The most pathetic politician in America
By 
Kathy Hochul rode her bluff to the river, and then triumphantly flipped over her cards to reveal that she had a queen high:
Breaking a weekslong impasse, the New York State Senate rejected Gov. Kathy Hochul’s nominee to lead the state’s highest court, holding an unexpected floor vote on Wednesday that capped a dramatic battle that had roiled Democrats in the State Capitol.
The vote — the first time that the State Senate has rejected a governor’s pick for chief judge — amounted to an extraordinary repudiation of Ms. Hochul by members of her own party at the start of her first full term as governor.
It came almost a month after the Senate Judiciary Committee blocked the nominee, Hector D. LaSalle, a move that prompted questions and eventually a lawsuit about whether the rejection was constitutional and whether Justice LaSalle was entitled to a full vote in the Senate.
The Senate moved the judge’s nomination to the chamber floor in a surprise decision on Wednesday and then voted against him 39 to 20, a defeat propelled by Democrats who opposed him because they believed he was too conservative and hostile to unions, abortion rights and other liberal values.
[…]
On Wednesday, all Republicans present voted in favor of Justice LaSalle, while all but one Democrat, State Senator Monica Martinez of Long Island, voted against him.
Notably absent in Albany on Wednesday were two Senate Democrats who had supported Justice LaSalle, Senators Luis Sepúlveda and Kevin Thomas, both of whom voted for him in the Judiciary Committee last month.
I love the detail that a majority of LaSalle’s handful of Dem supporters couldn’t even be bothered to show up to vote for Dead Nominee Walking. Shocking to learn that encouraging Republicans to file a ridiculous lawsuit asserting that the Senate had some kind of constitutional obligation to have a floor vote on judicial nominees did not compel the Senate majority to support her shitty nominee.
This is one of the most astounding acts of political incompetence in recent American political history. She was told by key stakeholders in advance not to nominate LaSalle, the Dem leadership in the Senate made is clear that they didn’t want him, she had no actual leverage over them, and she went out of her way to alienate them. I guess she was being advised by the centrist equivalent of the people who think that Obama could have made Joe Lieberman vote for single payer by [posts picture of Lyndon Johnson standing very close to a senator who did not in fact vote for the Civil Rights Act.]
Anyway, if you were curious what it would look like to have a governor who was Andrew Cuomo on substance but without any command of the basic mechanics of politics, you have your answer.