It's quite a feat that David Paterson just pulled off, making a politically shrewd Senate appointment while still managing to shoot himself in the foot in the process.
The extent of Paterson's (mostly) self-inflicted damage has mainly become apparent in the aftermath of his formal decision to send Kirsten Gillibrand – and not Caroline Kennedy or Andrew Cuomo – to the Senate, with media coverage focusing as much on the governor's perceived ineptitude as the new senator herself.
It's possible to feel some sympathy for the governor in all of this. It's not like he asked for Kennedy to decide it was time to join her uncle Ted in the Senate – or for the ensuing arm-twisting campaign on her behalf by the most powerful Democrats in Washington.
And once Kennedy pulled off a rather stunning feat of her own by botching the seemingly mundane act of going on a "listening tour," Paterson was in an even tougher spot: Keep the party heavyweights happy by picking a woman who was clearly in over her head as a politician and who might conceivably lose the seat in 2010, or expose himself to the wrath of those same heavyweights by snubbing the Kennedy family and going with a less polarizing and more electable alternative.
Exactly what transpired to prompt Kennedy's last-minute withdrawal from consideration, we may never know. Paterson's sin, and the source of much of the post-announcement fallout, came in not leaving well enough alone. With Kennedy out, whatever the reason, he had an opening to tap Gillibrand, a candidate with considerable political upside, without appearing to spurn Kennedy and the Democratic establishment. But in the chaos that surrounded Kennedy's mysterious withdrawal, Paterson's forces gave in to the temptation to play the games of leaks, spreading the word that – supposedly – Kennedy had some sort of baggage that had ruined her chances.
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