. Based on Cruz's logic, he should do well there, right? Well, the latest Merrill Poll, released just a few days ago, found the winner is likely to be Trump.

Kasich's strategy is different. He knows he can't win the nomination on the first ballot so his objective is to prevent Trump from reaching the magic number and force the Republican nominating process to a second ballot for the first time since 1948. If Cruz can win in the West, Kasich will be trying to win in the East — in places like Pennsylvania and New York.

Call it a triangulation theory. It's also a longshot, at least at this stage of the race. Trump is more than halfway to the number of committed delegates he needs to win the nomination on the first ballot.

The New York primary is a closed primary that will be held on April 19. According to the Emerson Poll that was released Friday, Trump has a decisive lead over Cruz there. Kasich is no help; he barely drew 1% in the poll. New York is a winner–take–most primary, which most likely means Trump will win about 80 or 85 of the state's 95 delegates.

Pennsylvania's winner–take–all primary is a week later — on April 26. The most recent survey I have seen from Pennsylvania was published about a week and a half ago. It was Harper Polling's survey, and it showed Trump with a 2–to–1 lead over Marco Rubio, who suspended his campaign after losing in Florida about a week after Harper's poll results were published. Unless something dramatic happens, Trump seems well on his way to winning Pennsylvania's 71 delegates.

There will be other primaries, too, but the ones I have just mentioned are the ones that are likely to get the most attention in the next five weeks. Anyway, for Cruz and Kasich, the news doesn't get much better in those lesser primaries.

On April 5, Wisconsin holds a winner–take–all primary. It will be an open primary, too, so Democrats and independents can participate if they wish, and Wisconsin is the only state doing anything that day. Whoever finishes first wins 42 delegates. I haven't seen any polls from there so I don't know who is leading, but I can say that Wisconsin was one of those Rust Belt states that was hurt by trade agreements in recent years. That seems to have benefited Trump in Michigan and Illinois.

New York also will have the political spotlight to itself, but Pennsylvania will be one of five states holding primaries on April 26. Those states are mostly in the Northeast, which will be a test for Kasich's appeal to a presumably more centrist electorate.

The other four states to vote on April 26 are Connecticut (26 delegates), Delaware (16 delegates), Maryland (38 delegates) and Rhode Island (19 delegates). All but one of those April 26 primaries will be closed. Rhode Island's primary is "semi–closed" — whatever that means.

And most of the primaries being held that day will be winner–take–all contests. Connecticut is winner–take–most and Rhode Island is proportional. Since most of the primaries that day are closed, that should favor Cruz, based on his own assessment, but the region of the country should be more favorable to a moderate like Kasich. Polls indicate, however, that Trump is leading and may improve on his lead in the weeks ahead.

And, of course, looming out there on the Western horizon is California with its winner–take–all prize of 172 delegates. California Republicans won't vote until June 7, but in the latest poll I have seen 38% of likely voters favored Trump. It is worth noting that the poll results were released the day of the Florida and Ohio primaries. Rubio was still in the race, and Kasich had not yet won his home state, but both were included in the poll with Trump and Cruz. Rubio polled 10%, which by itself would not be enough for Cruz to overtake Trump. Neither would the 9% who said they were undecided.

Together, though, they would be enough — as long as not too many of those voters broke for Trump. That is how sizable Trump's lead is in California.

Clearly, it's a pretty steep mountain Cruz and Kasich must climb if they are to prevent Trump from claiming the nomination in Cleveland this July.

A Nation of Witch Hunters

When I was growing up, "innocent until proven guilty" was practically a mantra whenever someone was accused of a crime. Even if everyone knew the accused was guilty, it simply was not considered American to speak of someone as guilty until a jury had reached that conclusion.

That, after all, was the kind of thing the early settlers came to America to escape (and then, ironically, engaged in their own witch hunting in Salem, Mass.).

The newsrooms where I worked in my newspaper days were always sensitive to that. For a time, when I was a police/courts reporter, my editors always reminded me, when I came to the newsroom to write about the day's proceedings in court, to refer to the defendant as "the accused" or "the alleged" until the jury reached its verdict.

Even if we knew the defendant was guilty. We couldn't say so until it was official — meaning that a jury had reached that conclusion.

Saying so in print only made it seem — and rightly so — that the press had already reached its conclusion. To hell with the jury.

That has never been the role of the press. The press' job is to be the eyes and ears of the community. The newspapers for which I worked, as I say, were always very sensitive about that kind of thing. They earnestly sought to maintain an aura of neutrality, and most of the reporters with whom I have worked would have bristled at the suggestion that they were not absolutely fair.

It's been awhile since I worked in a newsroom so I don't know when that began to change. All I know is that it did — probably tentatively at first but grew progressively bolder as the press began to discover that no one was going to hold it accountable for prejudging criminal defendants.

Even if the press was wrong.

Today, all that is needed for the public to turn on someone is for someone else to say something. Anything. Doesn't matter if it is true. It is accepted on face value. Look how quickly people have turned on Bill Cosby, one of the most beloved entertainers of his day. He has been accused of truly reprehensible behavior. If those accusations are true, he should be held accountable. But they haven't been proven in court, which is where every American who is accused of something is entitled to face his/her accuser and defend himself/herself against the charges if possible. That's what the people who braved the unknown to settle this land wanted.

Well, at least, that's how it used to be.

How about the case of cable TV cooking star Paula Deen, who admitted using the "N word" many years ago and apologized profusely — only to be driven from the airwaves anyway by those whose only motive appeared to be a desire to see how the other half had been living all these years — not a quest for justice.

In Ferguson, Missouri, the grand jury, as you undoubtedly know, has been investigating the August shooting death of Michael Brown, an 18–year–old black man. The grand jury's decision not to indict the white police officer who shot Brown sparked riots and looting.

If you look at the transcripts of the grand jury proceedings, you will see that most of the witnesses' accounts supported the officer's version of events — and most, if not all, of those witnesses were black. The facts simply did not support accusing the officer of a crime and spending who knows how many taxpayer dollars in a futile attempt to convict him.

And that is what grand juries really are designed to do — filter the unsupported cases from the supported ones. Do you believe that there are too many frivolous cases clogging up the judicial system? Grand juries have been doing their part to keep the frivolous cases out of the system in this country for a couple of centuries. If you think it is bad now, try living in an America that doesn't have grand juries to serve as courthouse gatekeepers.

Apparently, there are, to misquote Jack Nicholson, people who can't handle the truth, though. In spite of the testimony of those witnesses, there are still people who say justice wasn't served — and that race was the reason.

That is mere speculation unless there is proof to support it. Astonishingly, there are people who continue to cling to claims that have been recanted, citing them as evidence in this case — when, in fact, they are no such thing.

Things are a bit murkier in the choking death of Eric Garner in New York in July. I haven't seen those grand jury transcripts, and I would like to because it could give me some insight into the jurors' mindset. From looking at the video, it appears that, at the least, a charge of negligent homicide might be in order — but a video doesn't tell you everything you need to know.

Videos do help, of course, and I like the idea of equipping police officers with body cameras so investigators can see precisely what the officer saw when something like this happens. It's a worthy goal, but Barack Obama's pledge to provide federal funds to help police departments pay for such cameras is one more example of how Obama ignores feasibility in order to pursue what he believes would be an ideal world.

America is already $18 trillion in debt. The wise thing — the prudent thing — would be to focus on bringing down the debt, not adding to it. Hard choices must be made. Such choices almost always involve sacrifice, and, in the last six years, many Americans have had to make sacrifices they never thought they would have to make. Their leaders must give careful consideration before asking for more.

Of course, homicides aren't the only things getting attention these days. There have been a couple of cases of rape — or, rather, alleged rape — in the news. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that rape is anything other than what it is — an act of violence. But it is the kind of charge that sticks to someone even if he's been cleared.

I covered a rape trial once. The defendant was acquitted, but he was forever linked to the charge. He lost his job, couldn't find another one locally and, eventually, had to leave town. I've always hoped he was able to pick up the loose threads of his life and get back on track.

I also left that experience thinking that, if newspapers voluntarily withhold the names of alleged rape victims (and that is a voluntary thing — it is not mandated by law — freedom of the press, don't you know), they should also withhold the names of the accused until they have been convicted.

Rape is an incendiary charge. Bill Cosby, as I have pointed out, hasn't been convicted. He hasn't even been formally charged, yet his long–time associates are throwing him under the bus, one after the other. Maybe they're right to do so. But what if they are wrong?

Yes, sexual assault is an incendiary charge. It must be handled judiciously, which makes the case of actress Lena Dunham both fascinating and troubling.

For the last couple of months, Dunham has been hawking her memoir, "Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's 'Learned,'" which includes her account of an occasion when she was raped.

Well, to be fair, she never actually accuses anyone of rape. But she does describe an evening of what is best described as non–consensual sex.

Dunham, in case you don't remember, made advertisements for Obama's re–election two years ago. Those advertisements were intended to appeal to young voters, equating casting one's first vote with losing one's virginity.

I do not mention that to explain any conclusions I may have reached about Dunham or her moral compass or anything like that — I think most readers are capable of doing that on their own — but because her political leanings are important to remember in the context of a portion of her narrative. I refer to her description of an occasion when she claims to have been raped by a prominent "campus Republican" named Barry when she was a student at Oberlin College.

Oberlin is in Ohio and, from what I have heard, put the liberal in "liberal arts." Just about any Republican would stick out like a sore thumb there.

Her account has been effectively debunked by John Nolte of Breitbart. It was praised for its "truthiness" in TIME back in September.

Now that the reliability of the story has been brought into question, Eugene Volokh of the Washington Post wonders if this prominent "campus Republican," identified in Dunham's book as "Barry," has grounds for legal action against her.

The most egregious example of this willingness — nay, eagerness — to blindly accept anything that is said could be found in the pages of Rolling Stone last month. The article described the horrific gang rape of a woman identified as Jackie at a University of Virginia frat house.

There were angry protests and the school suspended all fraternity activities for a year. Those would be appropriate responses except for one thing — "there now appear to be discrepancies" in the account, Rolling Stone's managing editor says. More than a few, actually. There are more holes in the story than you'll find in the average block of Swiss cheese.

As a journalist, I am embarrassed by the blatantly sloppy fact checking. It is shoddy journalism, and it is inexcusable.

Rolling Stone's managing editor was right to acknowledge that the "failure is on us," but the mistakes were so basic that a first–year journalism student, never mind a newsroom full of seasoned vets, would have spotted them.

The thing that concerns me, though, is this: What if the editors at Rolling Stone knew in advance about the problems with the story, and they gambled that no one would call them on it? That it wasn't sloppiness after all?

I am reminded of the bogus charges leveled by Tawana Brawley against a group of white men back in the late '80s. Do you happen to recall who one of her chief supporters was? Al Sharpton.

An Unheeded Cry for Help

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Fifty years ago today, a young woman named Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death a short distance from her home in Queens, N.Y.

By itself, that isn't too noteworthy, but there were unusual circumstances that made the case stand out, primarily the fact that more than three dozen of her neighbors apparently heard her screaming for help — but did nothing to assist the 5–foot–1, 105–pound woman.

Why? It was probably explained best in a simple comment one of the neighbors made to a New York Times reporter: "I didn't want to get involved."

The attack lasted roughly 30 minutes. The assailant apparently selected Genovese at random and was chased off twice after he started stabbing her — the first time when a neighbor shouted from his apartment window, "Hey, let that girl alone!" and the second time when other windows started opening and the attacker decided to go move his car — but returned twice, the last time to finish off the semiconscious victim, who had managed to get inside one of the buildings.

Her killer found her by following the trail of blood she left behind. He finished her off, then raped her corpse.

About 40–45 minutes after the attack began, one of the neighbors called the police — after first calling a friend for advice on what to do. The police arrived in a couple of minutes; in the course of their investigation, they found 38 witnesses who had heard or seen at least a portion of the attack.

He suggested the witnesses may have been confused by what they were seeing and hearing.

An investigator told the press that Genovese might have survived if the police had been summoned when the attack began; otherwise, there didn't seem to be anything too unusual about the murder at first. It received scant coverage in the newspapers, and little was said in the investigators' report.

"This tendency to shy away from reporting crimes is a common one," the deputy police commissioner said at the time — and, in fact, the case drew no special attention.

Until two weeks later, when the New York Times ran an article with the headline "37 Who Saw Murder Didn't Call."

The case was troubling for many people who wondered how civilized humans could stand by and do nothing while a young woman was being brutally murdered. Some offered the explanation that they thought it was a lovers' quarrel, and they didn't want to interfere.

One psychiatrist said the failure of the witnesses to act promptly may have been at least partly because of television. "We underestimate the damage that these accumulated images do to the brain," he said. "The immediate effect can be delusional, equivalent to a sort of post–hypnotic suggestion."

There were numerous theories offered to explain why no one did anything, but none was satisfactory. The Times, in a hand–wringing editorial, wondered why that was. "Seldom has The Times published a more horrifying story," the editorial said, "than its account of how 38 respectable, law–abiding, middle class Queens citizens watched a killer stalk his young woman victim ... without one of them making a call to the Police Department that might have saved her life."

Fear was a plausible reason, I suppose. The city of Boston, about 200 miles to the northeast of New York, had been gripped by the fear of the "Boston strangler" killings around that time. The thought of that may have intimidated some of the witnesses.

But, in the end, it was still hard to rationalize what had happened.

Folks are still trying to make sense of it. Karen Matthews writes for the Associated Press that the case still fascinates people half a century later.

"Kitty Genovese's screams for help couldn't save her on the night she was murdered outside her apartment in 1964," Matthews writes. "Fifty years later, those screams still echo, a symbol of urban breakdown and city dwellers' seeming callousness toward their neighbors."

There are those who, much like the folks who deny the Holocaust, argue that Genovese's murder was not quite what it has been made out to be. Some people, including author Kevin Cook who just published a book on the subject, take issue with various parts of the story, including the number of witnesses.

Some observe that Times metro editor A.M. Rosenthal had lunch with the city's police commissioner about 10 days after the murder, and the commissioner mentioned the case, prompting Rosenthal to send a reporter out to Queens to get a compelling story.

And the reporter came back with a compelling story.

The Genovese case was responsible, I think, for the designation "the bystander effect," a psychological phenomenon in which the more witnesses there are, the less likely people are to help an individual in distress. They conclude that someone else is sure to call the authorities, that such a call may already have been made.

In the long story of human history, I'm sure something similar must have happened before Genovese was slain, but, for whatever reason, it never caught the public's attention the way the Genovese case did.

If you want to find something good that came from the case, Matthews points out that "[i]t has been credited with spurring adoption of the 911 system in 1968 as well as 'Good Samaritan' laws that give legal protection to people who help those in trouble." And that is good.

The emergence of mobile technology makes it easier for people to reach out for assistance as well.

So I suppose the question is: Can a Genovese case happen in the 21st century?

And my answer is: I don't know. Modern technology might not make a difference. I gather that most, if not all, of Genovese's neighbors had access to telephones.

The "bystander effect" might still apply, anyway, whether the phones were mobile or landline.

The Last Flight of Pan Am 103

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When this day dawned 25 years ago, Americans really weren't thinking much about terrorism.

We were naive about what was happening in the rest of the world. We had been through the hostage crisis in Iran, but it ended with no loss of life — except for a few servicemen who died in an aborted rescue attempt — and we had gone through the next several years without any disruptions in our daily lives.

There were isolated instances of terrorism that involved some Americans, but they were few and relatively far between. In the 1980s, it had been easy for Americans to pretend that the world's problems were not our own.

That is ... it was easy until 25 years ago today when a Pan Am flight, en route from London to New York, was blown out of the sky over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Lockerbie is a tiny town in southwest Scotland. It has existed for more than 1,000 years, but few people ever heard of it until Dec. 21, 1988 when debris from Pan Am Flight 103 rained down on it. Eleven residents of Lockerbie died along with the 259 people on board the flight. Americans accounted for more than two–thirds of the casualties.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi took responsibility for the bombing and paid compensation to the victims' families but denied ordering the attack.

In part because of that ambiguity, there have been a number of persistent questions about the bombing that have gained some traction with the public over the years. There are many who believe the whole story will never be known, and I am one of them.

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After 25 years, what is known is relatively little, and both emotion and speculation have been rampant at times.

It has been fairly well established that a suitcase bomb detonated on the plane, sending it back to earth, and the record will show that a Libyan intelligence agent, Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, was tried and convicted in connection with it.

But that is about the extent of it.

Much like the Kennedy assassination 50 years ago, there were elements of the event that looked suspicious. Many of them may have been coincidental, but, after all the time that has passed, it seems unlikely that we will ever know the truth.

For example, one thing that has never been satisfactorily explained (as far as I am concerned, anyway) is the fact that there were at least four officials from the U.S. government who were on board the plane. According to unconfirmed rumors, there was actually a fifth official on the plane.

One of those officials was with the CIA. Another was with the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) — two others were Diplomatic Security Service agents acting as bodyguards.

Perhaps their presence on the plane was a coincidence, but it is easy to see how a conspiracy theory could come from it. There had been several confrontations between the U.S. Navy and Libya in the Gulf of Sidra (which Libya claimed as its territorial waters) during the 1980s. The Libyans avenged some incidents, but Gadhafi harbored a lingering resentment for what he saw as ongoing acts of aggression against Libya by the French and Americans.

Perhaps the bombing of Flight 103 was intended to avenge a perceived act of aggression.

Megrahi was the only person ever tried for the bombing, and he was given a compassionate release from prison in 2009 because he had terminal prostate cancer and was only expected to live for three months. The decision generated some controversy, which was revisited when Megrahi survived the prognosis by a couple of years.

Gadhafi died more than two years ago. Megrahi died in 2012. If they had anything more to tell us, they took it to their graves.

The mystery surrounding what happened to Flight 103 continues.

The First Time

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Eighty–five years ago, I suppose Charles Lindbergh may have been the most unlikely of the world's qualified pilots to complete the first nonstop transatlantic flight.

Lindbergh was virtually unknown, even though his father had represented Minnesota in the U.S. House for 10 years.

He flew for the first time — as a passenger — about five years before he flew from New York to Paris. Shortly thereafter he took his first flying lesson, but he would not be allowed to solo because he could not afford to post a bond that he was required to provide in case he damaged the airplane — it was the flying school's only one, you see.

Eventually, of course, he did solo, and that opened the door to his career.

Lindbergh delivered mail by air until a few months before his historic flight, when he went to California to oversee the production of the plane he would fly to Paris, the Spirit of St. Louis. He had been drawn into an international competition for the Orteig Prize, a $25,000 prize that had been offered by hotelier Raymond Orteig to the first person to complete a nonstop transatlantic flight.

It really was the great race of its day, but you couldn't tell that initially. Most of the contenders' planes had trouble getting airborne; the first that did, less than two weeks before Lindbergh's flight, made it from France to Ireland, but contact was lost, and no one ever heard from the pilot or his navigator again.

Half a dozen pilots, consequently, had perished in the attempt by the time Lindbergh was ready to take his shot, and he took off shortly before 8 a.m. on May 20, 1927. He had anticipated that his flight, if successful, would take about 40 hours; he completed it in 33½ — in spite of fog, storm clouds, icing and having to navigate by the stars when they were visible (and by dead reckoning if they weren't).

Lindbergh was an American pioneer. He didn't take on the challenge of flying nonstop across the Atlantic for the fame it would bring; he did it for the same reason other pioneers climb mountains that have never been climbed.

But it did bring him fame, as well as the Orteig Prize, and he used that fame to do things he probably never dreamed he would be able to do. He became a writer, an explorer, an inventor, a proponent of environmental causes.

It also brought some unwanted attention — in particular, from an immigrant named Bruno Hauptmann, who was convicted of the 1932 abduction and murder of Lindbergh's infant son and sentenced to death. Between the time of Hauptmann's conviction and execution, Lindbergh, his wife and their second son left America for Europe and remained there for the rest of the 1930s.

As I say, Lindbergh was a pioneer, but pioneers are people, and they have their flaws. Lindbergh is admired for his accomplishments in aviation, but he was far from perfect. His statements and writings suggested that he was a racist, and it was revealed, after not only Lindbergh but also his wife had died, that he had long–term affairs with three women, producing seven children.

Heroes have their weaknesses, all right, but they seldom take anything away from what a pioneer, mostly through courage, has achieved. And Lindbergh's weaknesses certainly don't take anything from what he accomplished 85 years ago today.

Preppie Love

On this day 25 years ago, Robert Chambers became the "Preppie Killer" when he strangled an 18–year–old girl named Jennifer Levin in New York's Central Park.

That was a different time. Today, the murder of an unknown yet attractive girl anywhere would attract dozens of camera crews from all over the world, and the internet would be full of details on first the investigation and then the trial. In 2011, you wouldn't be able to escape those details, no matter how hard you tried.

But in 1986, things were different. I was living in Arkansas at the time, working on the copy desk of the largest newspaper in the state. I thought that having access to the Associated Press' wire meant I would know things that many of my friends did not, but the information we got on the Preppie Killer was spotty at best.

I'm sure the coverage of the case was pretty intense in New York and the media centers of the Northeast, but, as I say, that was many years before cable and the internet made it possible for people to see and read daily news coverage in places around the globe.

As the drama of Chambers' arrest and trial played out, I might as well have been in another hemisphere. Most of the information I got on the case came from my subscription to Newsweek. It wasn't quite as spotty — but it still left a lot to be desired.

I have often wondered if it might have been the "trial of the century" until the O.J. Simpson case in the mid–1990s — if the technology of the 1980s had been as advanced.

When Chambers eventually did go to trial, it was hardly what I would call the "trial of the century." But it sure did draw a lot of attention for its day — and that did lead to a kind of trickle–down effect in terms of the information that was available.

It's the kind of thing that has always attracted the folks in our culture, and if cable TV had been more extensive and the internet had been more than an information network linking research–oriented institutions, the audience that followed the Preppie Killer story might have rivaled that of the Casey Anthony trial.

Chambers was a tall, good–looking guy who, apparently, had most things handed to him as he grew up. He seems to have had something of a social inferiority complex.

Chambers attended prep schools on scholarships; his family couldn't afford the tuition. He did not thrive in that environment, received poor grades and ran into problems with theft and substance abuse.

He was accepted to Boston University, but the same problems that plagued him in prep school followed him to college, and he was asked to leave after a single semester.

On Aug. 26, 1986, a month before his 20th birthday, he was at a Manhattan bar where his girlfriend loudly ended their relationship, throwing a bag of condoms at him and assuring him that "you're not using them with me."

Chambers' girlfriend was, reportedly, upset that Levin was at the bar. The story was that Levin was Chambers' secret lover. Witnesses said they left the bar together.

I don't know if that was true or not. Neither do I know if it is true that, later, Chambers and Levin had "rough sex" before Chambers, who stood more than a foot taller than Levin and weighed nearly twice what she did, strangled her in Central Park.

Chambers claimed that Levin hurt his genitals and he pushed her from him, accidentally killing her. It never really seemed plausible, considering the nature of the physical evidence.

"I've been in this business for a while," the prosecutor said to Chambers, "and you're the first man I've seen raped in Central Park."

But that was Chambers' story, and he stuck with it.

Well, whatever the truth was, Chambers wound up pleading guilty to manslaughter, and he served 15 years in prison. He was released, ironically, on Valentine's Day 2003. With time off for good behavior, he might have been released earlier — but he had disciplinary issues in prison that mirrored the ones he had prior to Levin's death, and the same problems followed him as he tried to carve out a life for himself after his release.

A few years ago, Chambers, now in his mid–40s, was sentenced to 19 years in prison after his conviction on drug charges.

I suppose it is possible that he could get some time off for good behavior. But, given his history, it doesn't seem likely. I think he will be behind bars until he is in his 60s.

A cynical person might say a pattern has been established.

What Better Time to Make That Climb?

For the first time since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, visitors to the Statue of Liberty in New York were permitted to go all the way to Lady Liberty's crown on Saturday.

Surely, there was no better time to do that than on Independence Day, although it was apparently quite warm for those who were allowed to scale those lofty heights. And there were, apparently, a few obstacles to overcome along the way.

"For the privilege of being the first people in nearly eight years to climb the 354 steps to the crown of the Statue of Liberty, 30 visitors on the sun–kissed morning of July 4 had to first endure a bit of bureaucracy: red tape and stiff security," write Liz Robbins and Colin Moynihan of the New York Times.

"No wonder by the time these huddled masses reached the top of the hot, sticky and narrow staircase, they were indeed yearning to breathe free."

The New York Daily News published the winning entries in its Fourth of July essay contest, and reading them brings back memories of the thoughts that went through my head when, as a child, I visited the Statue of Liberty with my parents and my younger brother.

I don't remember if we climbed to the crown that day, but we probably didn't. I do remember standing at the statue's base and staring up into the sky to catch a glimpse of the crown and the torch. And I remember purchasing a souvenir miniature Statue of Liberty that somehow got misplaced over the years.

But I've never lost my faith in freedom and independence.

I am grateful for the sacrifices that were made by the soldiers who fought and died to keep America free. When I was a child, they fought in a distant land called Vietnam and were not treated well when they returned, even though they did not choose where they were sent. Since then, they have fought and died in many places to preserve the rights that are all too often taken for granted.

We owe them a debt we can never repay.

Counting the Votes

Political campaigns never really end in this country. As soon as one election is over, the parties start working on the next one.

Most elections are held in even–numbered years, but that is no guarantee of a respite. In some places, like Virginia, gubernatorial campaigns are held in odd–numbered years. And, when there is a vacancy to fill — because the incumbent was appointed to another post or died or whatever the reason — a special election may be held for that purpose.

Such is the case in New York's 20th Congressional District. The incumbent, Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, was appointed by New York's governor to take Hillary Clinton's place as New York's junior senator so a special election was held last week to choose Gillibrand's successor. When the votes were counted, the Democrat (Scott Murphy) held a razor–thin lead over the Republican (Jim Tedisco), but officials had to allow some time for absentee ballots to arrive by mail.

Election officials are now in the process of counting those absentee ballots, and revised tabulations have Tedisco narrowly in front. More than 10,000 absentee ballots were mailed out prior to the special election, and nearly 7,000 have been returned, "including about 400 military and overseas ballots which cannot be counted until Monday," reports Thomas Dimopoulos in the Glens Falls Post–Star.

My understanding is that voters declare their party affiliations when they register to vote in New York. They can register as independents, but that means they cannot participate in party primaries. Much speculation apparently has centered on who has returned the absentee ballots, with the presumption being that those who are registered Democrats voted for Murphy and those who are registered Republicans voted for Tedisco.

Of course, people who are registered with one party have been known to vote for the candidate from the other party, so party affiliation is no guarantee. But logic suggests that a party's nominee is likely to perform well with his party's members.

The eventual outcome may hinge on which candidate does the best among the independent absentee voters, and both sides, naturally, are projecting that their candidate will emerge victorious. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, the seemingly never–ending Senate campaign in Minnesota drags on, although some are saying that the writing is on the wall for Republican Sen. Norm Coleman. The head of Minnesota's Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party appears to be ready to "turn up the heat" on Coleman, and he isn't the only one.

Ramesh Ponnuru writes, at National Review Online, that Coleman "is likely to lose, unnecessarily deprive Minnesota of a second senator, end his political career seen as a sore loser, and hurt his party in a state that is eager for this fight to be over." Ponnuru concludes that "if he leaves now, he will get some points for grace. ... [T]his is ... the last moment where he can exit with some dignity."

Of course, there are Republicans who are urging Coleman to continue the fight and issue every ballot challenge he can. One of the senators from my state has threatened "World War III" if Democrat Al Franken is seated before legal challenges have been exhausted. And Coleman's legal team has vowed to appeal the final figures.

Clearly, the stakes are high. If Franken prevails, the Democrats will be only one seat away from the magical 60–seat, "filibuster–proof" majority.

And that seat could be picked up in Kentucky.

No ballots are being counted in Kentucky right now, but there is much speculation these days about the prospects for former major league baseball pitcher and current Sen. Jim Bunning, who is up for re–election next year.

A little background here — Bunning has never been a hugely popular candidate statewide in Kentucky. He was elected by less than 7,000 votes out of more than 1.1 million votes in 1998, then he was re–elected with a margin of less than 23,000 votes out of more than 1.7 million votes in 2004.

Recent polls suggest he would be vulnerable against several potential Democratic opponents, one of whom, Attorney General Jack Conway, announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination today. Conway is the second Democrat to announce his candidacy for Bunning's seat — Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo, who lost to Bunning in 2004, announced his candidacy in January.

That gives some ammunition to those Republicans who would like to have a different candidate carrying the GOP banner next year.

It's only April of 2009 — plenty of time for maneuvering before the voters go to the polls in Kentucky in 2010.

The Latest From New York

Details are emerging today about Jiverly Wong, the 41–year–old gunman from Vietnam who killed 13 people and seriously injured more than two dozen others at an immigrant services center in Binghamton, N.Y., yesterday.

Apparently, his actions didn't surprise many of the people who knew him. He may have been despondent about his employment situation — apparently, his last job was terminated in November when the plant closed. He appears to have kept to himself on the job (the textbook loner, perhaps?), but he seems to have done his job well.

There are also reports that — at one time, anyway — he had a cocaine habit. Perhaps his autopsy will yield information that can tell us whether he was under its influence yesterday. And I've heard reports of a "minor" brush with the law.

He seems to have struggled with the language, and he seems to have been taunted for it (shades of Columbine?). But he apparently had made an effort to address that deficiency at the center.

"People close to Wong told police they weren't surprised that the man turned to violence," reports the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin. "People had made fun of Wong due to his difficulty speaking English, leading him to feel 'degraded,' his loved ones told police."

The Press & Sun-Bulletin editorializes about the anguish the city is experiencing. "There is so much unknown at this point, and it will take time to gather and fit together all the pieces — and even then the picture may never be complete."

The thing that seems to be consistent about these mass shootings is that there are always people — friends or relatives — who always say — after the fact — they aren't surprised that the perpetrator snapped.

When the perpetrators have been combat veterans, it seems that someone inevitably will say something like, "He just wasn't the same when he came home from the service."

These days, it seems that unemployment is a connecting thread — but not always and it doesn't seem to manifest itself in the same way. Wong's rampage ended with his suicide, but his victims may all have been strangers to him; none, at the moment, appear to be friends or relatives. In the vast majority of the mass killings involving unemployed people that I'm aware of, the perpetrator killed the other members of the family, then killed himself.

His family's lives may have been spared, but many of Wong's survivors do not seem to be surprised by his actions. They all seem able to cite incidents in the past that were red flags foreshadowing a tragedy.

And all I can think is, "Wouldn't that have been a good time to tell someone?" I'm not talking about those things that are a little iffy or could go either way. I'm talking about clear episodes of poor anger management or depression.

I guess that is what really frustrates me about these situations. It's the same problem I have with people who will say, after a major event, that it was foretold in the prophecies of Nostradamus.

Nostradamus, as you may know, has been credited with predicting both world wars, several major assassinations and other important events in the last 450 years. It was also alleged, for awhile, that Nostradamus' quatrains mentioned September 11.

It is said that Nostradamus was deliberately ambiguous to avoid detection by the authorities of the day. But there are people who are experts on his writings, and they will tell you, conclusively, that not only did Nostradamus predict, among other things, the Revolutionary War and presidential assassinations but recent events as well in his quatrains.

Now, I don't expect a man who lived in the 16th century to provide details about events three or four centuries before they happened. But if it is so easy to connect the dots, why didn't anybody mention it before it happened?

And if this man was a threat to himself and others, why didn't those closest to him alert the authorities?

Perhaps they did — and perhaps that is something we will learn in the days to come.

But if they didn't ... why didn't they?

And if they did alert the authorities ... why didn't they listen?

The News From New York

After the beating the stock market took on Monday, I didn't see how it would be possible for stocks to rebound and post a gain for the week.

Then, the stock market posted gains the rest of the week. But I still doubted there would be overall gains for a fourth straight week when the jobs report came out today, and joblessness went up to 8.5%. Surely, I thought, this will have ramifications on Wall Street.

Nevertheless, stocks rallied and finished in positive territory for the fourth straight week. I suppose, if I happened to be an economist, I might understand why this happened. But I don't.

"For the four–week period ended Friday, the Dow has gained almost 21%, according to early tallies," writes Alexandra Twin for CNN.com, "making it the blue–chip indicator's best four–week run since May 1933, when it gained 31%."

Of course, I suppose one can argue that, in May 1933, there was literally nowhere for stocks to go but up.

But there is other news — troubling news — from New York tonight. An as–yet unidentified shooter and a dozen other people are dead in Binghamton, a relatively small community about 150 miles northwest of New York City, following a shooting rampage in an immigration services center. More than two dozen people are confirmed injured.

This event is likely to be in the news for several days, at least, as investigators sift through evidence and details emerge about the shooter and his state of mind, but, whatever the facts turn out to be, it's a sobering reminder of how brief life can be.

A Cliffhanger in New York

It's been a tight race in the special election in New York's 20th District tonight.

In the race to replace Kirstin Gillibrand, Democrat Scott Murphy holds about a 60–vote lead over Republican Jim Tedisco with all precincts reporting.

Murphy has 77,344 votes and Tedisco has 77,285.

Tedisco seems to have carried the largest of the district's 10 counties and claimed narrower victories in four others.

But Murphy, as of this writing, has the lead, thanks to more substantial margins in the five counties he appears to have won. However, as the Albany Times–Union reports, there are nearly 6,000 absentee ballots that remain to be counted.

And that figure doesn't include the absentee ballots that can still arrive during a week–long grace period. They need to be postmarked March 30 or earlier, but as long as they meet that requirement, they can be counted.

So we'll wait and see what the postman brings.

Election Eve in New York's 20th

They'll go to the polls in New York's 20th District tomorrow to select the replacement for Kirstin Gillibrand, who was named to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate.

The district has had a tradition of voting for Republicans, but the Republican, Jim Tedisco, trails the Democrat, Scott Murphy, in recent polls. The margin is narrow, though, and Tedisco has been sprinting through each of the district's 10 counties as the special election has approached in a frantic bid to pick up votes, but the GOP's leaders are skeptical in private, reports Elizabeth Benjamin for the New York Daily News.

"Republicans are privately lowering expectations," writes Benjamin, "and rather gloomily suggesting that this could be the beginning of the end for them in New York. Again."

But the factors that could influence the election have been favoring Tedisco recently. The Albany Times–Union says a lot of money has been contributed to this special election, and the beneficiary seems to be Tedisco, who also has been benefiting from editorial support. The Glens Falls Post–Star and Saratoga Springs Saratogian have endorsed the Republican.

I guess we'll see what happens tomorrow.

An Electoral Test for Obama

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Murphy and Tedisco are in a tight race in New York's 20th.

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On Tuesday, Barack Obama will have been president for 10 weeks, but he may be facing his first electoral test that day.

At least, that is what John Fund writes in the Wall Street Journal.

Undoubtedly, you are aware of the several Senate seats that became vacant after the election last November. Both the president and the vice president gave up their Senate seats after winning the election, and Hillary Clinton gave up her seat after she was appointed secretary of state by Obama.

New York Gov. David Paterson picked Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand of the 20th District to take Clinton's place, and the seat has been vacant for about two months.

On Tuesday, a special election will be held to pick Gillibrand's successor.

Gillibrand received 53% of the vote in the 20th District when she was elected in 2006, even though her opponent was a four–term incumbent Republican who lost by six percentage points in a Democratic year. She was re–elected in November with 62%.

But a few things are worth remembering.

• Although New York hasn't voted for a Republican for president since 1984, much of the party's margin in the state is concentrated downstate, in New York City.


• The upstate district that was represented by Gillibrand has been represented by Democrats for about six of the last 24 years.


• Until Gillibrand was elected in 2006, no Democrat had won the district since 1990.

The parties' nominees in the special election were chosen by each party's county committees. State Assembly minority leader Jim Tedisco was nominated by the Republicans. Scott Murphy, a businessman, was picked by the Democrats. The Libertarian candidate was taken off the ballot because a technicality disqualified more than half of the signatures on his ballot petition.

The stakes in the election are fairly high, especially for Republicans. RNC Chairman Michael Steele has said it is the first of three "incredibly important" elections for his party.

Polls indicate a close race. Irene Jay Liu writes, in the Albany Times–Union, that Murphy, whose lead has been approximately the margin of error, is making inroads on his opponent.

As Maury Thompson observes for the Glens Falls Post–Star, though, the race still is regarded as too close to call by political analysts, and both parties will be watching Tuesday's results closely to see how the stimulus package and the Obama budget are playing with the voters.

"Should Republicans win, [Obama] will try to chalk it up as no big surprise," Fund writes. "If Democrats prevail, you can bet the White House will herald it as evidence of grass–roots support for its agenda. What's strange is how little confidence the White House seems to have in a Democratic candidate tailor–made for a district Barack Obama carried just five months ago."

David Halbfinger writes, in the New York Times, that the Wall Street bonuses will be factors in the vote.

Will the special election provide the answers to the questions? Or will it raise more questions than it answers?

Freedom of Speech

The NAACP wants the New York Post to fire the cartoonist who drew the chimpanzee cartoon — I don't really have to explain which cartoon I'm talking about, do I?

The group also wants the cartoonist's editor to be fired.

Whatever happened to freedom of speech?

Freedom of the press isn't quite dead yet. And, even if the day comes when major cities have no daily newspaper, freedom of speech will still exist in America, won't it? It will just take a different shape.

But there are several newspapers still serving New York City. It's one of the few cities left where people can choose which local newspaper they want to read. And, if you don't like the views that are expressed — or the views you may think are being expressed — by a columnist or a cartoonist, don't buy that paper. In New York, you have other options.

But don't fire a cartoonist because he expresses an opinion. That's what a cartoonist — and a columnist, for that matter — is hired to do. It's your right to disagree with that opinion, just as it is the cartoonist's right to express that opinion.

To preserve freedom of speech, sometimes it is necessary to allow unpopular opinions to be expressed, whether that opinion comes from a cartoonist or a radio talk show host.

New York's Newest Senator

Well, perhaps now we'll see which is more important to feminists, especially those in New York — gender or philosophy.

Gov. David Paterson, who no longer had the option of choosing Caroline Kennedy to become Hillary Clinton's replacement in the U.S. Senate, has picked Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, 42, to fill the vacancy.

Almost immediately after Barack Obama nominated Clinton to be his secretary of state, female political activists made it known that if a woman was not picked to replace her, it would not be acceptable.

Well, they've got what they wanted. Or have they?

As far as gender is concerned, Gillibrand is just what the doctor ordered. But Gillibrand, who represents the upstate district that includes Albany, may not have the philosophical credentials that New York's female activists want. She is a Democrat, which means the balance of power in the Senate will not be altered, but she worked, at one time, for former Republican Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, who is certainly no friend of Clinton.

At one time, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo was mentioned as one of Clinton's possible successors, but feminists objected on the grounds that he was the wrong gender. However, the selection could be seen as more than merely a rejection of Cuomo. Gillibrand's father had ties to George Pataki, the man who unseated Cuomo's father as governor in 1994.

Gillibrand's congressional record is thin — she was just elected to the House in 2006, after launching what appeared to be a longshot bid to unseat four-term Republican incumbent John Sweeney. Sweeney had been considered a rising star in New York politics, but wound up being defeated after revelations that tied him to first the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and then to allegations of spouse abuse.

She is considered a member of the "Blue Dog Coalition," which is considered the philosophical descendant of the famous "Boll Weevils," whose support helped Ronald Reagan enact his tax cut plan.

Gillibrand was handily re-elected in November with 69% of the vote. In the past, her district (which has undergone frequent redistricting as the state has lost population) has been represented by some illustrious names — Republican Fiorello H. LaGuardia and Democrats Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. and Bella Abzug.

She is an opponent of gun control, although liberals may find some comfort in the fact that she has been a supporter of same-sex marriage and stem cell research.

Gillibrand has the backing of the National Rifle Association (NRA), which, as the New York Post points out, has many Democrats hopping mad — even though Sen. Charles Schumer apparently supports her selection, feeling that an upstater was needed.

Perhaps the most damning indictment of the selection came from the Post's Jacob Gershman, who says that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, now facing the prospect of being removed from office, did a better job in picking Obama's replacement.

During last year's general election campaign, after John McCain had chosen Sarah Palin to be his running mate, many, including myself, believed it was a transparent bid to attract the votes of disgruntled Clinton supporters. The results confirmed that the choice of any woman was not sufficient, and that political philosophy was more important. Most of Clinton's supporters appear to have voted for Obama, in spite of their disappointment.

Although I do not live in New York — and, technically, my preference, or the preference of any non-New Yorker, has no relevance when it comes to choosing who represents New York in Congress — my position has been that, in such a case, when a governor must nominate the replacement for a senator who has been selected for a Cabinet post or a Supreme Court position or something else, the nominee should have the same political views as the person he/she is replacing because that's what the voters chose in the most recent election.

New Yorkers chose Clinton to represent them in the Senate. They are entitled to be represented by someone who shares her views on the issues.

The nomination of Gillibrand, it seems to me, will provide a true test. Like Clinton, Gillibrand is a woman, but do her beliefs mirror the woman she is replacing?

In hindsight, perhaps Cuomo, who served in Bill Clinton's Cabinet and is married to one of Robert F. Kennedy's daughters, doesn't look so bad.