Thread: Of Country Bumpkins and City Slickers:NY's Gillibrand

Of Country Bumpkins and City Slickers

By Stephen Steinlight, February 27, 2009

In the age-old battle between the City Slicker and the Country Bumpkin, a literary opposition dating back to Greek and Roman sources that persists to this day in high and popular culture, the outcome never varies: the sophisticated overconfident Slicker loses to the ostensibly witless though wily-wise Country Bumpkin. The narrative expresses the triumph of the pastoral ideal, the tradition out of which the story line emerges, which asserts truth is most readily found and a virtuous, civilized life best lived farthest from cities and closest to nature. It would appear that Kirsten E. Gillibrand, former Representative from New York’s bucolic 20th Congressional District recently appointed to fill the two remaining years of Sen. Hillary Clinton’s term, has chosen to subvert the tradition, alter the conclusion, and let the Slickers win. During her ascension to statewide office she’s also morphed from the Bumpkin who could have prevailed to the Farmer’s Daughter who meets the Traveling Salesman in another old story line. In this version of the tale the traveling salesmen are the members of the New York State Democratic Congressional leadership. What they are doing to her – metaphorically – is what traveling salesmen are wont to do to farmers’ daughters.

The last thing this group of politicians want is a viable candidate for the Senate from the second most populous state in America who would run – and quite possibly win – on a platform opposing amnesty for illegal aliens, committed to ending illegal immigration, upholding the rule of law, and actually fighting for the American worker rather than paying mere lip service to the idea, something the Democratic Party has been getting away with for decades. They needed to co-opt her as quickly as possible, and it is enormously disappointing, as well as a sad reflection on Sen. Gillibrand’s lack of inward fortitude and political insight, that they were able to succeed so easily. To placate the State’s Democratic leadership, she is, in effect, being forced to snatch defeat from the jaws of potential victory. For someone who once seemed reasonably savvy and is hardly lacking in intelligence, she appears unaware that she’s being set up to take the fall in what looks like a Machiavellian political maneuver.

Immediately following her selection by Gov. Paterson, the State’s leading Democrats determined that the two-term Congresswoman, ostensibly an inner-motivated, heterodox Blue Dog Democrat representing a historically Republican district (with a very noticeable ability to raise large sums for her campaign) should be ceremoniously elevated while being forced to toe the Party line. Treated with breathtaking condescension – which, one would like to think, might infuriate her inwardly – she’s undergoing a political “re-educationâ€

Gilibrand is a traitor.