Not Fords Time
To the Editor: I read Hilda Classon"s Jan. 28 letter questioning what qualifies Harold Ford to be our junior senator, commenting on your Jan. 21 editorial, â??Run, Harold, Run. I agree with Ms. Classon, and I believe I can add something to her discussion. I was born in New York City, live on the Upper West Side, raised my family here. I know and like both Harold Ford and Kirsten Gillibrand, having met them and gotten to know them through my active involvement in Democratic politics for many years. However, Harold is clearly not a â??New Yorker of long vintage, and we already have in place a New Yorker who has not only professionally worked here for a long time (as Harold has recently), but who has also very actively paid her dues participating in city and state politics, helping other candidates (e.g., Clintons, Cuomo). I watched her do all the gritty work necessary for campaign victories in the 1990s here in New York City. Kirsten did not just arrive in New York City to run for senate; she first ran for an upstate Republican congressional seat, which no one said she could win, and she won, adding an important representative at that time. The New York Times tried to â??replace Kirsten with a handpicked candidate of the establishment (Caroline Kennedy), who might be a fine person, but had zero credentials for being senator. Apparently, the â??establishment is still at it, trying to get its candidate inserted, top-down. Kirsten is a female senator, of which we have far too few, given a 50 percent female population overall. If you check recent votes in which she disagrees with Sen. Charles Schumer, she is the more liberal of the two. I think Harold would make a fine senator somewhere, sometime's if and when he earns it by attending to the people of a place for some period of time at a lower level of office. But to say he should replace Kirsten's a fine person, smart and personable, who has earned it's is crazy, and the kind of â??death wish Democrats often seem to have. Morton H. Fry West End Avenue Letters have been edited for clarity, style and brevity.