2012

Like a red-breasted robin as a harbinger of spring, calls for denounciations and counter denounciatons is a sure sign that we’re in full election-year swing.

Kicking it today is Republican U.S. Senate candidate Wendy Long, calling on Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand to reject DNC consultant Hillary Rosen’s claim that Ann Romney “hasn’t worked a day in her life.”

“The idea of a ‘working mother’ is actually redundant and Rosen’s comments should be offensive to all people who believe in the intrinsic value of family and motherhood. Senator Gillibrand has fashioned herself as a leading voice for women as such she should immediately denounce Rosen’s remarks,” said U.S. Senate candidate Wendy Long.

It’s an interesting angle to take for Long, who has staked her appeal in the three-way primary partially on being the best woman to take on a woman in the fall. Her intra-party opponents are both men: Rep. Bob Turner and Nassau County Comptroller George Maragos.

Long, a lawyer and first-timer in electoral politics, points out that Democrats like Obama advisor David Axelrod moved quickly to distance themselves from Rosen’s remarks as well.

“As women across New York struggle to work and raise families in the face of the President’s regressive economic policies, it’s time to for Democrats to end their rhetorical war that pits mothers against mothers, wives against daughters, we all deserve better,” Long said in a statement.

Gillibrand has made women in politics a central theme of her agenda, creating the group Off the Sidelines as an effort to foster more female candidates. It’s a line that Long turned around on Gillibrand at the state convention in Rochester.

Rosen, meanwhile, hasn’t backed down from the comments.

Update: Now Turner is getting into the mix on this, too, urging that people keep their “Mitts” off Ann Romney. Yagetit?!

His campaign released the following statement, just after noon:

“Mitts off on Ann Romney. President Obama and Senator Gillibrand must immediately speak out on the insulting remarks made by an Obama campaign surrogate against Mrs. Romney. Mrs. Romney has worked for years raising a strong family, and anyone with children or grandchildren can tell you how much work that takes. Families used to be out of bounds in American politics and they should be again. An apology from the President’s campaign is in order.”

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich admitted today that he expects New York’s April 24 presidential primary to be a tough, but predicted he would pick up some of the state’s 95 delegates.

Gingrich likes his chances in the upstate region, he told our sister station News 14 in North Carolina.

“We hope to pick up some seats, particularly in upstate New York. We have delegates in a number of districts. It’s a challenging primary for us. I’ll be at the New York state party dinner this week and I’m looking forward to seeing New Yorkers.”

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum will also appear at the Thursday GOP dinner in Manhattan. Louisianna Gov. Bobby Jindal is delivering the keynote.

Gingrich’s main New York backer is 2010 gubernatorial nominee Carl Paladino, the wealthy western New York businessman who recently called the ex-speaker’s main rival Mitt Romney “a mope.” Paladino, who in that same Capital New York interview had some choice words about Jeffrey Immelt, seems to view the Gingrich-versus-Romney dynamic as the same as a parallel to his 2010 primary opponent, Rick Lazio.

Gingrich in New Hampshire in January said did not disavow Paladino’s support.

New York’s primary delegates are proportionally distributed unless one candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote. A Quinnipiac poll last week puts Romney in that area, giving him 54 percent of the vote.

Gingrich has scaled back most of his campaign in recent weeks and New York’s primary could be the knock-out blow Romney is looking for against his main competition, Santorum.

After City and State amplifed this morning a story first reported in True News that the late entry of Jeffrey Gottlieb in the NY-6 primary has caused considerable consternation from the campaign of Rory Lancman, his campaign issued a statement blasting Gottleib’s candidacy as a “charade.”

The charge is that Gottlieb, a Democratic employee of the Board of Elections in Queens, entered the race to be a spoiler and somehow siphon Jewish votes away from Lancman.

Both Lancman and Gottlieb are Jewish.

In a news released blasted out by his campaign this morning, Lancman says Gottlieb’s latest job was collecting signatures for Assemblywoman Grace Meng, who has received the lion’s share of the establishment endorsements.

“The County organization is panicked by the strength of my candidacy,” Lancman said in a statement, “but cynically fleecing Jewish voters with a sham candidacy by a longtime party hack is particularly appalling. Voters will rightfully see through this charade, and the party insiders responsible for this hatchet job should be ashamed of their attempt to deny the Jewish community a fair and legitimate election.”

Also running in the race is Councilwoman Liz Crowley, a cousin of Queens Democratic Chairman Joe Crowley.

Lancman, who has positioned himself as the pro-labor candidate through a series of union endorsements,

There’s some clever spin jujitsu coming out of Wendy Long’s press shop this afternoon in response to today’s Q-poll that shows all of the Republican U.S. Senate hopefuls polling in the mid-to-low 20s against incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand.

Essentially, Long, who is making her first run for public office, says her “office holding opponents” aren’t resonating well with New York voters.

“Two things from today’s Quinnipiac poll are abundantly clear; Senator Gillibrand is vulnerable and my two current office holding opponents in the Republican primary have not made much of an impact on the voters of New York State.

Conventional GOP candidates have thrice tried and thrice failed to beat Kirsten Gillibrand. Having never run for office, I am not surprised that New Yorkers are only just getting familiar with me.

I believe the best candidate to beat Senator Gillibrand is the one who can credibly, consistently and unapologetically take on her shameful record of higher taxes and gas prices and fewer jobs and opportunities.

I’m confident that as voters get to know me they will be won over to my common sense agenda which is based on adherence to our Constitution that is being trampled on by President Obama and Kirsten Gillibrand.”

Long hit 25 percent, while Rep. Bob Turner led with 27 percent. The poll put Maragos, the Nassau County comptroller, at 23 percent.