Aug 20, 2009 7:44 pm US/Eastern
Paging Sen. Gillibrand: New Yorkers Don't Know You
Clinton's Senate Replacement Might As Well Be Working For People Of New Jersey For She's Unknown In Gotham City
And That Could Mean Bad News Come November 2010 Election
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
-
-
Rep. Kristen Gillibrand, D-Greenport, was appointed to fill the remaining two years of the New York U.S. Senate seat vacated by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Luckily for her, re-election is in 2010.
U.S. House of Representatives
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand picked up another endorsement Thursday -- former state Democratic chairman Denny Farrell.
But all the endorsements in the world may not help her unless she raises her profile here in the metropolitan area.
Houston we have a problem, or at least Gillibrand does.
It seems the a good number of New Yorkers have absolutely no idea who she is. Walking the streets Thursday, CBS 2 HD got some pretty interesting answers when we posed the question: Who is Kirsten Gillibrand?
"I don't know, I really don't know. Are you looking for her?" said Lynn Rahnama of Astoria.
"Madoff's wife," another person said.
"Kathleen Nolan?" wondered Pat Pawlak of Astoria, referring to Assemblywoman Cathy Nolan.
"They just hire him to lead the court," said Joe Babacar of the Bronx.
To which CBS 2 HD responded, "Oh, you think that's Judge Sotomayor?"
Babacar: "Yeah, I forgot the name. It's not her? It look like her."
Several others admitted they simply have no idea who Gillibrand is.
Let's review. She replaced Hillary Clinton seven months ago, but when CBS 2 HD showed New Yorkers her picture Thursday few people knew who she was or her position.
When asked if she knows where Gillibrand stands on any of the issues, Marina Kontis of Astoria sounded like many before her.
"Really I haven't heard much about her and she's too quiet for my opinion. I think she needs to make herself a little bit more known," she said.
One man thought he was looking at a picture of Long Island Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy; they're both blond.
"It's surprising. I mean Hillary has been out for a while now. There's been a lot of political activity in New York State, so I would think that she might have shown up on the news somewhere, in newspapers," said Larry Clark of Merrick.
Pundits said with the state of New York politics that could be a big problem for Gillibrand.
"Anybody can be beaten today. People are not happy. They're angry. They don't want to be taken for granted," said political consultant Hank Sheinkopf.
Sheinkopf said a Republican like George Pataki, who is better known, could beat Gillibrand.
The good thing for Sen. Gillibrand is that she doesn't have to face the voters until November 2010. That's 15 months to go around the state meet people talk about the issues and maybe do some advertising.
Gillibrand does have a lot of endorsements. More than a dozen labor unions, 13 Congressmen, and more than 50 Democratic county chairs are supporting her.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
World's Most Useless Facts
Click to enlarge
Snow Totals All The Talk For Looming Winter Storm 4 mins ago 
Many NJ Towns Running Out Of Salt, Money 53 mins ago 
Stumble It!
Reporting
Comments