In an unsurprising development, Betsy McCaughey appears to be polling her chances for either a Senate seat, or maybe the governor’s mansion, reports the Daily News.
In 1994, after the Clinton White House issued a nine-page rebuttal to her New Republic article “No Exit“—the piece that “shot down the entire blimp” of health care reform, in Tom Wolfe’s words—Betsy McCaughey published a reply, tauntingly titled “She’s BAAACK!”
The controversy thrust Ms. McCaughey into the national spotlight, and eventually vaulted her onto the ticket as George Pataki’s lieutenant governor. The article was later discredited (though the New Republic has declined to return its National Magazine Award, and still runs the article without any editor’s note), but with health care reform back on the table, Ms. McCaughey appears to be eying a come-baaaack.
A primary run against Steve Levy would be particularly interesting, since Mr. Levy is engaging in the same kind of opportunistic party-shopping Ms. McCaughey did in 1998, when she declared her candidacy for the Democratic nomination in an attempt to capitalize on an uninspiring field and beat George Pataki, who had unceremoniously dumped her from his re-election ticket. (But, as the Daily News notes, Ms. McCaughey is still registered as a Democrat and voted in the party’s primary last year. So, who knows?)
“I have very strong support upstate. … I have high name-recognition. I’m in first place in every single Democratic primary poll, every single one,” she told The Observer 12 years ago. “And I like running for office!”
