"But unlike Kennedy or Cuomo, she isn't saddled with all that dynastic baggage. Perfect!" ---Eve Fairbanks on Slate

Enough talk about the world of the Schlossberg wing of the Family Kennedy, it is time to talk about the world of a different Kennedy.

 “That year an ill wind blew over the city and threatened to destroy flowerpots, family fortunes, reputations, true love and several types of virtue” ---The opening of “Roscoe” by William Kennedy

For the Albany Republicans, whose County Executive was stymied by a County Legislature under the control of the Democrats, a Senate seat in the Majority provided far better opportunities for avarice than the County Executive’s position. For the Democrats, it was the reverse. The Senate seat was a useless ornament, as was their Senator, while having the County Legislature without the Executive was like owning Boardwalk without Park Place. As their Senator, who’d long ago retired from his duties, was now set to retire from his title as well, a swap was arranged, a sure loser nominated, and the seats of power were re-arranged in a win/win manner.

Another victory for Bi-Partisanship; or perhaps Buy-Partisanship. Must remember to ask Doug Rutnik.

In January of the next year, a new Senate Democratic Leader took office, who knew of the time honored arrangements, but thought of them not as Gospel, but rather, as a rebuttable presumption.

He needed a wise man. Since, he was not the Senate Republican Leader, Doug Rutnik would not be giving him advice, so he turned to Francis.

Francis informed him that certain jobs on the New Leader’s payroll were the sinecures reserved for the Albany Organization. The New Leader was not pleased.

“But,” he screamed, “those bastards fucked me. They stole one of my seats. What would happen if I responded in kind? I mean,” said the New Leader, “Do I need them?’

“No,” said Francis, “you don’t need them, but you need the Mayor.”

“Why?” said the New Leader.

“Because one morning you’re going to get a call telling you that Senator Babbush woke up on someone’s lawn. Your concern is whether the next sentence is going to be ‘don’t worry about it, it’s been taken care of.’”

Regular readers of this column may be aware that it has sporadically been brightened by the participation of my brilliant alter ego, a former Albany Wise Man (not Francis) who goes by the name Roscoe Conway--a nom de blogue via Albany’s James Joyce, William Kennedy, but not, as some suspect, a nom de blogue for Gatemouth. Roscoe’s name is taken from the title character of a Kennedy novel which fictionalizes the story of Albany’s legendary Democratic Machine led by Boss Dan O’Connell, his brothers Edward, Patrick and Solly, and his nephew John, and their respectable frontmen, the Corning Family.

The O'Connells' first prize Corning, was Lt. Governor (1927-28) Edwin Corning, who was cheated in 1928 from what he and the O'Connells thought was his rightful gubernatorial nomination, by Al Smith’s insistence on FDR, because Smith believed that the name Roosevelt would give the ticket more dynastic star power than the name Corning (even though Smith had earlier beaten TR's son, TR Jr.). Edwin withdrew from the race citing "personal reasons." The O'Connell's second prize Corning was Edwin’s son, Albany Mayor (1941-44, 1945-83!!!), Erastus Corning. Also within the O'Connells' stable was Edwin's brother, Congressman (1923-37) Parker Corning. In turn, both Edwin and Parker were the grandsons of industrialist, Albany Mayor [1834-37] and Congressman [1857-59, 1861-63] Erastus Corning I. 

As some may recall, one day, without solicitation or forewarning, Roscoe (the blogger) just began attaching brilliantly written commentary to my posts, and virtually only my posts, in much the manner that legendary NYC DJ Vin Scelsa, used to receive in the mail anonymously (or so he claimed) the brilliantly pun-filled letters he read on the air from “T-Shirt and Razoo Kelly”. Roscoe channels the greats: Nelson Algren, David Mamet, Marty Connor, Jean Shepherd, Groucho and (unaccountably) Kurt Vonnegut.  

Roscoe’s storehouse of New York political lore far exceeds my own. Once during a debate about the failure of the Democrats to take the State Senate in the wake of the Spitzer tsunami, Roscoe took issue with my use of the words, “In the biggest Democratic NYS landslide in a lifetime.” Roscoe rebutted with Lyndon’s Johnson in 1964 and Mario Cuomo‘s victory in 1986.

I responded thus: "Roscoe: the words were carefully chosen. In Cuomo's 86 victory, his coat tails did not even extend to the Democratic candidates for Comptroller (Herman Badillo) and US Senate (Mark Green) (Now that's a ticket for the ages!). And 64 was a Presidential year, not quite an "NYS landslide".

To which Roscoe responded. “The true ‘Ticket for the Ages‘ was Goldberg/Paterson, and if you want to know why, you'll have to ask Dan O'Connell.”

The problems for the layperson reading Roscoe/Gatemouth conversations is that they’re like a civilian watching a bunch of comics hanging around the Carnegie Deli recalling old jokes by shouting out the punchlines without bothering with the set-ups.

So for the benighted, in 1970, the Democratic State Committee, in its infinite wisdom, chose 3.5 Jews and one African-American for designation for the five statewide positions up that year: sons of the covenant Artie Goldberg, Artie Levitt and Adam Walinsky for Governor, Comptroller and AG, half circumscribed Ted “Ask Not” Sorenson (of the Schlossberg Kennedys) for US Senate, and the Governor’s daddy, Harlem State Senator Basil Paterson (D-Hempstead) for Lieutenant Governor (Basil was not as much a groundbreaker as the clips would have one believe; Manhattan Borough President Ed Dudley was designated for the far more important position of AG in 1962!).

The ticket’s ethnic composition was altered, if not corrected, when Democratic primary voters replaced Sorenson with the fully Jewish Dick Ottinger (whose Uncle Albert had been the Republican candiate against FDR), otherwise leaving the designated ticket unscathed and unbalanced.

That fall, Democratic State Chair John Burns (who'd run unsuccessfully for Lieutenant Governor in 1962) visited Albany County Chair Dan O’Connell, pleading for his help. “I can’t do anything for this ticket”, said O’Connell scornfully, “there’s not one Catholic on it”.

“That’s not true”, Burns responded, “Basil is a Catholic”. Burns went on to paint the Senator from Harlem, as he was then, as a virtual Knight of Malta.

“Then, as far as I’m concerned”, snapped O’Connell, “he’s the only white man on the ticket”.

Nonetheless, The Albany Machine backed Nelson Rockefeller, a man fully sympathetic to the concept of dynasties, who paid them back with Empire State Plaza (with the insurance contracts associated with the project going to the family firm of the Corning dynasty, rather than the likely Democratic choice, the family firm of the Steingut dynasty), featuring, “Erastus Corning Tower,” the state’s tallest building outside NYC. Basil went on to become Ed Koch’s Deputy Mayor and Mario Cuomo’s Secretary of State before settling into a lucrative law partnership with Joseph Suozzi, a former Glen Cove Mayor and Nassau County Democratic powerhouse, who'd lost a close race in 1958 for County Executive, and whose son, Tom, followed his father in seeking the same two offices, although in Tom's case, both successfully. 

Over three and a half decades after the Burns/O'Connell incident, Basil’s son, against his father‘s wishes, accepted Eliot Spitzer‘s offer of the nomination for Lt. Governor, in the same manner in which he had earlier rejected his father’s advice and made an abortive run for Manhattan Borough President and an unsuccessful run for Public Advocate (losing to the aforementioned Mark Green, later to lose an AG race to Andrew Cuomo, who himself had run an abortive race for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination against one of Basil's Senate successors, H. Carl McCall).

For the first time since he’d installed his son in his old Senate Seat, Basil’d given David the wrong advice. Was this because Basil didn’t want to cross his pal, Joe Suozzi (whose son was running against Spitzer) or his pal, former Buffalo Assemblyman Artie Eve (whose daughter, Leecia, Basil had already endorsed for LG)? Or was it some HW/W-type father-son jealousy thing concerning the job Basil could never obtain for himself? (The reverse of Erastus, who sought and lost Edwin's old job in 1946, and unlike Andrew, who never sought the LG's job Mario had won in 1978 after losing four years earlier).  

But, this week, Dan O’Connell would have smiled.

First, some excerpts concerning a friend of Mayor Corning from a dossier compiled by a recent political campaign:

Democratic “Icon” Confidante of Legendary Albany Mayor. According to the Times Union, Democratic icon Dorothea “Polly” Noonan was the founder of the Albany County Democratic Women’s Club and confidante of legendary Albany mayor Erastus Corning 2nd. [The Times Union, 11/16/05]

Noonan’s Relationship with Mayor Complex And Never Fully Understood. According to William Kennedy, who authored the book “O Albany,” Polly Noonan’s closeness to former Albany mayor Erastus Corning was “a mythical story, never fully understood from the inside…Polly was a singular figure, and her connection to Erastus was both public and very private. He was extremely close to her children and spent a great deal of time with that family.” [Times Union, 11/15/03]

Noonan and Corning Were Nearly Inseparable. Polly Noonan was Mayor Erastus Corning nearly inseparable companion from the time both were in their 20’s, according to the New York Times. Noonan remained married and lived with her husband, but Corning spent more evenings at their house than his own. At his death, he bequeathed his insurance business not to his son and daughter but to the children of the Noonan’s. [New York Times, 2/8/98]

Chemistry Between The Two Developed Immediately. According to the Times Union, there was an immediate chemistry between Noonan and Corning. Although both were married, gossip started almost immediately linking the two. [The Times Union, 11/4/97]

Noonan: A Good Friend of The Mayor. When Judge Martin Schenk was campaigning for ward leader and knocked on Noonan’s door, he was introduced to Noonan as a friend of the mayor’s. “Out of the clear blue, Polly said, ‘I’m a good friend of Mayor Corning, too. A very good friend,’” Schenck said. [The Times Union, 11/4/97]

Noonan Denied Affair. Polly Noonan said she could have worked in City Hall but refused, saying she didn’t want to add fuel to the rumor that she and Mayor Corning were lovers. “It wasn’t true,” Noonan said. “I wasn’t interested in him in that way. I never thought you could do that and still be businesslike. Besides, if I had done that, I’d be a hell of a lot richer than I am now. [The Times Union, 12/8/96]

The eminent Justice Cardozo (himself the son of a judge, and possessed of his own father/son issues) once wrote that the presumption of legitimacy for the issue of couples in an intact marriage was “one of the strongest and most persuasive known to the law,” but yet still, “subject to the sway of reason.” In certain circumstances, Cardozo noted, “the presumption of legitimacy will not bear so great a strain.”

One child “of the Noonans” (cough “bullshit” cough) was Polly Noonan Rutnik, who for years occupied one of the Albany Machine’s sinecures on the Senate Minority payroll. Her ex-husband, and father of her children (or so it would seem, in the case of this particular Noonan), was Doug Rutnik, an Albany Lawyer/Lobbyist who, performed the Erastus function to Pataki/D’Amato (Senator Alphonse, not his brother, Assemblyman Gaston, I mean Armand) advisor Zenia Mucha, while, in the bi-partisan tradition of the O’Connell/Corning partnership with Rockefeller, serving as informal advisor/formal bundler to Mucha’s employers, as well as to Senate Majority Leader (as he was then) Joe Bruno, later Rutnik’s business partner.

Yesterday, Rutnik’s business partner was indicted, but it was hardly the day's biggest news for the family, as the Rutnik’s child, Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand, a former D’Amato intern elected as a Democrat to Congress with the not very concealed help of Republican George Pataki (and his State Police), became our new United States Senator. In fact, it was on Ms. Gillibrand's behalf and behest that the above-referenced dossier was compiled. 

So, I ask, what would Dan O'Connell think about Basil Paterson's son appointing to such a high position the illegitimate granddaughter of his (almost) respectable front-man, Erastus Corning?

And what does Basil think? My guess is that he would have preferred Tom Suozzi.

Not being much of a fan of Kennedy, Cuomo or Carolyn Maloney, my initial response to the appointment was “better the devil we don’t know.”

Unfortunately, I’m beginning to know.

The point is not really the new Senator's ancestral bloodlines, as much as her poltical DNA. She was the political grandaughter of Erastus, even if the relationship with Polly was entirely platonic. More importantly, she is the product of a buy-partisan culture in which the two party system is merely a fee splitting arrangement, and there is precious little evidence that she has not remained true to her roots. 

Basil must be envious.  

Still, when the word bastard comes up in connection with a United States Senator from New York, Ms. Gillibrand’s will not be the first name that comes to mind. In a reversal of history, at the ceremony, Chuck Schumer got pushed out of the picture by his old rival, Al D’Amato (who, like Chuck and Andrew Cuomo, had better luck than the Governor with Mark Green), but appears to have decisively assumed the former Senator’s function as the new Senator’s mentor, claiming the lion’s share of the credit for the appointment, as he undoubtedly would have done if the appointee had instead been Caroline Kennedy, Tom Suozzi or Steve Israel.

Why have one candidate when you can have several?

A question both Mayor Bloomberg and Anthony Weiner should ponder carefully.